23 rd Sunday We can be who we are Ezek. 33.7-9; Rom. 13.8-10; Mt.18.15-20.

The readings today are unusually coherent with each other and have as a common theme, our mutual responsibility to each other in the Christian Church. But first, I would like to point out one little thing in this passage from Matthew. Remember a couple of weeks ago we had the big recognition scene..."You are Peter, upon this rock...." Well, here you'll notice that forgiveness or the binding of sin is given not just to Peter but the community. That's really crucial. It's crucial because it leads into what is the central thing about forgiveness. To be forgiven means to be rejoined with the community.

So, I'd like to talk about community in terms I suggested last week, namely the relationship between truth and trust. Typically in the Church, at least in my experience, if somebody doesn't like what's going on, they call the bishop. Then the bishop calls the putative offender and says "Stop!" This whole process is short circuited, and something evil is occurring.

Why call the bishop? Because we don't trust the person that we irritated with enough to say it to his or her face. That's the crucial issue. If you do not trust this other you cannot announce the truth. You cannot be the truth because if there's an offense between you and somebody else, the truth of the thing is this offense and the truth is that you are the offended one and this is the offender. Now the only way that's going to be resolved is through an act of trust.

The offended one, as we are told here, is supposed to go to the offender and trust himself or herself to that one. In trust, the offended one can announce the truth, make the truth present, the truth of their reality which is the brokenness of their relationship. So the truth - trust thing is illuminated again. We see that truth only happens where there is trust. In this an enormous amount of light is cast on the entire gospel...the whole Christian life.

As I said last week, this is exactly what Paul says is the heart of the redemptive work of Jesus: we can now speak to each other. That lovely Greek work that he uses over and over...parhesia: we now can talk to each other and above all we can speak to those in power.

(Parhesia is basically a political term meaning that a citizen being able to talk to the political leaders.) But Paul says that's what happens in Jesus. That's the fruit of the redemption. That's how we are transformed. Where we can say that. Where we can be that. Where in a word, we can be who we are.

I really am an offender. I really am offended. That reality is only going to become present in this one to one encounter. If it is not done then, of course, the problem between us becomes abstracted and volatilised: evaporates into some sort of sick and pathological form of vindictiveness or resentment or anger or whatever. This is, of course, what typically happens.

But you see the way this is laid out here in the Gospel: we trustfully meet the other. You do that and if that doesn't work you make more effort, so that truth and trust can resonate in larger circles. And if the offender is not going to trust himself or herself in that situation to be reconciled then you tell the community. What is involved at this point is not some kind of condemnatory, juridical procedure..."Now you are a Gentile or tax collector." No. As we see all through the Hebrew bible and the New Testament too, this "telling" is simply a recognition of the way things are, that this person has chosen to stand outside the community. And that's truth too. Unhappy truth, but truth nevertheless. Because without that truth we go no place. We're stymied and above all, as Paul says in this passage from the Romans, love is impossible. Because this is the heart of the matter, literally, the heart of the matter. You cannot love except in truth. So that truth - trust thing is all a function of being available to each other. In the glorious words of Genesis... to be able to stand naked and unashamed before each other. With each other. That's supposed to be the hallmark of the church.

Just as a footnote. The Globe and Mail reported that the Pope is taking up a suggestion, interestingly, that he made two or three years ago to the College of Cardinals. The suggestion is that the Roman Church should start the third millennium penitentially, truthfully. In other words, trusting ourselves to the world as the sinners we are. (The Cardinals didn't think that was too good an idea at the time, so they dropped it.) But happily the Pope is pushing it further himself. Now let us hope he just details it because it doesn't do to say... Oh, I'm a sinner. SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! I'm really rotten. SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! We need to make the specifics, of course, otherwise there is no truth.

Let us be illumined by that example and hope he takes it further and helps us to do it too.