For Sunday
Proper 18A
Collect
Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
There was a big church in Seattle that famously imploded about ten years ago over allegations of abuse. This wasn’t the sexual misconduct cases we have come to associate with the word, but the kind of emotional manipulation many in the mainline feel we are insulated from.
At the center of that abuse was how the church’s leaders interpreted this passage. We might say that they took it literally. But even that is a simplification. They based their bylaws upon a desire to reprove others who sin. Claiming, of course, that they were doing this out of love.
I think of the infamous Mars Hill every time I read this passage because the problem wasn’t that they saw this as necessary or that they used it as cover for abuse. What they did was to see this as their mission. That this was not only normal, but something they would do regularly. They wanted to do this.
Ope! Someone’s saying something we don’t like, time for an inquisition!
In recent gospel readings, we have seen Jesus share with his disciples that he is destined to die. And rise again. That their work is to carry the same burden. Not to carry a culture’s outrage because they don’t like how we look or behave, but because the culture doesn’t know love. The mission is to bring love to the abused.
The leaders of Mars Hill were so focused on the exception, they thought it was the rule. They simply took abuse and called it love.
They thought that they were persecuted for loving Jesus and practicing his ways. Rather than recognize they had Christians within the church trying to reprove the church’s sin.
In short, there are times when love doesn’t feel loving. But a lot of people use that as loophole to launder abuse rather than acknowledge that most love does feel like love.