Dear Friends in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Only a year after the city of Savannah, Georgia was established in 1733, the first Lutherans colonists, the Salzburgers arrived- And a year later they had their first fight. Nearly 20,000 refugees were forced from their homes in Salzburg, Austria by order of the Roman Catholic Prince Archbishop Leopold on October 31, 1731.  Many journeyed to East Prussia, but 300 sailed to Georgia and from England and then 25 miles up the Savannah River to a place they would call Ebenezer, the “stone of hope.” In Ebenezar, they established Jerusalem Lutheran Church, the oldest continuously worshipping Lutheran Church in America, as well as the first Sunday School and orphanage.  The pastor Johann Martin Bolzius shared James Oglethorpe’s, the founder of Georgia’s vision for the colony as a place of new beginnings for refugees and the worthy poor.  And then they had a quarrel.

General James Edward Oglethorpe, himself was born to a prominent British family. He left university in England to attend a military academy in France before fighting under Prince Eugene of Savoy in the Austro-Turkish War. When he was 26, he inherited his family estate and was elected at a reforming Tory to the British House of Commons. He almost did not serve when, in a drunken brawl, he killed a man and spent five months in prison, before he was cleared of murder and released from prison. As a young member of the Parliament, Oglethorpe’s attention was drawn to the conditions of sailors and soldiers and England’s debtors’ prisons after his friend, Robert Castell, was sent to Fleet Prison and died there. As chair of the Gaols Committee, he began touring debtors’ prisons and wrote detailed reports presented to Parliament. He observed that they were overcrowded, abusive places and plagued with disease.

Although many prominent Britons praised Oglethorpe and his committee, Conservative members of the House of Commons attempted to prevent change by deriding the committee members as “amateurs and zealots.” While working on the Committee, Oglethorpe met and John Perceval with whom he shared a plan to establish a new American colony.  The colony would be a place to send “the unemployed and the unemployable.” Although initially there was no set location for the colony, it soon became clear that the territory south of the Savannah River could become a ‘buffer zone’ between the prosperous Carolinas and Spanish Florida. People sent to the colony would serve as both soldiers and farmers, making the colony ‘South Carolina’s first line of defense’

In 1732, Oglethorpe, Perceval, and a group of other prominent Britons (collectively known as the Trustees for the Establishment of the Colony of Georgia in America) petitioned for and were eventually granted a royal charter to establish Georgia.   Soon, they selected the first group to send to the colony from wide-ranging applications.  Since the colony was designed to benefit the poor, the trustees placed a limit  on the size of individual land holdings. The trustees wanted to avoid the situation in South Carolina, which had very large plantations and extreme gaps between the wealthy and the poor.  Slavery was not to be practiced in the new colony.  There would also be no established religion. Roman Catholics, however, were not allowed to live in the new colony since it was feared that they would align with the Spanish.  Additionally, there was to be no sale of alcohol in Georgia.

Together with 120 settlers aboard the Anne, Oglethorpe as the de facto governor reached Charleston, South Carolina in January 1733 and the following month arrived in Georgia. He saw Native Americans as participants in the new economy that Europeans brought to America., so he soon negotiated with Tomochichi chief of the Yamacraw tribe for the land on which to build Savannah.  Mary Musgrove, a woman of mixed English and Indian parentage, was his translator.

Although Catholicism was the only religion expressly forbidden in the charter, the Georgia Trustees also decided to forbid Judaism in the new colony, however,  the first summer the colonists in Savannah suffered from the intense heat and illness. At one point, half of the 120  were dreadfully sick. Fortunately a ship with Jewish passengers unexpectedly arrived, including a doctor, Samuel Nunez. Dr. Nunez went to work healing the sick, all of whom recovered, and the doctor refused payment for his services. Even though the Trustees in London expressly forbade Jewish people from settling in the new colony, Oglethorpe, welcomed the Jewish immigrants to Georgia by offering them their own land..

Oglethorpe returned to England in 1734 to raise money for the fledgling colony and subsequently made several trips back and forth, including a voyage in 1736 in which he accompanied two young Church of England ministers John and Charles Wesley a gifted hymn writer who together began the Methodist Movement.  Oglethorpe’s longest residence in Georgia was from 1738-1743 when he battling with fighting the Spanish in Florida..

In 1743, Oglethorpe left Georgia for the last time, aboard a ship oddly called named Success, for that was not how he felt. Oglethorpe who had once envisioned a utopian colony that prohibited slavery and alcohol, and where religious tolerance was accepted, left discouraged and dismayed. Oglethorpe’s vision was now questioned by the very colonists he helped to be free. The Lutheran pastor Bolzius in Ebenezer criticized him for the land he had been given after the congregation had been forced to relocate to a healthier location.a Oddly Bolzius rejected the German Moravians for being heretical, but was able to form relationships with Anglican and Jewish leaders, until he met the Wesley brothers who refused to celebrate communion with him over a disagreement on bishops. Oglethorpe’s struggles with colonists, however, weren’t just religious.  A contentious rebellion was growing among a few of the settlers known as the Malcontents who opposed the leadership of the colony’s trustees in London, and their resistance to slavery in Georgia.

Oglethorpe discovered in Georgia what Jesus had warned his disciples of 1700’s years earlier, that when well-meaning people gather together in Christ’s  name, they don’t all see eye to eye on what it means to be the church. Just as in a marriage, the issue is never whether there will be fights and disagreements; but the question is always how will Christians live and work together when conflicts do arise.  A marriage, a friendship and a church are a lot alike.

Jesus begins his teaching in St. Matthew’s gospel by recommending to his disciples straight talk. If you’ve got a problem with someone, your spouse, a co-worker, deal with it directly. Don’t embarrass that person in public — deal with the person one-on-one if you can. Don’t do it on the telephone; certainly not in a letter.  Words on paper can be misinterpreted.  Don’t text them, and try to include all the smiley faces that you can.  Do it in person; and don’t beat around the bush or sugarcoat it. Get right to it.

But that’s hard for some of us stoic Lutherans to do.  Instead of direct talk, we talk behind others. More harm has been done to others with the phrase, “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but did you know…?” than with any other words.  On the other hand, some people don’t seem to have any trouble with straight talk. In fact, the trouble is that some enjoy it too much.  For these, scripture reminds us that we are to speak the truth in love.

If straight talk doesn’t work in resolving the problem, Jesus then instructs others to get involved.  It’s a process. Try to settle disputes and differences of opinion with a few wise, patient, and loving friends. Finally, if that doesn’t work, and if the person still refuses to listen the counsel of others, then, treat them as Jesus said, as Gentiles or tax collectors.  Yes, treat them as your enemies.  Send them away from the church and from your life.

There’s only one problem with this approach. It’s not what Jesus did.  Instead, Jesus taught  “Love your neighbor as you your love yourself.   And love even your enemy.”  Jesus did not abandon the Gentiles and the tax collectors. No, he did the opposite. He went out to meet them and to dine with them.  In turn, he was criticized by the religious leaders of his time because of how he treated those whom they had cast aside.

Now, you may be wondering: so why is Jesus’ teaching on disagreement and disputes so important to the church that it would be included in Holy Scripture?  Or what does this have to do with Georgia. Certainly, it would have been easy for St. Matthew to overlook this passage on discipline and good churchly order.  But throughout these past weeks, as we have read the stories of Peter and the first disciples, we have been reminded that Jesus chose imperfect and fallible men to proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom.  The same was true of our nation’s founding fathers and their establishing this great union. They were not perfect, and certainly did not live perfect lives. And neither do we today. But God is still counting on you to make a difference.  You are the church, and you have a holy purpose.

My friends, as we prepare for the fall before us and Rally Sunday next week, ask yourself two questions:  First, Why do you need the church? And second, What does the church need of you?

So why do your need the church?  Perhaps you need to hear the sweet sound of the gospel of Jesus Christ, his word of forgiveness and the promise of new life.  Perhaps, you need a quiet place where you can speak intimately with God.  Perhaps, you need to be surrounded by a company of fellow believers.  Perhaps, you are hungering and thirsting for the gifts God offers at his holy table.  Or perhaps, your need is less defined.  You are still searching, but you know that what you are ultimately searching for is to be found here. There are many reasons that you and I need the church.

And what does the church need of you?  Primarily the purpose of the Church is to bless you, so that you may be a blessing to others.  That is why we all need the Church, for where two or three are gathered in my name, there Jesus promises to be present in their midst.  That is the gift God has called you and this church, as imperfect as we may be, to share with others. Amen

May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and mind in Christ Jesus. Amen.