Fr. Cuthbert Brennan: Most of us don’t enjoy difficult conversations. Most of us would rather avoid them. We hope the problem will disappear. Or we tell someone else instead of the person concerned.
Yet today’s Gospel begins with a very simple assumption.
If we live closely with other people, sooner or later we will hurt one another. And notice that Jesus doesn’t begin with punishment. He begins with relationship. Go and speak to your brother or sister.
The goal isn’t to win. The goal is to restore. That’s at the heart of this morning’s gospel.
Perhaps the hardest three words in the English language are:
“Can we talk?”
Many of you have only recently returned to school. All of us here live in a community of
some form or another. It’s not difficult to imagine what the subjects of tension in community
might be.
Can we talk about……..deodorant? Can we talk about why you’re always late? Can we talk about why you can’t fill the dishwasher correctly? Can we talk about what you said about me?
“Can we talk?”
Usually it means we’ve done something wrong. Or someone is hurt. Or an awkward conversation is coming. Most of us would rather avoid it.
Yet the Christian life isn’t about avoiding those conversations.
It’s about learning how to have them well.
Jesus isn’t interested in winning arguments.
He’s interested in restoring relationships.
God so loved the world that God said “Can we talk?” Through the prophets he called his people back to himself. Again and again he said to humanity “Can we talk?” Then finally in Jesus God came face to face with us and asked, “Can we talk?” God came among us in humility and compassion and kindness. But true to form we got angry, we got defensive and we got violent. God knows all about the cost of saying “Can we talk?”1
Jesus is saying that being a member of the church means you have a responsibility. It is not simply a place where we gather to worship. It is the place where we learn a new way of being human. Here we slowly discover how to see one another as God sees us, and to respond to one another as Christ has first responded to us. If your sheep gets lost you don’t look for an hour and call it quits. You get out there and find that sheep. And we know from the Gospel of Matthew how Jesus treated Gentiles and tax collectors.
Here we learn how to tell the truth without destroying one another, how to forgive without pretending that wounds don’t matter, and how to seek reconciliation rather than victory. We practise here what we hope to live everywhere else. If we can learn
to speak about the little hurts, the small misunderstandings, then perhaps we are already learning how to build a good marriage, a good community, a good school.
We often quote the words,
“Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” as if Jesus were talking about prayer meetings. Jesus is present, really present where two or three are
1 Revd Dr Sam Wells, Can we talk?, A sermon preached in Duke University Chapel September 7th, 2008
gathered in the Divine Name, presumably this includes the two who cannot listen to each other. Even there, perhaps especially there, Jesus is present.
Christ is reminding us that he is present not only when we pray beautifully together, but when we struggle to tell one another the truth with love.
His presence changes everything.
It changes how we speak.
It changes how we listen.
It changes how we forgive.
It changes how we tell the truth.
Because when Christ is present,
the goal is no longer to win.
It is to restore.
Perhaps sometime this week each of us will find ourselves in a difficult conversation. Before we speak…
before we defend ourselves…
before we walk away…
perhaps we might remember one simple truth.
Christ is already present.
He is already in the room.