Ezekiel 33:7-11 Psalm 119:33-40
Romans 13:8-14 Matthew 18:15-20
College football teams have eleven players on the field at a time, but some universities have in their home game what they call the twelfth man. And who is the twelfth man? The twelfth man is the home crowd advantage. The twelfth man is the thousands of screaming hometown fans. Odds makers actually determine point spreads by factoring the twelfth man, the home crowd advantage for the local team. The mystical twelfth man seems like there is another person present playing with the eleven on the field to give the home team an advantage.
This seeming trivial example of a human phenomena highlights the phenomenon of the experience of another kind of presence within a group gathering. If a group survives with an identity, the secret of survival involves its mystification in the experience of the arrival of another presence, a presence of identity.
The success of the church throughout the ages might be attributed to this mystical presence which has and can occur among members committed to the original values of the founding person.
We perhaps have learned to neglect the mystical presence that can and does occur. Why? The church or churches have become such outward and institutional presences that their external presences have become what we regard to be their guarantee of continue presence into the future. It is so much easier on our senses to look at all the outward signs of the church's presence in our world, the hierarchies, the liturgies, the buildings, shrines, and traditions. Churches have such obvious physical presence within the world, that we rely on these outward signs for her future continuation.
The Gospel of Matthew, read for today, highlights perhaps the secret of the success for the survival of the early Jesus Movement. We associate the presence of Christ with so many outward signs or with favorable conditions of peace and comfort, but we forget the context of a very familiar saying of Jesus, "Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them." I have heard this quoted over and over again for many church situations except the actual context presented in the Gospel where it appears.
The context is actually conflict, disagreement, and even sin within the community. How can and how does the community survive the crises of conflict, disagreement and sin? Well, the church includes members who continue to gather in small numbers or large numbers. How does the church gather? In the name of Christ, that is believing that the Risen Christ remains committed to us and we remain committed to the Risen Christ. And within this inner mystical transaction, another presence is known, the Risen Christ is known in resolving ways to the crisis of the family, and parties can know the wisdom of resolution. It does not mean that the resolutions will be pain free or that egos will not be bruised and it does not mean easy forgiveness. What it means is that the presence of the Risen Christ has a largesse about it to co-exist with lots of community conditions as members struggle to stay together, to love, to forgive, to remember their mission beyond themselves in the spreading of the love and justice of Christ.
A community has to learn to survive itself by taking its focus off itself and reaching out beyond itself to those whose needs are more important than our own community disagreements.
And this other beckoning presence of the Risen Christ realized in our continuing persuasion about the values of Christ, is the secret of how we can continually be comprised so that we can bear the Christly presence within our world.
Let us not forsake gathering with Christly values, and let us get over ourselves with our community conflicts, and re-purpose our energies to the ends of care, justice, and mercy for the many in our world in need. Amen.
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