In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The gospel parable that we’ve just heard, beloved in the Lord, comes toward the end of the 18th chapter of Matthew. Now when we had the gospel of Matthew in adult Sunday school several years ago—some of you are here because you hadn’t joined yet; you hadn’t seen the light—but that time I gave you an outline of the gospel of Matthew, in which I showed how the gospel of Matthew is structured around five long sermons, five long discourses. Chapter 18 is the fourth of these, whole chapter. It’s a chapter about life in the Church. What is it like to be in the Church? And this morning’s text is not about forgiveness; it’s about forgiveness in the Church. You forgive your brother! You forgive your brother; you don’t necessarily forgive the person who’s waiting on you at the bank, although that might be a good thing to do for your own peace of soul; or the one who’s sold you the used car, might be a good thing to forgive them, but that’s not forgiveness in the Church. Today’s parable is about the Church.

I’ll return to that theme presently in point two, but let me give you the outline for our reflections today. Three Greek words! Three Greek nouns in today’s gospel express our relationship to God and to one another. First word: doulos. Where are our Greek students? Gabriel, where are you? There you are! Doulos means? Nancy, doulos means? [Servant.] Servant! Servant, doulos. Our first relationship is servant to king. A certain man… The kingdom of heaven shall be likened to a certain king, who took accounts from his servants. That’s our first relationship: a servant to a king. In fact, the very word “servant” comes from the exact Latin equivalent, servus.

Now, what sort of life we live is determined by who we think we are. If we are servants of God, that means that not one of us belongs to himself. The whole notion of a servant is he does not belong to himself. His time, his energy, his resources—all belong to the king he serves, particularly when he gets all of that from the king in the first place! You see, God did not give us a single gift of any kind, nature or grace, just for ourselves. God did not give us anything just for ourselves. At the final judgment, in Matthew 25, seven chapters later, the difference between the sheep and the goats is summarized in one line: “Well done, good and faithful servant!”

In respect to the service of God, I want to reflect with you briefly on the relationship of thought to history: in the context of the service of God, the relationship of thought to history. Now, in the 19th century, thinkers in Europe came up with some really weird ideas that nobody had ever thought of before; even though those that lived before were a lot smarter, they hadn’t thought of them. A 19th-century idea, which is still around and still prevalent—this past week I heard it scores of times, just on news channels; heard it scores of times. In fact, the idea was used to explain almost every tragedy that happened this past week, but it’s a bad idea. One would think that the massive tragedies of the 20th century would long ago have thrown that idea into the ash can, but we still hear it: “Be on the right side of history. Get on the right side of history.”

What is presumed in that idea, “Get on the right side of history”? The presumption is there’s a force out there called “history,” and it’s moving someplace. And it’s impersonal and it’s anonymous, but it’s going someplace. Some people actually call it “progress.” Being on the right side of history is a really bad idea! But it has an intellectual genealogy: it comes from 19th-century philosophers whose statues probably should be torn down, although I don’t encourage that. I don’t believe in turning down statues, no, no. No, no, no. My first day in Paris, I went to the tomb of Napoleon. I can’t think of anybody who did more harm to France than Napoleon did, but they still reverence his tomb, and there’s still statues of Napoleon. The French are much more mature than we are.

What are those 19th-century ideas? Idealism, Marxism, positivism: these ideologies believe that history was a moving and determining force, an irresistible force, and standing up to history was as futile as resisting the motion of the tide and as dangerous as facing down a locomotive. You want to be on the right side of the locomotive. In other words, if you’re not on the right side of history, history will run you down! History will not run you down—other human beings may run you down; governments may run you down, but history won’t do it. The doulos theou, servant of God, or, in Arabic, abdullah, Hebrew ebed, the servant of God—the servant of God does not and cannot believe that. The thesis is 180° at variance with the structure of reality.

What history is, beloved, is what human beings make it to be. History is what human beings make it to be by their ideas and their choices. The ideas of the 19th century and the choices of the 20th century have made the historical mess in which we now find ourselves. History is not a social force determined by economics, although economics and sociology are part of history. History is shaped by the thought and directed by the intentions of human choice. Human beings are created to be servants of God. They are not, and they never were meant to be, independent agents. If somebody tells me he is an independent agent, I will remind him of the Greek word for that: idios! Idios: it means belonging to oneself. Idios: an independent agent is a living lie. In this respect, I finally get a chance to use an expression which I’ve been dying to use for a long time, from the Welsh novelist Ian [McEwan]. Ian [McEwan] speaks of “living inside a cliché.”

Point two: second Greek word used this morning in the gospel. It’s the extension of the first: syndoulos, fellow servant, syndoulos, servant-with, syndoulos. You see, human beings are not simply related to God, one to one. That’s an idea that came out of the Renaissance, but it’s an inadequate idea. That which relates human beings to God also and by itself relates them to one another, and both these ideas much be preserved. One of the most significant tragedies to come out of the Protestant Reformation was an exclusive emphasis on individual salvation. There’s a magisterial treatise on this, by the way, by Jacques Maritain, in a book called Three Reformers. Jacques Maritain, in his marvelous and indispensable book, Three Reformers, shows the fruits of Luther’s own spiritual crisis.

In fact, so much tragedy of the modern world, including the tragedy of anti-Semitism, passed through the soul of Luther, with an excessive emphasis on individual salvation. I don’t for a moment believe Luther intended any of that, that the Church and those who followed the lead of Luther, that the Church was relegated to second status. That it’s man to God, God to man, and on the basis of that the Church is founded—no, no, no, no: that’s not how it happens. You come into communion with God by joining the Church, and by the Church I mean the historical Church, starting with Israel, and up to this congregation right now.

In today’s reading, it was the syndouloi, fellow servants, who save the day. The fellow servants interceded on behalf of the servant treated without mercy. The fellow servants, the syndouloi, are those who remove the roof and lower the paralytic into the presence of Christ. The syndouloi carry the Christian infant to the font of baptism, thus sharing their faith for the next generations of believers.

I started by saying that today’s parable is about the Church. The ekklesia—that’s the word “church”; you see the word “ecclesiastical” is in there. Ekklesia, from the Greek verb, kaleo, meaning to call. It is interesting that it is very similar to the Hebrew expression, qahal: the qahal Adonai, the assembly of the Lord. In the book of Exodus in the Septuagint, ekklesia translates qahal in Hebrew. The word ekklesia appears only three times in the four gospels. I am giving you a little tidbit here that you can use at the check-out line over at Jewel-Osco that would get you lots of notoriety. Or the next time you attend a cocktail party. What are the three places where the word, ekklesia, appears in the gospels? All three places, it’s only in the gospel of Matthew. Mark, Luke, and John never use the word. And two of those times are in Matthew 18, the chapter we read this morning; two of those times.

The Church is a notion that the service of God is a joint effort, in which we are very much dependent on one another. I devoutly hope and pray that you do not let this fundamental principle simply become a cliché. When I was writing this, I was thinking, “How can I keep this from becoming a cliché?” Please don’t hear this as a cliché or reduce it to a cliché. We really do depend on one another. I want you to hear that as a mandate, coming straight from Mount Sinai. We depend on one another. Please keep that in mind every time the choice arises in your mind: “Shall I attend vespers tonight?” Keep that in mind, every time that question arises: “Should I attend vespers tonight? Shall I arrange my schedule to make sure I don’t miss vespers, or some other service of the Church?” Keep that principle in mind, that every one of us depends on the others. We’re syndouloi; we’re fellow servants.

Third and last, the third Greek word is adelphos. I think you got it. Adelphos, anybody? Brother! Very good, very good. In fact, I think most of you said it. Adelphos means brother. We can just as easily shift it to the feminine, adelphe; I don’t mind that. I think since probably most of you know what the word “Philadelphia” means—what does it mean? “City of brotherly love.” I remember the first time I went to Chicago—from Chicago, rather, to Philadelphia. In my very first encounter, I saw that the city itself was very badly named. I had evidence within the first five minutes in Philadelphia that it should not be called that at all. But I know that the founders of Philadelphia, they had a good intention.

Adelphos means brother; adelphe means sister. What was the last line—where is the deacon?—the last line of this morning’s gospel? “So shall your heavenly Father do to each of you if you do not forgive your adelphos from your kardia, forgive your brother from your heart.” There’s a defining word: more than doulos, more than syndoulos, is adelphos. The Church, beloved, is an extension of the dynamics of the family. In this respect we have a sad history we’ve inherited.

The first time the idea of fraternity appears in the Bible, the very first time that the word “brother” appears in the Bible, it comes in the context of fratricide. Fraternity and fratricide were together from the very beginning. The first human being born of woman kills his brother. So did the story of Cain and Abel become a metaphor for the tragedy of history. It was repeated this past week in places like Barcelona, where somebody got in an automobile and tried to run down people. Days later— well, anyway, we had Barcelona and Charlottesville, Virginia. Charlottesville was first, I guess, wasn’t it? And then Barcelona. Very tragic things, very sad things. It’s a repetition of what took place in the fourth chapter of Genesis, where fraternity meant fratricide.

St. Augustine of Hippo, in one of the most important works of Christian theology, an indispensible source of Christian theology, a book called The City of God drew a long comparison of the founding of the first city, by Lamech, who was a murderer—he was the son of Cain, more of a murderer than Cain was, but Lamech founds the first city. Augustine saw the parallel with Rome. Romulus and Remus, that the city was founded by somebody who killed his brother, that the great effort of fraternity became the great enterprise of fratricide.

Let me take you to 1917—it’s a little bit of a stretch for me, too. Let’s go to 1917. During the titanic fratricide known as the Great War, and later called World War I, one of the most important writers putting pen to paper that year was a philosopher, a Greek scholar, the dean president of the University of Salamanca, by the name of Miguel de Unamuno. Miguel de Unamuno wrote what was arguably his most important work: Abel Sánchez: Una historia de pasión; Abel Sánchez: A History of Passion. It’s a story about two men named Joaquin and Abel. Isn’t that cute? Joaquin and Abel. One is an artist—Abel is an artist; Joaquin is a scientist. You see the transformation where you have the fight between the farmer and the shepherd in chapter four of Genesis? This one is an artist and a scientist.

The character of Abel thought of himself as the brother of Joaquin. Joaquin thought of Abel as his rival. Joaquin devotes his entire life to the murder of Abel. At the end of the story, he has no life. I won’t tell you how the story ends, but he has no life. His whole life was consumed with loathing, hatred, murder. I must tell you that I have met such people, whose whole lives were consumed with hatred, sentiments of revenge, towards someone who had wronged them or wronged their family; not just the ones who had wronged them, but their families as well. This appears over and over again in literature. I mean, I guess the most famous example for us is House of the Seven Gables, or maybe Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner.

Families! Families that hate one another: I have seen that in the Christian Church. This is what Miguel de Unamuno saw in the events of 1917. The human race had become a Joaquin, a Cain. But you know there is a sense in which—I think a real sense, I’d be ready to argue with a thesis—that World War I did not end until 1945, with the two ideologies that fought one another, fascism and Marxism, the same two ideologies that were in conflict in Charlottesville, Virginia, this past week—same two ideologies: Marxism and fascism. This is the story of Cain and Abel.

How do we reverse this story? Well, we start with the Church, the ekklesia, the qahal Adonai, the desert community, which has deliberately taken leave of Egypt. We make sure that in the Church we do not engage in the ideological fights that dominate the world. No place for that in the Church of God! There’s no place for that in your email; there’s no place for that in your Facebook. We separate ourselves from Egypt; we withdraw ourselves from Egypt. We live in the house of God, which is the house of forgiveness, the house of reconciliation. The reality of the Church must determine the structure and content of our lives. This is the house of forgiveness, the house of eternity. Amen.