9/7/08                                                                             MATTHEW 18:15-20

                                                                                        ROMANS 13:8-10

“THE DEBT WE OWE ONE ANOTHER”

Rev. James Singleton

I don’t understand a great deal about economics, but there is one concept that I understand all too well—debt. I am in debt to the bank, in debt to the credit card company, and really in debt to The Ohio State University. I would venture to say that 90% of my mail consists of bills that I owe.

I’ve never considered debt to be a particularly good thing. Debts are a burden on the personal savings account.

Debts are also one of the burdens of a church. How I remember well the Sunday our church celebrated getting out of debt after paying off the final mortgage payment on our million-dollar addition. We stood up here and took the mortgage paper and burned it up. We were debt free! Hallelujah! We don’t owe anyone anything.

Not so fast, says Paul. You are not as debt free as you may believe. There is one debt you have not paid off and never will. “Owe no one anything—except to love one another.”

Summer is officially over and now we have begun a new church season that will be full of challenges. We have begun once again our regular Sunday morning schedule but we are trying out changes to our worship services to enhance them, which is sure to upset some people and I understand that. We should be passionate about worship.

Our Sunday schools have gone into full swing but some of the classes may have changed from last season which may a difficult adjustment for some. And, in a month, we will undergo a campaign to finance our chancel renovation project which many believe is much needed and some not so much.

As we look forward to another season where we will work together in meetings, make decisions together, face the future together, and live with our lives intertwined—what more appropriate word is there than Paul’s reminder of the debt that we are called upon to owe to one another here in the church?

For what all of our church life comes down to; what all the worship and classes ultimately are about; what all the meetings and challenges that we face in being the church should end in is showing love to one another.

Loving one another in church, however, is not as easy as it sounds. A group of diverse people cannot come together week after week in a common setting, seek the good of their organization and their own fulfillment and all agree as to what is best for the church.

If there is one thing that Jesus makes clear in his teaching in Matthew, it is that church people are going to hurt one another, sin against each other, and be divided. It happened among Jesus’ own disciples; it happened among Paul’s own churches; and it has happened in every church ever since. That is why Paul insists that the one debt the church cannot be without is the debt of love.

A seminary professor writes, “Not far from my home in South Carolina, just down the road, there was a church. Actually, by the time I came along it was no longer a church. It was just a decaying, rotting shell of a building where once a church had been.

            “What happened?” I asked my grandmother one day. “What happened to all the people who went to this church?”

            My grandmother laughed slightly, “Well, son,” she said, “I remember it well when I was a girl.  There used to be services there every Sunday, picnics in the spring and fall, then they had their ‘great falling out.’”

            “What’s that?” I persisted.

“Well, the ‘great falling out’ was when Mr. Jones, or was it Mr. Johnson?…at any rate when either Mr. Jones or Mr. Johnson wanted to pave the drive into the church. Some of them thought it was a waste of money. Said that Mr. Jones or Mr. Johnson, whoever he was, was trying to take over the church. You can see today that the drive was never paved.

After that fight, the church split. One group went and took what it had and left. A few of them stayed, tried to keep the church going for a while. Eventually, they just died off or moved away and what you see is the end of that argument.”

            What you see is an example of what happens when a church fails to honor its debt of love to one another. But what does it mean for us to love one another in a church setting? There are a lot of answers to that question. Let me hold up a few of them.

One of the ways we can love one another is by focusing upon what we share in common, not on our differences. As believers, the Bible says we share one Lord, one body, one purpose, one Father, one Spirit, one hope, one faith, one baptism, and one love.   We share the same salvation, the same life, and the same future—so I ask you, what differences could we possibly have that outweigh what we share in common? 

Of course, God made us all different and we should value and enjoy those differences, not merely tolerate them. But we must never let minor differences divide us.

As the founder of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Alexander Campbell, said about the nature of our church: “In essentials unity; in nonessentials diversity; in all things love.” In unity and in diversity, the essential debt we owe one another is love which always means patience and kindness with each other. Our diversity must never destroy our unity.

Another way we love one another may sound strange, but it is very important. We love one another by being realistic in our expectations.

Rev. Len Evans writes, “When I began my first full-time youth ministry position, I had a utopian view of what it’d be like working in a church. I believed that since everyone loved Jesus it’d be an ideal work environment; I expected to hear ‘Kum-Bah-Yah’ in the background every day. Reality hit me soon after the last book went from box to bookshelf.” 

It’s easy to become discouraged by the gap between the ideal and the real in your church.  Still we must passionately love the church in spite of its imperfections. 

Believers are going to disappoint you and let you down but that’s no excuse to stop fellowshipping with them. The Church is family, and you don’t just walk out on family.

Because we’re sinners, we hurt each other, sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally.  But it is reconciliation, not running away, that is the road to stronger character and deeper fellowship. We owe that to one another.

Dietrich Bonhoffer, the German pastor who was martyred for resisting the Nazis, wrote a classic book on fellowship entitled, Life Together.  In it, he suggests that disillusionment with our local church is a good thing because it destroys our false expectations of perfection.

The sooner we give up the illusion that a church must be perfect in order to love it, the sooner we quit pretending and start admitting we’re all imperfect and need grace. As the saying goes, if you ever find the perfect church, don’t join it. Because then it won’t be perfect anymore. Sometimes love means humility which is the beginning of real community.

We owe each other love, and show that love by giving thanks daily for this Christian community, weaknesses, flaws, little faith, difficulties and disappointments included. For God has placed us here that we might grow in grace and love and then witness to a diverse world that it, too, can be united despite its differences—in Jesus Christ.

Another way in which we pay our debt of love is whenever we choose to encourage rather than criticize. It’s always easier to stand on the sidelines and take shots at those who are serving than it is to get involved and make a contribution. Whenever I judge another believer, three things instantly happen: I expose my own pride and insecurity, I set myself up to be judged by God, and I harm the fellowship of the church. A critical spirit is a costly vice.

Rather than criticize those who disagree with us, Jesus calls upon us to pray for them. As we pray for those we are tempted to criticize, we find our anger draining and our heart opening up again. Christians pray for each other’s good; we pray for understanding; we pray for the power to forgive; and we pray for reconciliation. Then our negative criticism will turn into constructed comments. That’s dispensing our debt of love.

One other practice we can do to pay our debt of love to one another is to be upfront in seeking resolutions to our conflicts and not just let them smolder and explode. As Jesus said, If a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him -- work it out between the two of you.

During conflict, it’s human nature to complain to a third party rather than courageously speak the truth in love to the person you’re upset with.  This always makes the matter worse. It starts the gossip mill and intensifies the problem.

We don’t always know when we have hurt another until that person tells us. And then we dispense our debt of love by listening, repenting and seeking forgiveness. Relationships are always strengthened when problems are dealt with directly and in a straightforward manner. They are always weakened when problems are hidden in the hopes they will just go away. They never just go away.

If we are not a community of redeemers then we are nothing. If we cannot accept our human faults, reconcile our differences, forgive those who sin against us, listen to those who have grievances toward us, and seek each others good rather than plotting each others harm, then we should dissolve and disband and make room for a restaurant. But as much as this community yearns for new restaurants, I believe it needs First Christian Church more.

That is why so much of the New Testament is concerned with the maintenance of the Christian community. And the mark of the Christian community in the Bible is not the absence of conflict but the presence of a reconciling spirit.

In his book The Great Divorce, the British writer C.S. Lewis paints a picture of hell that is haunting. Hell, he writes, is like a vast, gray city with rows and rows of empty houses in the middle, empty because everyone who once lived in them has quarreled with their neighbors and moved, and quarreled with the new neighbors and moved again, leaving empty streets full of empty houses behind them. Hell is empty at the center and inhabited only on the fringes—because everyone in it chose distance instead of the hard work of building community. In hell, everyone is alone.

The church is the coming together of the people of God who live as closely as human beings can live on this earth as God intends. We are not perfect, but we have tools to deal with our imperfections and it all begins with our willingness to owe love to one another.

And when we all dispense our debt of love to one another, then bridges are built and not burnt, people walk toward each other and not away, and relationships are restored, not written off. Then, and only then, does the Church live up to its high calling to be the community of heaven on earth.

AMEN.