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My sister Kimmi is five years younger than I am. It’s a pretty big age difference. When we were kids, even with that age gap, we were always together – spending summers at our grandparents’ home in Montgomery, Alabama; growing up in Detroit and going to the same school from first through eighth grade. We’d argue over stuff like who would get to sit in the front seat of our parents’ cars – we’d race to the car to find out – or who would get to use what we’d call “the pretty spoon” because we loved how ornate the design was.
One of my favorite memories is when we would go to the grocery store with my mom.
We would buy Duncan Hines chocolate frosting in a tub and when we’d get home we’d divide it in equal halves and each of us would eat our side of icing right out of the container. We’d beg our mom to buy Double Stuf Oreos and we’d pull each cookie apart and put the ones with the cream filling on them together to make what we’d call Quadruple Stuf Oreos, then we’d eat them!
We have so many fun memories.
We were joined at the hip, but not because we wanted to be. But because our parents made us.
I always had to watch Kimmi. And I mean always. When I was 13 years old and she was 8 and I’d go to the mall with my friends, my parents told us that Kimmi would go with me and I had to babysit her. It was not fun for either of us. She’d want to go to the toy store first, but my friends and I would want to go to Musicland first. She’d throw temper tantrums and we’d ignore her. It was this vicious cycle. Me feeling resentful and put upon, and Kimmi feeling left out and rebellious. Just not fun all around. Neither one of us was acting right. My mother would say we were acting like we had “no home training.”
That tension strained our relationship for years, even when we were adults. It was there, underlying a lot of our interaction, just simmering.
Years later, at Kimmi’s college graduation, when we were sitting at a table for the family luncheon, my dad apologized for forcing us to be together! He said he knew that it had affected our relationship in really tough ways, and that it caused conflict with us and he wanted to apologize for that.
Kimmi and I were floored. We had no idea that he was aware of how that forced babysitting affected us. We did not experience it as being bonded in togetherness . . . it felt like we were bound in conflict.
Today’s Gospel story makes me think of that childhood story, because they are both about conflict. Let’s look at what’s happening in today’s story.
We see Jesus describing conflict in the early church. It’s an enigmatic text, because we don’t know what kind of conflict is going on. It could be anything. What we do know is that there is a conflict and Jesus wants them to address it.
I’m going to share a bit of teaching on the Gospel of Matthew. In Matthew, Jesus is teaching his Jewish audience how to reconcile traditional Jewish law with changing or expanding it in the ways Jesus envisioned it. Laws around what was forbidden and what was permitted. That’s what binding and loosing means. It’s the term for how Jewish communities at the time interpreted the law. The law wasn’t just a rulebook. The law is always about how to be in right relationship — with God and with one another.
Teaching part is over! No matter how you interpret this text, we do know that it is about how people relate to one another.
Jesus encourages us to go toward one another, even in conflict. In the text, Jesus starts at the smallest level, one by one, and gathers more people as he goes. From the two people in conflict, to then adding a few witnesses, then to the whole church. Jesus is establishing community. Jesus is saying to not only go toward one another, but to be with one another. Not gossipy, but accountability. Not chastising, but encouraging. Jesus is saying what we know here at Epiphany: that relationship is primary. Jesus wants people to stay tethered to one another. Even when they are in conflict.
I believe there’s a key for us to do that: by giving an apology.
Apologies can be a funny thing. The interesting thing about them is that they are unexpected. Someone might apologize to you and you barely remember what their “error” was. Maybe the apology comes across to you like a confrontation or a crashout, or it comes years later but time has minimized the impact on you and you’re kind of over it. Maybe you clearly remember what made you mad or hurt you, and you may not even get an apology, or if you do it may be too little too late.
In the case of my dad, it was years later when Kimmi and I were in our 20s and he apologized. We didn’t even know he was aware of the conflict that bound my sister and me. Kimmi and I talked about what his apology meant for her and my relationship.
But here’s the thing. We were not focused on the crucial thing.
We were getting caught up in how an apology is received. You and I can get so caught up in that!
The important thing is not receiving an apology, but giving one.
I’ll say that another way: There are many ways to receive an apology, but only one legitimate way to give one: by being genuine and doing it from the heart. You can’t worry about if it’s received or not. We can’t control that. We can control that we can choose to offer an apology.
If you keep trying to focus on the receiving, by getting a person to forgive you, you are binding yourself to their anger. You loose yourself by doing the apology. An apology that is sincere and intentional. That’s how this text invites us to deal with conflict.
We see conflict all around us, in our relationships and in the world. It can be tempting to isolate ourselves when things go wrong. You have an argument with a friend or loved one and you distance yourself or withdraw, out of anger or hurt or fear. I sometimes do that. I get caught up in “once I’ve told you that you’ve hurt me, I expect you to not do it ever again!” How righteous of me, and not the Jesus kind of righteous. More like self-righteous. That’s me declaring my own form of law, which is what Jesus in today’s story is urging us to not do.
God did not promise that there would be no conflict. Jesus is saying, Let God love you through your conflict. God will not leave you alone in it. This church won’t either. Not the early church that Jesus is addressing and not this church, Epiphany Parish, in the Madrona neighborhood on the mid-central eastern side of Seattle. We will be here to listen to you, and to care for you. Like my dad did. He did not leave Kimmi and me alone in our conflict.
This is how we encourage each other to live out Jesus’ example of godly life.
If you’re wondering about my dad, Kimmi and me, his apology loosed something in my relationship with Kimmi. She became the person I list as my emergency contact when I fill out a form. But that’s not my only focus.
What I focus on is my dad giving the apology. He was honest and genuine and intentional and from the heart, ego set aside. And the gems from his apology keep unfolding.
A couple weeks ago I was with my parents in Detroit. I asked my dad if he remembered his apology. He said yes. He shared that he put Kimmi and me together like that because both he and my mom are only children and they thought me looking out for Kimmi was how one cares for their family.
That apology helped us. At the end of the day, apology loosens. It is an act of love that binds us to one another.
It changed how we saw our parents. It shows me my father more clearly. We understood why our parents raised us as they did. It deepened our understanding of him ~ that he chose to share in, and acknowledge, the reality of our experience.
Now I see my dad’s apology as an act of care.
Jesus wants us to care for his family. Jesus yearns for us to turn toward him. He’s saying, Come to me, gather together, and turn toward each other. Again and again.
Our invitation is to look at an apology as an act of yearning to stay in relationship.
An apology acknowledges the other person’s inherent dignity. And it shows that you care for your inherent worth. Because a legitimate apology starts with each of us forgiving ourselves. The first step is deciding to show yourself mercy, because that’s what God does. And we’re called to extend that to others . . . You’re saying, I’m aware of how I affected your reality and I’m going to rely on Jesus’s teachings, and gather with you, to help me be my best self.
God yearns for you to be your best self.
God is not sorry that God made you.
No apology needed that God made you who and how you are.
God yearns for us to be in relationship with one another. We yearn for that too. That is an act of love that needs no apology.