Sermon | Year A - The Year of Matthew

September 7, 2008 | Pentecost 17

Ezekiel 33:7-11; Psalm 119:33-40; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20

Last Sunday's reading was the turning point in Matthew's gospel. It was when Jesus begins to announce his fate and what it means to be the Messiah. Jesus begins telling his followers that he is going to the cross and that they, too, must take up their crosses and follow.

Remember, Peter said, “God forbid,” and Jesus severely reprimanded him saying, “Get behind me Satan, you are a stumbling block to me.”

That whole story was serious. It is the kind of gospel that calls out telling us to sit up, take notice and realize that being a Christian is a commitment to a way of life.

In this week’s gospel, we see some of what Jesus means when he says, “Take up your cross.”

Today Jesus says, “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.”

Oh, right! Is there anything harder than confronting someone who has hurt you, especially, when it is someone you know well? It is so much easier for us to take our grievance to someone else – to talk about it to anyone else who would listen. In other words, to talk about someone behind his or her back. We talk about the situation to anyone except the one with whom we ought to be speaking. However, this Gospel is about how we should behave if we are indeed going to call ourselves members of God's family.

So, let us look at what is going on in this straightforward gospel passage. There are no secrets here. We do not have to look too far beyond the images Jesus uses in order to understand what he is saying.

What is often helpful is to look at what comes before and after the Sunday passage. The whole of chapter 18 talks about our behavior as God's people. In verse one, the disciples ask Jesus who is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven? Jesus says it is anyone who is like a little child. In fact, he says you must be willing to humble yourself in order to enter the kingdom. Worse, anyone who causes the downfall of a child would be better thrown into the sea and drowned.

Then he told the parable of the lost sheep. The good shepherd leaves the 99 and goes to find the one that is lost. The shepherd is willing to risk it all in order to save one who has strayed.

Today's gospel follows this parable. All of this concerns what our faith life should be like. The bottom line is that we should look after one another and be honest with one another.

Of course, that is not as easy as it sounds, and we know this. We often fail, even in the best of circumstances.

Nevertheless, in this is life bad things happen and people are wronged in many different ways. We all make poor choices at times. We are human; life here will never be perfect.

Therefore, this gospel also talks about reconciliation. Reconciliation, because our actions have an impact not only on the one person we have wronged, but also on others, even the whole community. Because we are the people of God, what we do affects the whole. We show that in the way we worship together. That is why we marry, confirm and bury people within a community worship. That is why we say the confession and pass the peace together. That is why we say, “We” believe in one God. That is why our hymns often have a lot of “we” and “us” in them.

So, Jesus says, go to the one who wronged you and try and work out reconciliation. Maybe it turns out that we have not been wronged at all. Perhaps it is only your perception of things. If that does not work, go to others. Maybe we have misunderstood what someone has done. The others can help us see our misperceptions and see things in a different light.

However, if the other is at fault, and refuses to reconcile, Jesus says treat this person as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. His disciples would understand that image immediately. A gentile or tax collector was about as much of an outsider as you could be in that culture. They could be ignored, pushed aside. They would be treated as non-persons.

Except these same disciples had seen how Jesus treated gentiles and tax collectors. Jesus did not ignore them. He did not push them aside. He did not treat them as non-persons.

A couple weeks ago, we had Matthew's account of the Canaanite woman. In that story Jesus was went beyond the cultural boundary and extend his care and healing to a gentile. Jesus also called a tax collector to be in his closest circle of disciples.

Therefore, evidently, we cannot put limits to our forgiveness either. We cannot say, “OK, fine, that didn't work. I do not have to do anything more.” Reconciliation means the door to forgiveness has to stay open. However, there is more. When we wrong others, we must repent. We will hear more about that in next week’s gospel.

So, what do we take home today? If we want to live as a Christian we need to work constantly on our witness. That is part of taking up our cross and following. Others must see us care for each other. They should hear us speak kindly of one another and they should see us forgive and ask forgiveness.

It is not always easy, and we will not always do it. However, as we try to live as we are called to live, we have only to remember that Jesus also said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.” Amen.