In the 1997 romantic comedy “As Good As It Gets”starring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt there are a couple of classic lines. Nicholson plays a wealthy writer suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder who finds himself slowly falling in love with the waitress who serves him the same breakfast, in the same booth, in the same diner everyday, played by Helen Hunt.
You know how romantic comedies work. They are all based around the theme of two people who “can’t live with each other and can’t live without each other.”
At the obligatory moment of exasperation with Nicholson, Hunt turns to her mother, played by Shirley Knight, and this classic exchange follows. Hunt asks: “Why can't I have a normal boyfriend? Just a regular boyfriend, one that doesn't go nuts on me!”
To which her mother replies: “Everybody wants that, dear. They don’t exist.”
Truer words were never spoken! An over-reaction to this would be to become like the characters in Shakespear’s “Loves Labour’s Lost” and swear off relationships entirely for something else. In their case it is scholarship. But, no matter what we choose we will soon discover that perfection (or even normalcy!) are like boyfriends, or girlfriends, or friends, or neighbours, and especially relatives. Regular ones, normal ones, don’t exist!
People get particularly disappointed when they discover that this is also true of churches. Perfect ones, normal ones, simply do not exist.
I follow a local pastor on Facebook, not long ordained and who has been in his parish a relatively short time. He is a generally good natured chap but to read his posts it is if he and his people have rediscovered Eden. An idyllic faith community where everybody loves each other, no one disagrees, and all the children are above average.
I have no idea whether Pastor McGuire is a Facebook friend of this pastor or not but, if he is, I am sure with every rendition of our friends, “Oh what a beautiful morning...” Guys like McGuire and me, with more than a few miles on our ordination vows, might be tempted to respond to this relative newbie with: “Just you wait, Henry Higgins, just you wait.”
Everybody in this room knows, or, I hope knows, that just like perfect partners, there are no perfect churches. Even before it took on any form and was just a group of people trying to follow Jesus as best they could, there was squabbling, and feuding, and fussing, and fuming. Our Lord not only anticipated but experienced how difficult it is to keep any group together. Jesus seemed to understand that the idea of community would be great, if it weren’t for all the people.
Very seldom in the gospels do we find Jesus being prescriptive. Whenever he was asked a question he, in true rabbinical form, was most likely to answer the question with another question. Or, he would tell a story, give us a parable to illustrate his point, and then let us try to figure out what he meant.
Today Jesus is being direct. He is giving us a recipe for how to live in a less than perfect church in a less than perfect world. But, as with most things Jesus says what he tells us is not easy.
Just remember that “a huge church in Matthew’s day, included at the most 50 members. Their gathering were much more like small family reunions – maybe 20 – 30 people.” It is not hard for us to “imagine how the actions or attitude of one family member could spoil the festive gathering for the rest of the family.”
We know about that all too well.
Frankly, most of us are probably not particularly fond of Jesus first idea. “If a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him – work it out between the two of you.”
At this point we may be saying to ourselves: “Have you any other suggestions Jesus?”
This is because most of us hate conflict. It is not our idea of a good time to get into a confrontation with another person.
So what we often do is get Jesus’ steps way out of order. The first steps we take are the last steps Jesus says we should take.
We usually complain to a couple of friends and, almost before the words are out of our mouth, the whole community knows.
That’s the easier way.
Those with nothing better to do get on the phone and complain to each other how bad the situation is. The problem is that these conversations lead nowhere. They just cover the same territory over and over and since no creative thinking or even the slightest effort at problem solving is made, they only serve to make matters worse and turn slight wounds into deep divisions.
On occasions, however, I have found these conversations with a friend productive but only when they have been kind enough to call me out on my behaviour. You know you are dealing with a good friend when you say something like: “I can’t believe anybody would do that to me, or say that about me.” And your friend says, “O for the love of God! I’ve have people do and say worse things to me on some of the best days of my life. Get over it!”
Actually these people are following step one of Jesus’ pattern. In effect they are saying to you: “Your complaining is bothering me. Knock it off!” Sometimes that is exactly what we need to hear, but if that doesn’t sink in Jesus says we have to go to the person who has harmed us and talk to them.
Before we go we must understand the strategy and goals of the meeting because, Jesus goes on to say, that if the person listens you have gained back a friend.
The strategy is not one of “mutually assured destruction,” where you both yell at each other until the veins are sticking out in your foreheads, but restoration. The idea is to gain the person back as a friend and a member of the community.
Jesus is no fool about the human condition. He knows that sometimes even the best plans with the purest intentions do not work out. Restoration doesn’t happen but anger and resentment does. There is yelling, perhaps tears, and, for me, the most aggravating thing of all happens – the other person storms out of the room. I hate that! It makes me crazy! If you’re going to start something stay to the finish! Don’t go off and sulk like and overgrown three year old!
Jesus knows that some people are not into this restoration and healing business. For whatever reason, they would rather not only hang onto old wounds and grievances but nurse them. They feed them everyday making sure that the scars never heal.
Then it is helpful to understand that some people are lost to us forever.
It’s not that we wouldn’t welcome them with open arms and open hearts if we ever saw them again. It isn’t as if we wouldn’t sit them down, get them coffee or break out the finest wine in our supply if they ever came to our door. It’s not that we wouldn’t (We may already have!) tell them how much we’ve missed them and how glad we are to have them back. It’s just that we have become for them like a “tax-collector” or an “outcast.”
If you are like me you don’t have a hard time with a little confrontation. Get it out! Say it! Get it off your chest! But then, get over it! Perhaps it is the surfacing of my extremely recessive Italian genes that says. “Okay, we’ll have it out. We’ll yell a little. We’ll swear a little. And then, once we have both taken some time to catch our breath and cool off, we’ll sit down, we’ll have some nice pasta and a glass of red wine. We’ll eat, we’ll drink, we’ll laugh, it will be fine.”
A former administrator of this parish, Fawn Hurst, used to refer to my explosions, as my “going Italian.” Her secret was to do what Lyndon B. Johnson said he or his opponents would sometimes have to do. “Just hunker down like a jack-rabbit in a rainstorm” he advised, “and wait for things to pass.”
What I have spent my lifetime learning and am still learning is that sometimes people never get over these explosions. For them the storm is never over. Long after my clouds have passed, and I’m on to sunshine and brighter days, they are still cowering in their emotional rabbit holes searching the skies for any sign of a dark cloud.
I have to keep reminding myself that what Jesus is talking about here is restoration. It is a return of the person who wronged us, or who we have wronged to life in the community.
This may not work the first time, or the second time, or even as Jesus might say, the seventy-seventh time. If it doesn’t “you’ll have to start over from scratch, confront him [or her] with the need for repentance, and offer again God’s forgiving love.”
In “As Good as it Gets” the Jack Nicholson character says to Helen Hunt, now his girlfriend, as they ride along together in the car.
“Some of us have great stories, pretty stories that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad. Just no one in this car. But, a lot of people, that's their story. Good times, noodle salad. What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you're angry that so many others had it good.”
No one in this room, no one in any church, anywhere, in any place, at any time has a perfect life. So, if your idea of a perfect church is one where no one ever does wrong – one where it is just a long picnic by the lake with noodle salad – you’ll never find it on this earth.
But that’s all right, because that isn’t how God measures perfection. God measures by our love, by our concern for others, and by our readiness to give and receive forgiveness.
And, with Jesus’ help, just when we might begin to think that all loves labour’s are lost, we’ll discover that our imperfections, lived out in God’s grace, really are, as good as it will ever get.
Thanks for listening.
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