Not Listening
Matthew 18: 15-20

September 8, 2002

The ability to listen is an important spiritual, as well as vocational, gift. Few people tell us how to listen, especially when the person one has to listen to is difficult. Even fewer talk about the people who do not listen - perhaps since most of us do not listen well at times.

A seminary professor (William Willimon) was conducting a summer course for rural pastors, and in this particular session was talking about “effective liturgical leadership.” Noting how the minister sets the tone for manner in which the liturgy is to conducted, he saw a hand pop up attached to a beefy pastor of a church in the North Carolina mountains. “Doc, I had this situation last week and I don’t know if I handled it right.

“The time came for the pastoral prayer and I asked if there were any special prayer requests. Suzanne White stood up in the middle of the congregation, 'I’ve got a special prayer request all right. I want to pray that Mary Jones will stop committing adultery with my husband.’

“Mary Jones then jumped up and yelled, 'You, you....’ (You all can imagine what kind of 'you’ Mary called Suzanne!). In a flash the two of them are dragging each other around the sanctuary, pulling each others hair, biting and slapping. Then the two husbands are going at it, and one of them is banging the other guy’s head into the pew.”

By this time, the professor’s jaw was dropping to his knees, but what really got him was the reaction of the rest of the class. They sat there unperturbed, nodding as if to say, “Oh yeah, same thing happened in my church a while back.” One student was even taking notes.

The big pastor continued. “So I ran down from the pulpit and pulled them all apart. Then I said, “Look, you are just like those Corinthians who were fighting all the time. You just sit down there quiet like or I’m going to bust some heads (they knew I could bust heads 'cause I had been in the Marines and done some pro wrasslin’). Now I want you to listen and we’re going to do this right this time. Do you have any special prayer requests for one another?

The pastor turned to the professor, “Do you think, Doc, that was 'effective liturgical leadership’?”

The professor muttered something like, “Sounds good to me,” dismissed the class, and went back exhausted to his office to pray that somehow he might be able to teach such students as these.

A lot of people have puzzled over the three step method for reconciliation in the church offered by Jesus, which doesn’t fit with the rest of his teaching in Matthew 18. Who worries about anything fitting after such an incident of North Carolinian Christianity? Is there any doubt that Mary Jones, Suzanne White, and their faithful and unfaithful husbands are just the people the church was urged to reconcile?

The world this week is in a judgment mood and mode. We would love to grab any number of people and bust some heads, or in our more kinder, gentler moments, gather together a few witnesses and tell the sinners where to go if they do not listen to our way of understanding things. What is better about this reconciliation is that we can sanctify our desires through worship services and songs and poetry.

The most difficult and perilous task for a human being is to judge another human being. It is perilous because judgment is an essential characteristic of God, so whenever you judge you are taking on the role of God. It is difficult because you and I are human and do not take on that role very well.

Yet, we have no real choice but to make judgments, or else we contribute all the more to the pain and suffering of this world.

If you are incapable of judging, that can only really happen if you do not know the difference between good and evil. Then you are really in trouble, for at first glance evil is usually more rewarding, easier, and more fun. You and I must make judgments about what is good and what is evil, and where the boundary line runs between them. Then you and I must try to teach the proper boundary lines to our children and students.

Naturally, the church is the place one sees the dynamics of judgment in sharpest relief. Church people judge too much and judge too little.

I don’t need to elaborate much on judgmental church men and women, for we are legion. We are prone to hold others to a much higher standard of ethics than we are prepared to follow. We can exclude or not include people whose life style does not complement ours well enough. We have driven out ministers, and choir members, deacons and elders and plain old pew sitters for reasons we would never think of applying to ourselves.

Nevertheless, most church people are not judgmental most of the time. Indeed, our failing is that we avoid naming the problem. Abhorring controversy and conflict, we put up with rather abusive behaviour on the part of certain members of our congregation. As long as the behaviour does not affect us directly, we do not care who these members hurt and destroy, as long as the peace is maintained.

There comes a time when, following Jesus’ formula, we need to confront the rumour-mongerers, the self-righteous accusers, the double-standard bearers one by one, then in wider and wider circles so that their poison and influence are neutralized.

But you and I should never venture into such territory without great fear and trembling. The early church had a handle on the humility one needs in order to judge another person’s life. “Consider everyone to be better than you.” “Do unto others as you would wish they do to you.” We cannot avoid remembering our failings and inadequacies, our own sins, as we attempt to lure someone else back to faith and wholeness. We are “wounded healers” and even more “guilty judges.”

When we are called to judge and call others to account, there is only one goal: to bring about by the grace of God a redeemed life. Not our life, by the way, but the life of the alleged sinner.

A priest returned home to find two thieves looting his house. The thieves had, in fact, seen him coming and were rushing out the door arms full with bounty, nodding ironic pleasantries at the coming-home priest. Once the priest was inside and comprehended what had happened, he knew immediately what he had to do. Feverishly, he threw unstolen items into a box and took off as fast as he could in pursuit of the thieves. “Wait up!” he yelled. The thieves, weighed down by their burdens, looked around in terror. The priest caught up finally with them and extended the box, “Here, you forgot something! You need these much more than I do.” The two men could not control themselves, and broke down weeping. They returned with the old priest to his home with all the stolen goods, started their lives all over again, and became close friends to the priest for the rest of their lives.

In this week in which a lot of wrongs will be addressed, a lot of courage and bravery rehearsed, a lot of judgment will be declared, may we like the North Carolina country preacher exercise effective liturgical leadership, start all over again, and this time, let’s get it right.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan