Ezekiel 33:7-11; Psalm 119:33-40; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20
The Rev. Candice B. Frazer
For years I have lamented the billboard on I-65 North, “Go to church or the Devil will get you” as a sign of our backward, judgment-oriented relationship to God. It seems more threatening than inviting, making a claim that we should be more scared of the devil than love God. At the least, it is embarrassing. At the most, it is disingenuous—damaging people’s relationship with God and trust for the church. The sign itself highlights the hypocrisy of our cultural Christianity—go to church so you won’t go to Hell. And when you get to church you hear all the other ways you’ll end up in Hell anyway. Sounds a bit like false advertising to me.
Then the sign fell down…and I missed it. I didn’t realize how much that sign had become part of my drive north. I look for the sign every time I take that route. It has become part of what it means for me to live in Montgomery. Worth Stuart, a priest in Huntsville who grew up here at Ascension, once told me that the original sign had been painted on the side of his grandfather’s gas station. I don’t know if his grandfather was Episcopal, but I do appreciate the sign’s Episcopal connection especially as I consider it a reflection of a more fundamentalist Christian message.
Episcopalians aren’t known for our concerns about going to Hell. It is really not part of our tradition. We are less likely to be motivated by such concerns and more likely to be turned off by them. We know that we fall short and miss the mark, and yet, that does not seem the motivating factor in why we go to church or our spiritual development. We are much more motivated by being drawn closer to God rather than avoiding the devil. It is not that we believe we are without sin or that the grace extended by God is not without cause or consequence in our own lives. We don’t profess or celebrate a cheap grace. As a matter of fact, we—the church—are tasked with guarding the grace of God so that it is not cheapened.
To guard the grace of God is not about determining one another’s guilt or sin. God has not asked us to judge one another. God tells us to love one another. God loves us and takes no pleasure or delight in anything but that love. God always desires to draw us nearer—to restore us in relationship with God and one another. God’s justice is not punitive—it is not about punishment—it is restorative.
Though you may have heard me tell the story of Banshee and the dead fish, I hope you might humor me in the retelling of it as it illustrates this understanding of divine justice.
Many of you have met, or at least know of, “Church Dog.” Banshee is a black and white cattahoula/blue tick hound mix. She is almost sixteen years old and comes to church with me almost every day. She doesn’t do a lot these days other than sleep and eat, but in her younger days she was always getting into something. Her nose is legendary.
The Frazer’s have a house on St. John’s Bay in Orange Beach, AL. Whenever Steve and I go, we always take the dogs. Banshee loves the beach. She loves to bark at the boats passing by and snooze on the deck in the sun. But her absolute, number one, most favorite thing to do is to roll in dead fish.
As soon as we get to the beach and let her out of the car, she will take off for the pier her nose high, sniffing the air in search of her favorite smell—dead fish carcass lying in the sand. You can always tell when she has caught wind of the foul odor—she will stand perfectly still, her ears perked like handlebars on the top of her head, her eyes focused on one spot. In that moment, you must recognize the signs and act instantly if you have any hope of dissuading her. Over the years, I have conditioned her to come to me with a certain whistle, so I will immediately start whistling and calling her name with a joyful and positive tone of voice—one that is inviting and not threatening. I’ve learned that Banshee, like us, responds better to possibilities than to warnings.
Sometimes, that is all it takes. She will heed my call to her, drop her ears, turn slowly from her temptation, and return to me. And when she does, I will love all over her and tell her what a good dog she is—praising her for her good choice in returning to me. Other times, she will ignore me, lower her head and begin to track where the smell is coming from. When that happens, I continue to call her still with a positive tone of voice, though now a bit more urgently. Occasionally, it works and I reward her with praise and affection—loving all over her and telling her what a good dog she is. However, more often than not, she will follow that nose, find the dead fish, and then begin to roll in it. Banshee is never happier or more gleeful than when she is rolling in dead fish.
After a time, she will stop. And I will call her again in a positive and inviting tone of voice. And she will come trotting back to me with her head down and a sheepish expression on her face. And when she gets to me, stinky and smelling like dead fish, I will love all over her and tell her what a good dog she is—praising her, not for rolling in dead fish, but for her good choice of returning to me. Because I know that if I were to fuss at her, she would be less inclined to return to me the next time.
Her return to me is not her complete restoration in relationship. She still smells like dead fish—and in that condition, she will not be allowed into the house much less in the bed to sleep with us at night. For those things to happen, she must take a bath and Banshee equates water from the hose to acid being poured on her skin. She is all for the lathering of the soap, but she is not at all fond of getting wet via the hose. Banshee, if she could reason, might see the bath as punitive. But the purpose of the bath is restorative. The consequences of her poor choice to roll in dead fish is a bath so that she might reenter the house and sleep in the bed—be restored to full relationship with us, even with herself.
That is the divine justice we hear professed by the prophet Ezekiel this morning. “’As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live…”. God does not want us to go to Hell. God created us to be in relationship with him and desires our return to him again and again and again—no matter how many times we choose to roll in dead fish. That choice to return to God will require something of us. 1) We must make that choice intentionally—choosing life with God rather than the many distractions that take us away from God. 2) Accepting the consequences of our choices as restorative rather than punitive.
The goal of the church, of those who belong to the salvific community of Christ, is to embody the holiness of God in life and witness. We do that not by offering a cheap grace that closes an eye to the wickedness of the world nor by judging others when they fall short of this witness. We do that by being the place of return; an open and inviting place that praises one another for our willingness to return to God—even and especially when that choice is hard. We don’t go to church to avoid the devil; we go to church to grow in our love of God and one another.