When Other Christians Sin Against Us

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Matthew 18:15-20
John was a member of my first parish. Whenever there was a congregational meeting, no matter what the issue being voted on, John voted, “No!” If someone had proposed a resolution that read, “Resolved: Grass is green,” he would have voted, “No.” Finally, one day, several years before I was the pastor there, some members of the congregation, purely out of curiosity, asked, “John, why do you always vote against everything?” He looked at them as though they were from another planet. “Because if I didn’t,” he said, convinced of the flawlessness of his logic, “the vote would be unanimous.”

Psychologist and pastor Alan Loy McGinnis says that in all healthy relationships, we must be willing to allow one another our little insanities. Because the people of that church were so spiritually and emotionally healthy, they could accept John’s contrariness even as they shook their heads over it. We all need to be charitable toward one another and to recognize that even when we get exasperated with each other, we’re still called to love and live in fellowship together.

But what happens when a fellow church member moves beyond simple contrariness and sins against us in some way?

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus says that when one member of the Church sins against another, we have the means of resolving things because He--the crucified, once-dead, now-risen, and living Lord of the universe--is with us. Jesus promises to be among us.

For some, the very notion that Christians might sin against each other doesn’t compute. Many believe that if Christians ever hurt each other, it’s proof that they’re not Christians.

But the Church is a support group for recovering sinners, a haven for the imperfect. Lutheran theology, taking its cue from the Bible, realistically looks at baptized believers and says that we are “saints and sinners simultaneously,” just as was true of the disciple Peter who, in one breath, Jesus called the Rock on whose confession of faith he would build the Church, and in the next Jesus described as, “Satan,” someone who was standing in Christ’s way.

My friend Virgil Meyer likes to remind people, “If there weren’t any sinners in the church, it would be empty.” We Christians aren’t called to live in the Kingdom of Nice, but in the Kingdom of God with other real-life, feeling, thinking human beings. And this side of heaven, though we’re forgiven and recovering sinners, we are still nonetheless, sinners capable of doing wrong and of wronging others. It happens.

So, why bother being part of the Church if other members will maybe sin against us? Why not live in isolation and have a “Jesus and me” sort of faith?

Because the Bible repeatedly affirms that to be Christians, we need the imperfect fellowship of the Church. Paul, for example, says that the Church is the body of Christ in the world and just as an eye, or a leg, or a brain can’t function without the whole body, our faith will die if we don’t remain in vital fellowship with the church.

Part of growing up as followers of Jesus Christ is recognizing that we won’t always agree on everything. We’ll have disputes. And ninety-nine percent of the time, those disputes we have with other Christians are insignificant. But sometimes, they’re the result of someone having sinned against us or our belief that they've sinned against us.

Jesus says that the way for Christians to handle these latter situations isn’t to simply ignore them.

Or to sue the other person’s socks off.

Or to gossip about or ignore the other person.

As followers of Jesus, we can dare to take a more difficult approach. Jesus outlines it in the Gospel lesson this morning.

First, Jesus says, we go to the person we feel has sinned against us. The congregation I formerly served in northwestern Ohio was in a rural setting in which we had to burn all our trash. Once, during a drought season, the burn barrel fairly full, the fire I started fell out of the barrel and onto the ground. Ann and I had to work quickly to put it out. When we finally did, three-quarters of the softball infield, next to which the burn barrel stood, was blackened from the fire. The next day, a bunch of kids were playing ball there and asked me what had happened. I told them about my fire. That evening, I got a call from a church member asking why I’d told everybody that he had started the fire. “I didn’t,” I told him. “I told everybody I started the fire and what a dolt I'd been to have done so.”

The point: That man didn’t bother gossiping to anybody else, complaining about how I’d pinned a bad reputation on him. He came directly to me and in short order, our conflict over my perceived sin against him was resolved.

Jesus says that when another Christian sins against us, we’re to go to them privately. We may learn that they didn’t really sin against us and our fellowship will be restored. Or, if they did sin against us, they may apologize and fellowship will be restored.

But, Jesus says, if the other person turns out to be unwilling to hear you out, you’re to enlist two or three other Christians to listen to both of you and guide you toward restoration. Lutheran pastor Mike Foss once told the true story of a time when he and a man in his congregation and the man's three sons formed an intervention group to confront a wife and mother for her gambling addiction, something that was having a devastating effect on the family.

At the beginning of this session, for twenty minutes, the husband laid out all the reasons for his concern for his wife and what her addiction was doing to all of them. Then, weeping, he told her how much he loved her.

Writes Foss: “She looked at her three boys, took a long look at her husband, and then looked at me. What came out of her mouth next was probably the fiercest barrage of venom I’d ever heard from anyone...ever. With her three sons sitting close by, she called her husband names that made my skin crawl...”

That’s the sort of thing that can happen when we confront other believers for their sins against us. But if our motives are to help the other person and not get some sort of revenge, we can do this knowing that Christ is with us.

Jesus goes on to tell us that if the person refuses to listen or repent after we’ve enlisted two other members of the church, we’re to get the whole church involved. Probably in our case, the involvement of the church would happen through our Church Council.

A colleague of mine in northwest Ohio once told us about an incident that happened in the congregation he served. One member learned that another member of the congregation, a guy he didn’t like, had cancer. So, after worship one day, this fellow walked up to the cancer victim. “Joe,” he said, “I understand you have cancer.” “Yes,” Joe replied. “Well,” the first man said, “I guess you get what you deserve.” When my colleague got wind of this remark, he followed the process Jesus outlines in today’s lesson. The man refused to repent and ultimately, the Church Council decided that he was no longer a member of the congregation and could not receive Holy Communion.

The whole point in the process Jesus gives is not for us to spiritually look down on others, but to facilitate the restoration of relationships. It’s designed to act as a megaphone so that those who sin against us can hear and heed the Holy Spirit again and so, repent and be at peace with God and their Christian family.

My colleague’s church excommunicated its member not to punish him, but in hopes that he would see the gravity of his guilt and be restored to the body of Christ.

Had they not taken the action they took his unrepented sin against a fellow church member would have been another sort of cancer, one on the body of Christ that blocked God’s forgiveness not just from one unrepentant person, but from the whole congregation.

The process that Jesus outlines requires courage and truthfulness and humility and a commitment to living in the fellowship of a church to which Christ calls all believers. It requires us to think less about me, more about we.

For all the risks, the results of pursuing this process can be wonderful! Years ago, I became aware of a fellow Christian saying some things about me to others that were completely untrue, things which I felt at the time, if left unchallenged, would severely damage my reputation and hamper my ability to do ministry.

I stewed about what to do for a while. Then, praying desperately, hands shaking, I picked up the telephone and confronted the guy.

He immediately confessed that he had repeatedly said the things I’d heard attributed to him, apologized, and promised to tell everyone to whom he had previously spoken that his statements were untrue.

“I’m sorry, Pastor,” he told me, “I know that everything I said was wrong, but sometimes I’m a gossip.”

That man died a few months later and I presided over his funeral. I felt a special twinge of sadness because not long before, our confrontation and the restoration that resulted had given us a good friendship. We genuinely appreciated and loved one another. And the funny thing is, as I was preparing the sermon for today, Ann and I tried to remember what the man had been saying about me and though we racked our brains to remember, we both have completely forgotten. We can’t always forget, of course. But, with Christ’s help, we can forgive.

Are there are any Christians—here or in other congregations--you feel have sinned against you? Then, resolve today to strengthen your relationship with God and the life of Saint Matthew by taking the steps Jesus outlines today. You will be glad you did.

Be reconciled to those who have wronged you. Forgiveness among us is a salve that heals our souls and strengthens Christ’s Church.