Rev. Dr. Sarah R. Cordray

Rev. Dr. Sarah R. Cordray Luther Memorial Church September 10, 2017 Matthew 18:15-20

The Unbroken Chain with Christ

Today is Rally Day! Can’t you feel the excitement and joy in the air today? With bounce houses, muffins for the kids, and special signs our kids are making for our friends at Good Sam and LindenView … with games and special breakfast in the H.S. room … with Adult Ed. back up and running and both worship services returned … with God’s Work, Our Hands and gold t-shirts and community projects too … can’t you feel the joy? The excitement? The faith in knowing that Jesus is here with us as we rally? To rally is to come together again in order to keep on with our cause, our purpose, our reason we are here. We rally together today in order to keep on living our purpose to let the light of Christ so shine … to glorify God … to remember, rejoice and reach out for Jesus’ sake. We rally together today, and I have to admit, this is such needed, welcomed break.

We need a day like today to rally, so that we get a little bit of a break from the anxiety we have all been feeling daily in our world these last few months. We have cause to be anxious with ongoing acts of chaos. Whether it be acts of intolerance or injustice … displays of hatred by various groups around the world or in our own country … or whether it be threats of nuclear testing in North Korea or watching the devastations of hurricanes in the southeast or Texas or the fires around the northwest. We need a day like today to be rallied together, so that we can remember the unbroken chain that Christ makes of us … much like this unbroken chain we saw recently in Houston.

[Video--“When Human Nature Surmounts Mother Nature” by CBS Sunday morning]1

“The challenge is as the flood waters recede, will we still be able to love at these same record levels?” YES, we will still be able to love at these same record levels because Christ promises us, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Mt 18:20). We will be able to love at these record levels because the power to bring us together in a chain that cannot be broken is given to us through Jesus Christ our Lord who gave us life for us so that we would not be separated from God or from each other permanently. Whereas we once lived in bondage to sin that would 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgu44sKCPMA (clip used from 1:15-2:43)

1 break and separate us from each other, Jesus gave his life so that the chain of life and love that links us together is restored.

To be restored is to live as a community in Christ … as a people who each individually and collectively are forgiven, made whole, and are drawn back into Christ’s unbroken chain. Here in Christ’s unbroken chain, together we care about those being swept away in the floodwaters of sin that separate them from God and each other. Together we live as Christ’s unbroken chain, who reaches out to even one lost soul. We reach out, just as these Houston people did in their unbroken human chain as they reached out to the elderly man whose SUV was becoming submerged. They were willing to risk it all for just this one.

We have a savior who is willing to risk it all for just one. Right before our gospel lesson today is the story that Jesus teaches about a shepherd. “If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one who went astray. And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it” (Matthew 18:12b-13a). That good shepherd is our savior, Jesus Christ! And because he goes … and because he is with us wherever two or three gather in his name, that means we go with Christ! We are where Christ is reaching out to the lost. WE are that unbroken chain of Christ that links together over and over again to reach out … because that’s what we do as church. This is who we are.

We are church rallied together in the name of Jesus Christ. We are church, who are linked together in the waters of our baptism, so that we may reach out to the least, the lost, and the lonely. We are church who are more concerned about regaining a brother or sister and linking them into life with Christ forever than holding a grudge.

We are church and we also are human, which means sometimes life together gets messy and tough. We are humans, who (as our reading from Romans reminds us) quarrel with one another … who may get jealous of one another … who at times may even try to get our own individual desires taken care of over another member’s. I know what I say to new members in new member classes is not the most attractive, “bring them in” selling pitch either, but it speaks to this truth. I tell new members that at some point each one of them will find themselves frustrated or even angry with something someone in the church has done or that myself or Katie or our staff or council has done. For every single one of us living as the church, we will all experience this because we are human and we sin.

2 For this very reason Jesus gives to us these commands: Someone offends you, confront them in honesty. If that doesn’t work, try an intervention with two or three others and that person. If that fails, then let the church speak to them. Jesus teaches us how to be a healthy and real church that has everyday struggles, quarrels, and disagreements like any other human group or organization of people do.

Yet we are not like any other human group or organization. Yes we will quarrel, but will will also listen and forgive through the love of God given to us in Christ Jesus. We are an unbroken chain of Christ held together by the power of the Holy Spirit linked to one another through the gifts of listening and forgiveness.

The first gift that links us together is listening to one another, especially when we have conflict. A few humorous lines to drive the point home in how we struggle to listen:

 My wife says I never listen to her. At least I think that’s what she said. — Anonymous

 Your secrets are safe with me because there is a good chance I was not listening. Not listening is what attempts to divide humanity, and the church is not exempt. When one is not listened to … when one refuses to listen, as Matthew says in our gospel lesson, hardship happens … grudges form … division becomes binding. And what is bound on earth is bound in heaven. Yet when one listens, you regain that one … when one listens all division is loosed. And what is loosed is loosed in heaven. When listening happens … forgiveness restores and links us together again.

Today we rally on this Rally Day not just for today, but for all our days as you are restored and linked together for the challenge of loving at record levels with Christ is overflowing in you!

And all of God’s people say, “Amen!”