Sunday, September 10 - Repair

 This sermon was preached for Sunday, September 10 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon were: Psalm 149, Romans 13:8-14, and Matthew 18:15-20. 

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

Jesus’ words here have given me a great deal of comfort in recent years. I think especially of all those sparsely attended evening services and noonday services and nursing home services - basically all the Eucharists I have offered over the years for the people who can’t make it to the main service at church on Sunday with everyone else. Whenever one or two people have shown up and looked around awkwardly and wondered if I was still willing to worship with them, Jesus’ words here have helped me affirm: this is still church, this still matters. 

During the pandemic shutdown, I prayed this verse a lot because it’s part of one of the ending prayers in our Episcopal Morning Prayer service. When I led virtual morning prayer on Facebook Live twice a week, I’d periodically peek at the little number in the corner of my screen that indicated how many people were praying there with me in their own homes, in front of their computers or phones. Sometimes I’d throw that number in there in the prayer itself, “for where two or three or fourteen or twelve or seven are gathered…” This is church and it matters.

Two is the most important number in church. While God is present with us when we are alone and in our private prayer practices, you need at least two people to perform the Eucharist - for any sacrament or even a simple blessing to be valid. You need at least two people to be church. 

When we come together in Christ’s name, we are more than just individuals. The Episcopal tradition’s take on private confession drives this point home the best. The Rite of Reconciliation is as private as it gets: just you and a priest, under the sacramental seal of confession. But the priest isn’t there as an individual. The priest is there as a representation of the whole church, witnessing alongside you, reminding you that you are not alone, that you belong to the larger body of Christ. Episcopal priests kneel right alongside you as you confess, sinners themselves. And at the end, the priest doesn’t grant you absolution - the priest is there to help you hear, and believe, God’s forgiveness. And then they walk away and promptly forget everything you said. 

When I go visit people to bring them communion or pray over them, I come not as myself, but as a representative of all of you. A physical embodiment of St. Mark’s, I say with my presence and words: you are not forgotten, you are not separated, not really, and you are certainly not alone. 

Placed in the context of reconciliation, Jesus’ words here take on new meaning. When you are in the midst of a tough one-on-one conversation, maybe with someone who has hurt you or is hurting others or themselves, Christ is right there with you, too. In this context, I have to admit this verse takes on a bit of the “God is always watching you” vibe. I think of these stickers they handed out on a recent clergy retreat of a cartoon Jesus peering around the corner with a speech bubble that says “I’m watching you.” Or of conversations I’ve had with parents of teenagers who are trying to teach their kids not to be fooled by the appearance of privacy over text or other apps. That everything can be screenshotted and taken out of context and spread much further than you think. Or those employee handbooks - and our own vestry manual - that caution: don’t put anything in an email that you wouldn’t like to see printed in the newspaper. 

What all of that is trying to point to is that all we say and do, it all matters. There are no throwaway conversations of no consequence. As the prayer that begins all of our worship says, “Almighty God, to you all hearts are open and from you no secrets are hid.”

It all matters. All of this matters.

That’s a lot of pressure. 

St. Paul is echoing Jesus in our Romans passage when he affirms that our whole faith is summarized as “love your neighbor as yourself.” But love isn’t easy. Love is more complicated than we like to admit. Human beings get the keeping and caring of one another and the world wrong all the time. Even when we are all trying our best to do what’s right by one another. 

And. And I’ll share something I think about each time I feel like I have failed in my parenting somehow, whether in major ways or minor ways, like when I accidentally opened a door into my toddler’s face or whenever I raise my voice in frustration. Two of my wisest, most well-credentialed friends, one with a PhD in child psychology, and the other with a Masters in child development, have both reassured me that what matters most in parenting is how you repair your relationships with your children. These two friends insist, and I believe them - that what will have the longest lasting impact on the child is not the rupture - the bump or the accident, the time you were away for too long or what unintentionally slipped out of your mouth. What matters most is the repair: that you cradle and kiss and rock the crying child, that you admit fault and make clear promises about what you’ll do better next time - and you follow through. What matters more is how you come back together, how you heal. 

Our words and actions all matter - and it is all repairable. 

Now, this is the part of the sermon when all the unrepaired parts of my life come bubbling up, all the conflicts that are still ongoing, all the words I never got to say and all the ones I regret saying, all the connections in my life that seem destined to remain ragged or severed. They all pop into my mind and coalesce into one big “No! No it’s not! Look! See! Some things can never be repaired!” 

If that’s you, too, then for you and for me, I will say it again. All of it - all people, all relationships, all of creation - it is all repairable. 

Because even when it is not repairable by us, it is repairable by God. Even if it is not repaired in this lifetime, then in the fullness of time, when God will draw all people and creatures together. When, as St. Paul puts it, love is all in all. All this, it will all be whole once more. 

I will say this, too: sometimes all the authentic repair we can do in this life is saying, and meaning, I tried my best, I healed myself, the rest I give to God. 

The mission of the church, what we are all about, is repair. That’s from the Book of Common Prayer, by the way: the mission of the church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ. It’s all about love. Not about being perfect in love - but about repairing love, healing hurt, and trusting God to be present in the midst of it. 

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

In a context when quantity matters enormously, when one’s self-worth and success is proven by how many classmates show up to your party or how many clients you acquire or how many viewers clicked on your link…at a time when a church’s sense of self is often tied, anxiously, to the number of people who show up week to week, when numbers can almost take on an existential importance…Jesus would have us focus on quality. 

Are we loving each other and our neighbor as best we can? And when we fail, because we will, are we repairing that love? 

Your presence here today matters. Your body in this room, or your attendance via livestream, matters. It tells me and it tells you and it tells everyone here that the work of restoration, the work of repair, the work of love, is important and ongoing and you want to be a part of it. It’s happening, however imperfectly, however slowly. Reconciliation is happening through and by the grace of God.