GOD’S RECIPE FOR SALVATION

Matthew 18: 15-20

Long before some football teams had players dropping from exhaustion, and some of them tragically dying, there were the Titans, a real team depicted in the film “Remember the Titans.” After being an exceedingly popular coach for fifteen winning seasons, coach Bill Yoast (portrayed by Will Patton) was demoted and replaced by a new coach, Herman Boone, (portrayed by Denzel Washington). The racially tense mixture of players balked at a coach of a different color to lead the team. His harsh and sometimes unorthodox method of building his team created friction so tensions and tempers rose. But slowly and deliberately he built relationships where before there had been suspicion and innuendo. As football season started up around the country yesterday, this film is worth watching again. In one scene, as the players boarded the team bus for the first time, Coach Boone noticed that they sat with the black players on one side, and the white ones on the other. This story was occurring in 1971, mind you, not 1871. He blew his whistle and called for everybody to get off the bus. He then had the offense re-board and sit on one side, and the defense re-board and sit on the other. Not only were they to get to know their teammates, they had to report back on what they learned, and the man they sat next to became their new roommate. After their football practices were over the first game was held on September 4^th- today’s date! With the school that became racially integrated over the summer with forced bussing, the first day of school arrived with shouting parents, picket signs, and students clearly disturbed. The progress in race relations that Coach Boone had produced in football practices seemed to slip back ten steps on that first day. But he stayed the course, and he transformed not only a team, but also a community. We hear some harsh stories about football, but there are also inspiring stories, and there are transformed people and teams. Thanks be to God for them.

Teams can create communities that sometimes work well and sometimes they don’t. What is most important is the combination of qualities and lessons that a coach puts into practice. But there is another place where mixtures of ingredients matter: in a kitchen. I remember times when I was a young boy watching my mother or my grandmothers follow a recipe to make a cake or to make a new meal. Sometimes they would follow a recipe exactly; at other times they would change it just a bit and tell me why. Recipes are tried and true ways to produce a delectable dinner or dessert.

Certainly the recipe book, or by contrast the play book, for Christian living is the Bible. Usually we hear about three predictable ingredients for Christian living: a pinch of faith, a dash of hope, and a full cup of love! Today we will deviate a bit from those regular Christian ingredients. Today we get to hear a recipe from Jesus that is a playbook for dealing with conflict. The ways we handle conflict affect adults and teens, and they certainly affects children one way or another. When faced with conflict, our choices cause ripples that lead either to peace and harmony; or they lead to heightened tensions and anger. Those kinds of choices occur in our churches, in our schools, on our teams, in our clubs, and across our globe. Jesus gives us a recipe for handling conflict from this passage and from his ministry.

The first ingredient, or point in the playbook, is conversation. Notice it is not a theological word; it is an action word that brings communication! How easy it is to demonize someone of another race, or creed or nationality if you have never met him or her! How easy it is to fall into the pit of innuendo or implication without ever meeting the other person. When I became the pastor of my first church in Arkansas, my secretary had never been outside of the state and she was in her 50s! After we got to know each other, she said she was actually in her 30s before she met a Yankee, and when she learned that I was coming from Princeton she had some terrifying pictures of what I’d be like! Her mother had taught her that Yankees were no good and could not be trusted! Young Marie pictured Yankees as devil-like characters. But in our four years together Marie and I grew to respect and deeply care about each other. She corresponded with each me until the year she died. All it took was meeting one another to dispel wrong information.

Such negative depictions of others happen in schools way too much. Stereotypes are used, and even exploited, to create the characters on shows like “Glee.” Sometimes there is nothing new under the sun, because I remember those groups when I was in school too, don’t you? There were jocks, nerds, bullies, geeks, and others in my school experiences as well. But how many students are hurt by the words of others? Have we made any progress over the years? Following Jesus’ playbook from today’s text is a good template for progress. Creating the setting for a conversation instead of a confrontation is something Christian students, administrators, and teachers can do. Jesus says in Matthew 18: 15 to talk with those who hurt you or sin against you. It is a necessary first ingredient.

The next ingredient is to see if your issue can be reconciled. Reconciliation is at the heart of Christianity as Paul puts it in Second Corinthians 5. Reconciliation is at the heart of the Presbyterian Confession of 1967, rightly naming some issues that divided America in the 60s, namely race issues and war. Reconciliation is helping differing parties to understand each other, and in some cases, even to forgive the other. We will consider forgiveness more next week, but for this week, suffice it to say that to withhold forgiveness from someone most often takes tremendous energy, enhances stress, and pulls your focus away from those you love to the one you haven’t forgiven. But, according to Jesus, there are certainly times when people still won’t listen when you try to forgive them, and still won’t admit their sin when you try to confront them with it. Jesus then takes the next step to keep us from getting into “he said she said” situations: he says to take one or two others to be witnesses or to be mediators. Follow his playbook, some situations that seemed intractable may get reconciled or at least make progress. That’s the goal: to reconcile, or to reconnect, or at least to agree to disagree. Jesus’ playbook can go a long way in our world.

The next ingredient, or point in the playbook, if agreement isn’t reached, is to scrape. In Matthew 10, Mark 6, and even Luke 9, Jesus instructs his disciples, when they run into people in a town who resist them or refuse to listen, to “shake the dust off their feet” and move on. It’s good advice; but just so you know, the word usually translated “shake” has a more powerful interpretation: “scrape.” If you have to “scrape the dirt from your feet” you get the picture. Sometimes we have to leave people with closed minds or hating hearts outside our circle of influence. Even Jesus describes it. We are to be leaven to the world, but in some specific instances, seeds indeed fall on the rocky soil of a person’s stubborn will.

Finally, if we were mixing ingredients for a cake, the last step is to bake. If we are using a football playbook, the last step is to execute the play. Leave any retaliation to the great Judge of the world who watches it all according to Matthew 18: 18 “Whatever you bind on earth with be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth, will be loosed in heaven.” Now it is time to let the good ingredients that we choose to add—to our relationships, to our team, to our church, or to our family—start to change the terms of engagement and thus outcomes of our interaction with others. Most of the time we think of salvation by using symbols like the cross of Christ and the Son of God. But maybe salvation is best understood by looking at the table; the table where ingredients are prepared to be shared; at the table, where people come together not because they are whole, but because they are broken; at the table where a host calls all to gather, not to be a team as much as to be the Church: The table, where we are invited to remember, and to look toward the future, and even to include those classic ingredients: faith, hope, and love. If your soul is ready, the table is here for you.

Jeffrey A. Sumner September 4, 2011