?A Fettered Soul?
A Sermon by Carol Howard Merritt
Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
September 7, 2008

Text: Matthew 18:15-20

It was early in the morning, about five a.m., and the phone rang. I was in a daze, stumbling around, trying to find the cordless that?s never on the hook when I need it. When I finally found the receiver on the couch, I looked at the caller I.D., and I could see that it was Bee, a wonderful woman from my congregation. But she was not someone who would ordinarily call at an inconvenient time, so I was immediately worried.

Bee called because when she rolled over that morning, she realized that her husband, Roger, was no longer breathing. He was cold. The news snapped me quickly out of my sleep. I told her to call 9-1-1, threw on some clothes and drove to her home as quickly as I could. 

I arrived in the early fog of the morning. Everything looked lush and green and alive around me, so I could hardly imagine that I was meeting death. By the time I got there, Bea was completely dressed, and standing with a worried stare. The ambulance had come and gone, and declared that Roger was dead.

It was strange to see Bee there, a solitary figure in her spotless kitchen. I didn?t know why exactly, until I realized at the moment that Roger had been beside her every time I saw them. I had never seen her without him. Suddenly she looked very lonely, as if a part of her self had been severed off.

They were a couple of the sweetest people that I knew. I never heard them complain or grumble about each other. They had been married for over sixty years, and during that time they worked together as well. They owned a dress shop, a place where her fine taste and business sense was needed as much as his outgoing salesmanship.

They completed each other. But then, as quick as a sudden storm, he was gone. When Bee explained it to me later, she said, ?It felt like a part of myself died that night.?

She was not the first person to say that. I?ve heard that sentiment before. And though I?ve never lived through the death of a spouse, I have begun to understand that sacred connection that people have with one another. I have begun to understand that our souls are fettered.

It?s a connection that can happen instantly, or it can happen through birth, or it can grow with years and years of living with one another. It?s the realization that we are bound to one another, not only physically, but also spiritually and emotionally. It is something seen, but also something that is unseen as well.

I think this might be what Jesus is talking about in the passage this morning. Jesus is instructing his disciples with some extremely practical advice about church conflict: when you have a problem with someone, go to them directly. If that doesn?t resolve it, then take a couple people with you. If that doesn?t help, then treat that person as a Gentile or a tax collector. In other words, realize that they are no longer a part of your community. You are not responsible for them.

Then Jesus says, ?Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.?

It?s hard to say exactly what this means. There is almost a magical quality to the words. Like, there are many times in the Bible when it says that Abraham or the followers of Jesus could bless or curse people.

I hope this isn?t the case. With as many disagreements and factions that have arisen since the day that Jesus said these words, I would hate think that we can curse each other.

But I do think that Jesus is talking about something very important here. He?s pointing to a connection that we have with one another. It?s almost the basis of what it means to be human. There are times when we see one another, and we know that have a responsibility to one another.

I have been reminded of the connection this summer, during the lazy days of our summer vacation, when I have the pleasure of reading to my child for hours.

One of the great things about having a child is that I can immerse myself in children?s literature. I always read grown-up books before I had Calla, but now I can review the great ones that I read when I was a kid, and I have been able to read the rich and fascinating fairytales that have come out since then. The entertaining characters and tragic stories of Lemony Snickets and Harry Potter have filled our last two summers.

In my grown-up reading, authors like Benjamin Barber have said that adults reading children?s books is part of a corporate goal to infantilize adults, and therefore keep them buying more and more. I disagree. These are the myths that are forming a new generation. Children will imagine, identify with, and gain strength from these characters. A person would have a difficult time understanding a girl in our country without ever knowing the story of Cinderella, or a man without knowing anything about Superman. And so I read the books to my daughter, and enjoy doing it.

There are even books that Calla grew weary of and I continued to read with fascination. One of them was a book we began this summer, The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman. Pullman is a professor from Oxford and an atheist, and his distasteful views of the church are evident throughout the book. However, he sets up an interesting world.

In the Golden Compass, humans have souls that take an animal form. There is almost a Jungian sense of the shadow side of the person in the concept. For small children, the animals take different forms and shapes, depending on the child?s mood or circumstance. But when a person gets older, the animal settles, and becomes one form for the rest of the person?s life.

It?s a great literary device. We can often understand the deep longings or true feelings of the characters by the way that their animals are behaving. And the initial suspicion, disgust, or pleasure that two characters have when they meet are displayed through the growling or purring of their animals.

But the most masterful thing that Pullman depicts in the story is that pull that binds the human to his or her animal. It?s much stronger than having a pet. The animal is part of the person. When the children are small, they learn to experiment. They try to separate themselves from their animals, they try to see how far they can get from each other, but they quickly run back together, in great relief.

We obviously don?t have an animal connected to us that serves as our soul, but it is clear that there is something, something that we cannot feel or smell or taste, that binds us to one another. The bond is not visible, but it is there and it is strong.

As a pastor, I have had that sacred position of walking with people throughout their lives. When major events occur, like birth, marriage, death, or divorce, I can describe this invisible tie, that connects people to a family as fiercely as if they were bound by chains.

Sometimes the fetters are clear due to the palpable love, and then there are other times when the tie is damaging. When a person is in a dysfunctional family, an abusive relationship, or an addiction, and even though it is clear that the person should be loosed from the relationship, they cannot find it in their power to severe it. It takes a great deal of time, attention, and counseling before the person becomes strong enough to leave.

There is something base and primal about our connections. When my daughter was born, for instance, I remember being utterly exhausted, and looking into her red face and wide-open eyes. She was a mere six pounds, and yet when I saw her, this ferocious love grew up inside of me. And I knew that I would do everything and anything in my power protect her.

But the interesting thing that happened was that it also strengthened my connection with children in general. I became more aware of what was happening in schools, I began to understand how bankruptcies affect middle class families with children, I began to find out just how many children go without health care. I became more aware of our educational system, and the huge inequities. I walk through the grocery store, and the cry of a child feels like an alarm going off inside of me. As a parent, something has bound me

This is just one example, but we all know how this happens. A mother died of breast cancer, and so her son becomes aware of just how damaging the cancer is, and becomes highly involved with trying to find a cure. Or a person who is affected by racism, who works hard to make sure that civil rights legislation is passed.

When I look around this sanctuary, I can see a number of people who have been affected by different issues, and it has caused a connection, we have been bound by different causes and circumstances. Whether it is concern for the environment, education, health care, advocacy for families, homelessness, poverty, AIDS, care for the elderly, people with autism, concern for those in prisons, violence against women, civil rights for those with same-gender relationships—many of you have looked into the face of someone, or you have had to endure some sort of hardship, and it has propelled you. And a connection developed, not only between you and that one person, but it made you aware of the suffering or particular circumstance of so many others. And you found a connection. A deep, binding connection.

And it seems to me that Jesus is talking about that very connection—that connection that calls people into lifetimes of service and community organizing. There may be some that say that community organizers have no responsibility, but I say there is a deep and burning responsibility there. It calls men and women into dedicating their whole lives for a cause. In other words, what binds us physically, will also have a deep spiritual binding on us as well.

It will be a bind that we cannot see. And it will often be a bind that other people cannot see. They may not understand why in the world you gave your life to something that makes no sense to anyone else. They may not understand why you would work for less pay than you could get somewhere else, just so that you could make a difference in your community. They do not understand it because the do not realize that your heart and soul is fettered to your community. It is bound by something that pulls you outside of yourself and binds you with creation and with one another.

And here, in our gathering this morning, as we take the bread and the cup, we acknowledge that we are bound, here on earth as well as in heaven. We have sinews that make up the Body of Christ. We have fettered souls.

To glory of God, our Creator

God, our Liberator and

God our Sustainer. Amen.