Don't Turn Jesus Into a Moses!

Martin Luther once said, “Be sure that you do not make Christ into a Moses, as if Christ did nothing more than teach and provide examples as the other saints do.”

Today’s Gospel Jesus gives great advice.

In your personal life if you are having a problem with someone the best way to deal with it is to go and talk to that person.

The worse way of dealing with it is to not talk to that person but go and talk to someone else.

In the therapeutic world this is called triangulation.

It drags someone into a drama who really has nothing to do with it.

And worse it does not actually solve the problem.

Usually it makes things worse.

One of the things that will kill any Church community is the parking lot meetings.

You know these are the ones when people leave a meeting don’t say what they are really thinking.

Then they go to the parking lot and start telling everyone all the things that are wrong with the church, the pastor, and the decisions that were made in the meeting.

This is why I tell people on our congregational council at the start of every year that if you have a problem while we are in the meeting is the time to bring it up.

So that could be a sermon that I could give today.

I could tell us all about how important it is for us to talk to each other.

How important it is for our congregational life that we don’t talk behind each other’s backs.

That would be a good sermon I suppose.

Like I said, “Jesus gives some real good practical advice here.”

I do believe that if we could do this our lives would be better, and filled with less drama.

But that sermon would be making Christ into a Moses.

The problem is that sermon would not be “good news”.

It would not satisfy our deeper needs and desires.

It would not help us spiritually.

And it would have very little to actually do with Jesus.

It would be more about what we do, and why we do it.

I suspect that at the end of that sermon we would leave here less than fulfilled.

But what is the good news in this Bible lesson we have from today?

It appears to be that straight forward.

Jesus is giving us advice about how to live more holy as a community that meets and gathers in his name.

This is the great thing about the Bible is that underneath it all there is always something to dig up.

Today we hear it at the end of what Jesus says.

Jesus sneaks it in on us and we could easily pass it over.

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

We have all heard that verse.

I usually hear it quoted (and I usually quote it) when we have some kind of Church event and not a lot of people show up.

“There are only two people at Bible Study, but Jesus said where two or three are gathered in my name I am there.”

But this week I heard it different.

Jesus is teaching about what to do in the midst of conflict.

Not just any conflict, but conflict among those who follow him.

Amazing that Jesus knows the human heart well enough to know that where two or three are gathered in his name their will be conflict.

We often think of the Church as a nice place to go and be with lovely people.

And that is hopefully part of it for us.

But no matter what Church I am in, no matter how awesome it is, there is always conflict.

Why?

Because the Church is filled with people like me.

By that I mean sinners.

People who think different and act different.

And when we are at our worse we can’t abide with people that think or act different than us.

We won’t have it.

And so we forget what grace looks like, we forget what it means to love each other.

And as long as humans are involved there will be sin, and because of that there will be conflict.

Jesus knows this.

Like I said last week, Jesus is not about utopia but about what is real in life.

Sin is real.

So there will be conflict, because we are part of the Church.

But what is even more amazing than Jesus knowledge of who we are is the answer.

“I am there among them.”

In the midst of that sin, of that conflict Jesus is still present!

Stop and think about that for a second.

We often think about Church being some idealist place that we retreat to.

But what Jesus tells us this morning is that it is a broken place, that has in it Jesus!

That is what makes us a community of faith, the presence of Jesus.

Not our ability to love each other, or care for one another.

Not our ability to keep out conflict.

That will be unavoidable.

But Jesus is here all the time.

Jesus is in the midst of the conflict!

What does it look like for us to see Jesus not just in the good things around us, but also the bad things?

It means that we live in this place of perpetual truth, that we understand who we are that we are not perfect.

We are not great or awesome.

We are flawed, but made whole.

We are sinful, but forgiven.

We are in conflict, but able to work through it.

Because in our midst is Jesus Christ.

I have said this many times that if you want proof that God exists all you have to do is see that there is a Church at all.

We try so hard to mess this thing up.

We try by insisting on our own way.

We try by talking about each other behind our backs.

We try by not really loving each other.

We try by being petty about things that don’t really matter.

By not extending the grace God gives us to each other.

And yet despite all that here we are.

Here we are together this morning, singing about God’s grace and love.

“Joyful, Joyful we adore thee, God of glory, Lord of love!”

 Here we are remembering Jesus in bread and wine, confessing our sins, and yes even caring for each other through sickness, divorces, addictions, and all sorts of other things.

Not because of us, but because in the midst of us is Jesus Christ.

At the center of everything is Jesus.

May we always remember that through the conflict, our sin, and imperfection Christ is here.

And may we always rely upon him to heal us, forgive us, and help us love others, and the world.

Because Jesus is more than a Moses, Jesus always sends love, forgiveness, and grace.

Amen