“For where two or three are gathered in my name,
there am I with them (Mt.18:20).” There
is no doubt that this is one of the most quoted passages in the Bible
particularly when we start talking about what the church is. Jesus is in our midst when we gather together
as his disciples. That’s our
foundational given. Yet, it is a given
that begs some questions, questions like, “How do we know he is here?” or more
simply, “What does he look like?”
How do we know Jesus is here? What does he look like? Let me give you an image. I once knew a man back in my university days
who was a musical genius. He was a
one-man band/orchestra on the synthesizer/keyboard, which was a relatively new
piece of technology in the world of music back in the late ‘80’s. We got into a discussion one day about
recording because I was doing a little bit of that and so he had me over one
afternoon to demonstrate how he put music together using just his
synthesizer/keyboard.
I sat in the corner of his basement studio and he set
to work. Keep in mind, he’s not using
any music. He was making up a song there
on the spot. He started out making the
keys of the keyboard be different kinds of drums and by tapping out a beat on
the keys he programed in some drums. Then
he switched it to piano and added a basic chord progression and recorded it on
top of the drums. Then he changed it to
an upright bass, then some guitars, and strings and horns. He had it all sequenced over each other, a
basic sound track of a song. Then, he
added in saxophone solos, trumpet solos, keyboard and guitar solos – all from
this keyboard. Then, he tweaked with
different kinds of percussion. I was
gobsmacked…and all just off the top of his head.
This man is what I would call a symphonizer. He heard the music in his head and he had the
ability to make the music happen. He
understood music in all its intricacies and how everything worked together,
what needed to happen where for it to sound better. He made sounds, silence, and time come into
the state of agreement we call the harmonies that make up what we call
symphony.
To talk about what Jesus looks like in our midst is
to talk about symphony or rather symphonising among the troubled relationships
of human community; doing with human relationship what this man was doing with
his keyboard. Jesus is the Great
Symphonizer. He is in our midst working at
human relational symphony that looks like him.
Symphonizing is what Jesus points us to in verse 19
when he says: “Again, truly, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about
anything the ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven (NIV).” Unfortunately, that is a severely botched
translation easily misunderstood to say such ridiculous things as if two of you
agree in prayer that your minister should be wealthy and drive a Cadillac, God
the Father will make it happen. What
this verse really says is “Whenever two of you prayerfully symphonize in any
matter of Christian community on earth, God the Father will do it for them in
heaven.” Now let me give my case for why
it should be translated this way.
The word for “agreement” there in the New Testament
Greek is the verb form of the word from which we get our word “symphony”. It is “symphoneo”
or symphonize. This is a word rooted in
musical imagery in Greek just as it is in English. The image Jesus is giving us is that we are to
prayerfully go about the work of making our Christian fellowship look like
musical harmony, particularly when we are broken and there are conflicts.
The word “anything” is not there in the Greek text. Jesus is not telling us to pray for anything
and agree about it and God will do it.
Jesus says “all pragma”.
Pragma is the word we get “pragmatic” from. As most of you are farmers you know pragmatic
means sticking to the simplest things that work in order to get it done. Pragmatism – “If it works, it’s true.” In Greek, pragma
are the things we do – our deeds, our actions.” Prayerfully working to come to agreement,
symphonising, in the things we do as Jesus’ disciples is the direction Jesus is
pointing us in.
So, what are the pragma we are to symphonize? Well, Jesus begins verse 19 by saying
“Again.” This means he is referring to
things he has just said. This passage
comes near the end of a discourse Jesus has been giving his disciples about the
nature of community in his kingdom.
The first pragma
is conducting oneself according to childlike humility. Chapter 18 begins with
the disciples coming to Jesus and asking, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom
of Heaven?” Jesus answered by pulling a
child to himself and saying, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become
like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the
greatest in the kingdom of heaven”.
Next, Jesus tells the disciples to be careful in
their conduct. They must not by their
conduct put temptations before others or cause others to fall away. We may not consider something we do to be a
sin, but if it causes another to judge us or fall away from Christian fellowship,
then we best not do it.
Next, if we do cause someone to fall away from our fellowship,
like a shepherd seeking a single lost sheep we must seek that person out to
bring them back. Our typical reaction
when someone leaves the church is to consign their leaving to being either
their problem or regard it as a matter of their private faith in which we
shouldn’t meddle. And so, we don’t do
anything. In Christian community we seek
out those who go astray from our fellowship and very pragmatically try to fix
what went wrong.
Similarly, when someone in the church wrongs another
one of us, in the majority of cases the one sinned against should discreetly
approach the one who wronged them. This
means that as a matter of first course we don’t react violently, or hold a
grudge, or malign the character of the one who harmed us. We go to them and try to work it out as
quickly and pragmatically as possible even though they wronged us. If at first they don’t listen, then we bring
others into it remembering that reconciliation rather than retribution is the
goal.
This discourse ends with Peter asking Jesus how many
times he must forgive his brother who repeatedly sins against him. Jesus answers, “Seventy times seven”. This means always. Because God has forgiven us and stays in a
relationship with us even though we never seem to cease sinning against him, so
are we to bear with one another continually pointing each other to Jesus where
there is healing.
Healing relationships is our pragma. Whenever we prayerfully come to agreement in any “pragmatic”
matter of Christian community on earth, God the Father will do it for us in
heaven. Jesus is the great
symphonizer. We are like that keyboard
synthesizer through which he makes the symphony of human community in his image
arise. When we prayerfully enter into
this work with him, the Father will make it here on earth as it is in
heaven. Amen.
