top of page

[Sermon] Posture Over Procedure

Pastor Hector Garfias-Toledo



Matthew 18 and Romans 13 are not to be read as a rulebook for identifying sinners, but as instruction in a posture, openness rather than accusation, that makes us an extension of Christ's restoration in the world. Pastor Hector shows how hurt distorts our vision of others and ourselves, turning the person who wronged us into a monster and us into the innocent victim. Drawing on the Greek word behind "to gain" your sibling back, he argues sin isn't just a personal offense but a loss the whole community feels. The sermon lands on the benediction, "go and love the people," as the daily, Spirit-enabled practice of that posture. Reconciliation, Hector says, carries a transcendent power that reaches beyond any two people and heals the whole body.



Sermon Transcript

From YouTube's automatic captions, lightly edited by AI for readability.


Grace to you and peace from God: Abba, Father, Mother, Creator, and the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior and our Lord, who is present in the midst of the people who are gathered together. And we say, amen.

 

I'm going to show you a picture. And what I would like to invite you to do, when you see the picture on the screen, is just take a few moments and ponder, or think, what it evokes in you. So let's look at that. Take a moment. What thoughts does this picture evoke in you?

 

Turn and look for someone, and just share what it evokes in you. When you look at this picture, find someone you do not know.

 

Those of you participating online, you can type in the chat what this picture evokes in you.

 

All right, let's see what you heard. If there's anyone, one or two of you, who would like to share what you heard in your brief conversations, in one or two words, what did this picture evoke in the person you were talking to?

 

"Fighting." Fighting.

 

"Mating." Mating ritual.

 

"Survival."

 

"Feeding a child." [laughter]

 

Okay. Fighting. A few of you. All right.

 

I invite you to continue with this conversation. But now I ask you, in light of what you saw and heard with this picture, think of how many people have done wrong against you.

 

How many people can you identify who have done some wrong against you? I see fingers going up.

 

Shift a little bit. How many can you think of that each one of us has wronged?

 

I don't see fingers now.

 

Isn't it interesting to see our human nature, and the images that come to our minds and our hearts, when we see a picture like that? We heard different opinions on whether this was a ritual for mating, for creation, for reproduction, or whether it was fighting for something. One thing you probably noticed is that these birds, if they are fighting, are fighting in the air, where there is nothing that can sustain them, no surface that can catch them if they fall. And I think that as human beings, sometimes we find ourselves in situations like that. We find ourselves in situations where we get engaged in conflict, or where relationships are broken, feelings are hurt, emotions are hurt, and we feel that there is nothing under us, and the only thing we can do is whatever it takes to survive.

 

As we heard in the prayer of the day, we are part of a complicated humanity. Do you agree with me?

 

I wish we could figure this out sooner, but it has been many centuries, and we still don't have an answer. The passages we heard today are traditionally understood in a particular way. Romans 13 we sometimes take as a forensic checklist for identifying others as sinners, right? And Matthew 18 we take as a juridical procedure for how we are going to settle disputes among ourselves. But what if, my siblings in Christ, we read these passages not as a way of identifying sinners, but as describing the posture we take in responding to hurt and brokenness in the body, in the community to which we belong?

 

When we read the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ in terms of a posture, we are liberated, and we are moved toward openness to the possibilities of how God's reign is tangibly present, how it manifests in our broken humanity as a collective.

 

Unfortunately, we spend so much time, and you may agree with me, defining who and what we are against. It's almost like the moment I get up, the first thing I start thinking is, who am I going to fight against today?

 

Right? And the question is, why are we moved in that direction? The truth is, it feels like we need to be against someone to find meaning and purpose in our lives. And this happens in our society, in congregations, and in our denominations. There are times I wonder why we spend so much time, as a denomination, trying to find something to be against, instead of figuring out how we are going to be for something.

 

It's very easy to fall into that trap. So what does it mean that someone sins in the community? The older manuscripts of the Gospel according to Matthew actually do not have the part that says "if someone sins against you." They omit "against you," and simply say "if someone sins," and then Jesus, in the words of the evangelist, gives instructions for what they need to do. So my question is, how does that change the context of how we understand this passage, and the way we hear this story that is so familiar to us?

 

And as I was trying to figure this out, trying to understand and remind myself, this is not a recipe for how we are going to go among the members of the congregation to identify who is sinning and say, "Hey, come with me, I need to talk to you, you're sinning." I'm pointing to you, Trudy, but it's not you. Nothing against you. [laughter]

 

I think we need to be aware that we project onto others when we are hurt.

 

When you and I are hurting inside, we project our hurt, and we see in others their sins, and we don't see ourselves, because hurt distorts our vision. The sinner suddenly becomes a monster, and we become the innocent victim of the actions of that sinner, that monster, against us. Jesus knew that. Jesus knows this about us. That is why Matthew 18 gives us a process for de-escalating this isolation. Because when we are hurt, we isolate ourselves. We make the other our enemy so that we cannot connect with them, and we retreat, and we isolate ourselves. But Jesus says we cannot be isolated, because we are called to be a body. Your posture is one of personal and vulnerable honesty, communal accountability, and corporate lament, and Jesus guides us in how we need to start looking at ourselves in order to address the brokenness that may happen in the community.

 

So the readings for today are not necessarily about what happens in the church as an organization, as we know it today, because at the time this Gospel was written, when it was shared, there was a different kind of reality for the community of faith. The community of believers was trying to figure out what it meant to be a follower of Jesus in a context in which they were persecuted, in a context where they were not understood, in a context when the church was a minority, in a context where the message of Jesus was passed on only through the actions of the people, because there were no buildings like this one, or internet, or anything else that people could use.

 

So Jesus points out and teaches us that the posture to take, before what seems to be unavoidable among humans when we sin or miss the mark, is one of openness. The word we see in the Gospel, when Jesus says "to gain your brother or your sibling in Christ back," this word in Greek is kerdainō.

 

And this conveys that when someone sins against us, we lose something, a piece of our communal wholeness. So sin is not only something that somebody does to hurt us. When a person sins, or misses the mark, the community loses a sibling, loses one part of its identity. So the posture that Jesus commands is not that of a persecutor gathering evidence, but of a grieving household trying to recover a lost family member.

 

Yesterday we started our first session for those of you exploring becoming members of this congregation. And as I have said before, in the second session, and later when we are received as members of this congregation, we are intentional about reminding ourselves that, as part of this complex humanity, we are going to hurt. We are going to miss the mark. We are going to say or act in ways that may hurt feelings. But this passage reminds us, and we promise each other in the mutual commitments we make as members of this congregation, that we are going to look for ways to listen to one another, and to practice forgiveness as a sign of what it means to be a member of the body of Christ, and as a sign of listening to Jesus, that when we sin against each other, we isolate one another. And what we are called to do is to regain, to bring back, that part of us as community that we have lost in the process of hurting one another. This is a posture of grace and openness. And this openness is to the possibility that the one who hurts us may repent in front of us.

 

So my question is, what will happen when somebody hurts you, and then you point to the sin, or the situation, the offense, out of anger? We heard in the young worshippers' message a perfect illustration of how we react when somebody hurts us: we want to kick back the castle of Legos, right? We want to do that. And not only that, we probably were expecting that the person who sinned against us is going to feel the pain of our anger, and our wounded honor, because of what they did to us. And if this person then asks for forgiveness, guess what?

 

My uncle, the pastor, used to tell a story I always loved to hear: there were two women, one dying in the hospital, and the other, who did not like her. When one of them was in the hospital, about to die, the other came and said, "You know what, you're going to die, so I think this is the time for me to tell you that I forgive you for what you did to me." And the woman goes on and says, "But if for some reason God keeps you alive, we go back to where we were."

 

It's hard for us. It's hard for us to let go. But what will happen, my siblings, is that when we are in the process of healing, when the person who hurt us repents and accepts the invitation to turn around, it's a matter of posture. It's an invitation to receive that repentance. And the question is, am I willing to accept it? Am I willing to lose on earth? Because in that moment is when the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, "Whatever you lose on earth will be lost in heaven," become the reminder that forgiveness and reconciliation have a transcendent power that goes beyond you and me, because it heals not only the relationship between two people, but the relationships in the community, so that the community can become whole. The sinner and the sinned against are not two categories of people. They are two roles that you and I occupy every day, including now, right here in this place.

 

So, here's when I need to quote our theologian in residence. Today's theologian in residence is David Horton. Every time we finish our pre-worship service in the chapel, what does David say to us? "Go have a good worship, and love the people." Love the people. And as easy as that sounds, "go and love the people" is a challenge. It's a reminder. It's an opportunity to practice what Jesus is teaching us today.

 

Because when I come into this place, if there is something that is not very good between somebody and me, I need to remember the words, "Go, enjoy worship, and love the people."

 

Love the people is not a fuzzy feeling. It's not being nice to someone. It is an intentional act of allowing the Holy Spirit to crack our hearts open, to let that Spirit get in, and to let that Spirit cast out the fears, the biases, the presumptions, the assumptions, and anything else that may have accumulated over the days before.

 

Jesus does not promise, however, that the sinner will always listen, repent, and give us a happy ending. But Jesus promises that when the community gathers to do this grueling, messy work in this complex humanity, he is in the midst, not contingent on our successful reconciliation, but contingent on the community's willingness to show up. As David said, the power of showing up is facing the fracture together.

 

Jesus' teaching is not a recipe for a conflict-free church, because if that were the case, believe me, church would always be a happy place. It is a liturgy, and when I say liturgy, I mean the work of the people, for a conflict-resilient community of faith. A community that knows how to posture itself in humility, gather in pain, and trust that the risen one is palpably present in the awkward, unresolved space where two or three are struggling to see each other as Christ sees them. Jesus is amid our work to discover God's original intent, a right relationship.

 

The reign of God flows through the community, not when we eliminate sin, but when we refuse to let sin isolate us from one another. And that, my siblings, is good news. And for that, my siblings, we thank God, and we say, amen.

bottom of page