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The Special Sanctions of a Supernatural Society

23rd Sunday : 7 September 2014  : Matthew 18: 15-20

In the film "Beckett," Thomas, as Archbishop of Canterbury, forms a circle in the sanctuary of the Cathedral with the monks of Canterbury, and after solemn words of exclusion, they cast their processional candles to the floor. Just like that the King of England has been excommunicated. He can’t receive communion in Church, or be absolved of his sins in confession, or receive the last rites of the Church on his deathbed. And if he dies in this state of being excluded from the Christian community he will probably go to hell.

This act, and the power struggle that follows between Archbishop and King, are well known, but not so much attention goes to what caused it in the first place. A priest had committed a serious crime and was brought before the courts of the land, but the church in the person of the Archbishop of Canterbury insisted on the right to try him before an ecclesiastical court. Today that wouldn’t be an issue – the secular courts rule supreme. But what is of interest to us is that there was a time when the church thought that it had a Divine mandate to impose its disciplinary code on its members, and was prepared to use the power granted it in this morning’s gospel passage to exclude church members who had seriously transgressed its house rules, no matter how powerful or influential they were.

Donald Hagner gets to the heart of today’s gospel reading when he writes:

A premise basic to this passage is the importance of personal relationships between members of the community. Just as it is important not to cause any of "these little ones" to stumble, so it is important that one not impudently sin against another. Accordingly, Jesus outlines a procedure for cases where one sins in this way and displays a hard heartedness about it.

This procedure, with its stages that give opportunities for repentance and reconciliation at every step along the line, is designed to restore relationships within the Christian community wherever possible. But if that doesn’t work the church is not to shrink from taking authoritative action to exclude someone who has been engaging in community wrecking behaviour. Better that, than letting the community be undermined or destroyed. And what is more, Jesus says that the community will be acting with his authority behind it in doing so.

The situation of the church today is so different that it is hard to see the penalty of excommunication being applied in the same way. It is just about impossible to exclude someone from the benefits of Christian community when all they have to do is to walk down the road to another parish or another denomination, and start all over again. The church must devise sanctions that are appropriate to its situation now. However, I think it is reasonable for the leadership of a church to say to someone who has disrupted its life with major trouble making behaviour, "We think it would be best if you went somewhere else, and if you don’t you will be excluded from the sacraments and the fellowship of this church." When a power vacuum opens up in the face of a determined insurgency a church can be destroyed. It is interesting too that some of the major Pentecostal churches in this country have security teams of church members that enforce trespass orders and non-molestation orders.

But what interests me this morning is not the possible shape of contemporary church disciplinary codes, but rather the way the church is to think about itself in the light of today’s gospel charter of authoritative boundary defining behaviour. Although the recent social history of western societies has made churches into something like voluntary societies, what you might call a common interest associational group, neither its Scriptures not its theology allows the church to think of itself in this way. It is not a hobby group for the religiously minded. Not is it just a pragmatic platform for Christian recruitment activities in the world. God has a more treasured and expectant attitude to it.

Look through the New Testament epistles and you will see some extraordinary descriptions applied to the church. Maybe the house churches of the Mediterranean world in Paul’s day are only a score or two of people facing each other across a large room but these small groups are the apple of God’s eye, the turning point of the world, according to the letters addressed to them. "The body of Christ," "The bride of Christ," this is the language of close association between what Christ did on earth, and what he is up to now in the world. He has invested his reputation in this community. And according to the way the first Christians describe their worship assemblies, they believe that he is present in they’re midst when they offer thanksgiving over the bread and wine, and call down the Holy Spirit on it.

What is being described here is the church as a supernatural society. It has got one foot in the Kingdom of God that lies on the other side of this world. In fact it is the entry point into the Kingdom. It isn’t an earth bound institution in any sense of the word. So whatever its current sociology is trying to shape it into, such an unhelpful pattern should be winsomely resisted.

The church is the crown of creation. God loves it more than any other part of the creation. He cares for it and about it more than anything else. He treasures it, and watches over it, wanting it to grow and flourish. This high profile in God’s estimation invites the church, and its membership, to take itself equally seriously.

A country Vicar was talking to me not so long ago about the small band of 20 to 30 Christians who gather in their modest church each Sunday. "If only they would think of themselves as a counter cultural group, a community different and distinct, rather than just individuals carrying out an honourable duty in keeping the local Anglican Church going," he said to me.

I agree with these sentiments. When church members start thinking of themselves as the vanguard of the Kingdom, the part of the world that God is most interested in, then this subtle shift in self-perception gradually brings about helpful changes in behaviour. The church will become less afraid to mark out its boundaries, to insist on high standards of Christian behaviour of its membership, and to have a strong and loving discipline of those who defiantly flout its life giving house rules. The church is the house that God built. It is the community on earth that matters most. And it has every right, indeed a God given right, to order its life with calm, confident, clarity so that good order and stability mark its way of life.