The Gospel
passage I just read only shows up in Matthew—and we hear Jesus say a word that
won’t show up in the Bible until Acts or the epistles. Jesus says “church.” I
see you shrug… so? Isn’t church all about Jesus, and shouldn’t Jesus be all
about “church?” Well, yeah, except why would Jesus be talking about church
discipline when the church hasn’t been invented yet?
I mean, the
gathering of believers won’t become “the church” until after Pentecost, and by
then Jesus has already been resurrected and ascended. So why is he talking
about a person in “the church who might sin against us,” when there isn’t yet a
church?
The Gospels that
we have in the Bible were gathered up by at least four different gatherings of
Christians way after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. It did not take
long for those first Christians to start gathering their memories and
re-telling what Jesus taught and did, and then some folks wrote it down. The
Gospels record Jesus’s actions, values and teachings, and they guided early
Christian communities in how to live and minister together, in this case the community
that brought us Matthew’s Gospel.
So, knowing
that, let’s listen again.
Jesus
said: If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the
fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have
regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along
with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three
witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and
if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you
as a Gentile and a tax collector. (Matt. 18.15-17)
Some people and churches use this passage as a procedure guide for how to throw someone out of their congregation. I don't think that's what's going on here. It's about keeping people in community, not exiling folks from it.
What we have
here is guidance for when folks in one of these new Christian communities get
mad at each other. It’s what to do when members have a beef. And, trust me,
whenever two or three are gathered together, someone is going to have a beef, or
get their nose bent out of joint, or get offended or offend someone. As long as
the church is filled with humans, it’s going to happen. So here is some
guidance as to what to do when that comes up.
But though this
passage is speaking to a post-resurrection community, I’m pretty certain its
roots go back to the fact that in his earthly ministry, Jesus had to deal with followers
who didn’t agree or didn’t get along or who did dumb things or who were just
plain wrong. So, I am thinking that when they were organizing Matthew’s church
and this stuff came up, they asked themselves, “what would Jesus do?” Or, at
least, “what would Jesus say?”
It may come as
a shock to you, but these problems haven’t gone away. You may not know it but
there is fine print in the Book of Common Prayer, where the Episcopal Church lays
out a procedure for excommunication. It’s on page 409. And since the BCP is a
constitutional document, that’s a pretty big deal. But there is also rites for reconciliation, commonly called confession, that are equally good places to start.
Now in my 44
years of ministry, I’ve never ever used the “disciplinary rubric.” But I have dealt
with a pinch or two in community. I have found that it’s pretty common for people
to get into conflict over little stuff. It might be over something operational,
like service times, or the style of the service, how we spend our money, or
over who does what in the parish, or who gets to decide this or that. Maybe
it’s about who wants to get married, or if we should host a 12-step group…I
could go on. I don’t know, but I’ll bet you know what I mean.
But before we
get caught up in the weeds the procedure, notice what Jesus doesn’t say.
First, he doesn’t say, “If someone sins against you, you should sulk, pout,
moan, make everyone else miserable, cut your pledge, call your lawyer and swear
before God and anybody else around that you’ll have nothing to do with that no-good
so-and-so until he or she crawls up to you begging your totally undeserved
forgiveness.” It doesn’t grant us permission to abuse the other person, call
them names, or turn them into a punching bag. It doesn’t say you should flood
social media with accusations, light up the phone lines, send out a flock of
e-mails, tweets, and Facebook posts, use AI to create cruel memes, whisper vile
things about the offender, move to another church, or write a nastygram to the
bishop. Neither Jesus nor Matthew say to do any of that.
Instead, we are
taught that if you are wronged, if you are the one hurt, then you are the one
who needs to take the initiative for forgiveness and reconciliation. Even if,
maybe especially if, it isn’t even your fault. That’s what the Gospel
says. The first step in your search for forgiveness and reconciliation comes
from you—even if that doesn’t seem fair.
And it isn’t
just the offended party who has to make the first move. Remember the Prodigal
Son over in Luke (15:11-32)? The dad didn’t send out a search party, but when
the son came to his senses and decided to come home and ask forgiveness, before
the repentant son even gets to blurt out his prepared speech, the father meets
him. And the father also meets the faithful son as he sulks in his room. Reconciliation
is found in the act of meeting.
Reconciliation may
not happen when the two parties totally agree. It may start when both sides
simply decide to stop fighting about it. Not sweep it under the rug, just not
allow it to define our relationship.
Sometimes we need help. Maybe the first step is to talk to a priest, maybe for counsel, maybe for confession, as a first step towards healing the breach. The twelve steps of AA talk about this: Steps 5 through 10 are all about reconciliation in dealing with our recovery and taking responsibility for the harm our addictive behavior may have caused.
Jesus’s
teachings on forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoring relationships never
seem fair. At least not at first. He always asks us to do more than we know we
should. In fact, it is in the very next verse after today’s Gospel lesson,
Jesus tells Peter to forgive, not 7 times but 7 times 70 times, which is
Bible-speak for “always.” (Matthew 18:22).
I wish today’s
passage was a magic bullet. I wish I could tell you following it will mean
everything will end with a sentimental moment like at the end of a Lifetime
movie. Doing this, or something like it, won’t necessarily make the other
person either act better or repent. They might not even like us and they might
even choose to hang on to their hurt or never change their hurtful behavior.
And while we might choose to steer clear of each other for a while for our own
sense of safety, none of this is why Jesus teaches us these lessons. Jesus
tells us to act this way because this is how God acts toward us, and he is
teaching us to imitate God every day.
When things get
rough, we are invited—urged, commanded, even!—to make the first move toward
reconciliation, no matter whose fault it is, no matter what we think is the
fair thing to do. As with some other things Jesus says, we don’t have to like
it, but we do have to do it. Or, at the very least, we need to take what Jesus
says very, very seriously.
Notice that in
this passage is that accountability is not a one-way road. In taking it to the
church, or I must add, maybe to a therapist or a mediator instead, we might
discover that the one who needs to get off his high horse… is me! Or maybe we
both need to settle down. Or maybe to relax and not try to make other people
behave the way we want. The community, in whatever form, may have wisdom that
hasn’t occurred to the injured parties. However it happens, it requires an open
heart, trust in the process, patience, and a sense of safety for everyone
involved. Whatever the process, reconciliation is the goal.
In these days
of “my way or the highway,” the Gospel insists that the common good—the overall
health and quality of the community, the family, the group—has a strong
positive claim on us. Seeking such common good takes priority over our own
satisfaction, our anger, or our sense of what we deserve.
[I will never
forget once watching a mother deal with two squabbling siblings. Both of them brought
their case to their parent, with all the drama that kids can bring. The mother
listened to both and realized that both kids were right, and that they were
both wrong. So, she sat them down and said, “Listen: you have only one brother
and you have only one sister. I love you both. Please work it out. Then tell me
what you decide.” I was impressed. Because I might have blown the whistle and
sent both kiddos to the penalty box or arbitrarily taken a side just to make
the problem go away. But the family, the relationships, were more important,
and putting the problem where it belonged was a good first step.]
A few weeks
ago, I got called into jury duty over a civil dispute rooted in an event that
took place more than seven years ago. I was the alternate juror, so I got sent
home before deliberations began, but while I was listening to the evidence
presented by both sides, this passage was rattling around my head.
When somebody
sins against us—when there is trouble and conflict—it’s not just the two (or
more) people most directly involved whose welfare is at stake. The whole
community’s welfare is at stake in how things are handled.
We tend not to
think this way these days. But this passage, along with the other ways Jesus
dealt with his followers, suggests otherwise. He suggests that “we” comes
before “me.” What an odd thought. It’s worth pondering a bit.
The passage
talks about church discipline, but it is really about living in relationship and
in community, whatever community that may be. And the good of the whole
community is at the center of our interactions, even when—especially when—we’re
in a pinch.
So, what do we
do about that last part of the passage? The part about when someone refuses to
listen? It says, “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” It
does not mean that the other person is a pariah, or that we must be estranged.
No, it is a reminder that the Church’s ministry of love, reconciliation, and
hope is for everyone. Even for—especially for—the people who drive us the most
crazy, or the ones we have a beef with. Remember how Jesus ate and hung out
with Gentiles and tax collectors? He didn’t say, “but only if you straighten up
and fly right, first!” He sat down and ate. Some people didn’t get that, but the
ones who up until then were on the outside looking in sure got it.
Which may be
why Matthew included this bit of teaching. Tradition says Matthew was himself a
tax collector. Maybe that’s why he stuck this passage in, and not the other three
gospel writers? Whatever the case, reconciliation is for everyone. Especially for
the people who drive us the most bonkers.
This is the Bulletin for Worship for The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost: September 6, 2026 at St. Chad's, Tampa, Florida.
No comments:
Post a Comment