Where Two or Three Are Gathered

Gospel Reflection Matthew 18:15-20

Next week we get that lovely passage about forgiving 70 times 7, but not yet. It’s another week of difficult texts by the lectionary planners. There are some reasons I say this. For me, raised on the edge of the Evangelical world, this is one of those texts that is a justifier of bad behavior. I’d heard stories of how it was used to kick struggling people out of community. And with this text, and with each of these texts, I find myself uncomfortable. This discomfort isn’t a bad thing, because I continue to find that being uncomfortable is just the right place to start reading these words of our faith, attributed to Jesus. Christianity isn’t about subjecting others to our authority, nor is it a world view that keeps the poor in their place or women only obeying their husbands. Christianity is a faith tradition founded in the logic of the Magnificat, where those who have much are brought down and the poor are no longer hungry. 

With that caveat, let’s begin. 

At the very end of Morning Prayer, we read a prayer from St. John Chrysostom, St. John, the golden mouth. He was a known preacher and teacher, especially passionate about liturgy — we have his sermons where he called out those in his congregation about their lack of care for the poor more than once and he wrote a liturgy still used today. We use one of his prayers right before the final blessing during Morning Prayer. 

Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplication to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them: Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen.

Two or three of us, gathered in the name of Jesus. Each time that happens Jesus is with us, every time. Each time we gather for worship, for breakfast, for book club, for parties, for Fellowship and Formation, for nursery time, for volunteering, for clean up days, for donuts, for coffee, for walks, for everything we do in the name of Jesus, Jesus is there. All of this beautiful work, done in the name of Jesus. 

When I read Morning Prayer, I say this prayer only when I wasn’t alone. It didn’t make sense to read this when it was just me, myself, and I. But I made an amendment. When my dog was sitting with me on the couch, I could say it because when my dog is with me, I’m not alone. I’m there with my dog, and thus there are two. 

Where two or three are gathered… It reminds us that we are more together than we are alone. It’s easier to clean up the yard when it’s not just you working alone. It’s easier to move when you’re working together. And it’s easier to be Christian when we’re doing it in community, especially the difficult parts like long-term faithfulness, discernment, confrontation, and forgiving. Christianity thrives on community, in relationships, when the webs of connection between us continue to grow, as we do this work together in the name of Jesus. 

This week, Gloria Steinem died, and last week Dolly Parton died, but I’m not going to talk about those two beautiful humans, at least this week. But another luminary that passed this week, thinker and poet Wendell Berry. He was an agrarian farmer from Kentucky who began farming and then writing and just didn’t stop. His books reflect a yearning for an earlier time, when humans had thicker relationships with the earth than we have now. He yearned for time before when generations of farmers in the same family stewarded the same land, and loved it like you loved your children. He also argued about economy. 

What’s an agrarian farmer doing arguing about economy? The problem with our economy, he argued, is not that it’s too big or that it takes over the world. The problem is that it’s too little, that what we’re searching for is actually God and God’s love and instead we humans make the place of economy too little. We’re convinced there isn’t enough to go around; it’s a given that some will be rich and others poor. 

This same truth runs parallel in our lives as well. Sometimes we think that what we do in church is the best part of our lives. But the truth is much larger, much bigger.  All of this, all of this world, all of our work, all of our toil, all of our joy, all of our delight, all of sorrow, all of this gift is part of God’s kindom,  

And I know that sometimes we divide up our lives. This part is the work part. This part is the play part. This part has meaning and this doesn’t. It’s harder to find meaning in cleaning toilets than preparing the altar for communion, for example. This part is the church part, where I do what I do in the name of Jesus.  

But ultimately that logic just doesn’t work. It only works when we forget whose world it is, and the logic of God that sings in our universe.  

I had this seminary professor who once said something about this that I will never forget. “The divide,” he said rather pompously, because he was pompous, “is not between sacred and secular. It’s between the sacred and the profane.” 

And was he ever right. Is he ever right! And is there are a more Episcopalian way to see our world? Because all of our work that we do, all of our work, all of our play, all of our care, all of our love is sacred. All of it is done in the name of Jesus.

This is why what we do matters so much. This is why we must take care, why we must continue to move towards God, why we must spend time with two or three together because then we remember again that deep call that is on all of our lives. This is why we must figure out how to let go of our hurts with one another because reconciliation is one of the things that makes the world go round. This is why we must call forth our hurts when we can’t figure out how to deal with them, because we are broken people who are slouching towards Bethlehem. This is why there are processes to keep things fair (especially in church), and why we all try with all our hearts to be good people, and when we fail, we apologize. 

Because Jesus was not a person divided. It wasn't like he acted like God some days and a human another day. The same guy who liked to celebrate (party) with his friends and meet new people also healed. He was the same one who called Peter by the new name the Rock and then called him the diabolical one. Jesus was one human, fully human, fully God.  

There’s more in this text than meets the eye. This text tells a story about how the early Christians lived disagreement, because disagreement is part, always and already, of the Christian life. But what do we know? 

God is not one who takes pleasure in the death of the wicked. 

God is not one who is too little for our mistakes, for our frictions, for our sins, for the profanities of our time like climate change, immigration practices, greed, you can name them too. No. 

God’s economy is bigger. 

God’s way is two or three gathering, bringing about reconciliation when harm has occurred.

In God’s story, when all of that fails, we treat them like a tax collector or a Gentile. 

But do you remember the stories of Jesus and the tax collectors, sinners, and Gentiles? They became his disciples. 

• Levi, the tax collector, followed Jesus straight from his tax booth. 

• The self proclaimed sinner, the Woman at the Well called all of her friends because she wanted them to come and meet the man who told her everything she did. 

• Gentile Cornelius the Centurion has the story of his conversion told three times in the book of Acts. 

And as Christians, it is only right to show special consideration and even more mercy for those who haven’t found their way yet. 

Our salvation is near. It’s coming and we’re not alone We’re enacting together.