Friday, September 5, 2008

Today's text

Matthew 18:15-20

If your brother does something wrong, go and have it out with him alone, between your two selves. If he listens to you, you have won back your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you: whatever the misdemeanour, the evidence of two or three witnesses is required to sustain the charge. But if he refuses to listen to these, report it to the community; and if he refuses to listen to the community, treat him like a gentile or a tax collector. 'In truth I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 'In truth I tell you once again, if two of you on earth agree to ask anything at all, it will be granted to you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three meet in my name, I am there among them.'

Reflection

These verses read like legal directives for policing and keeping good order in the community. You can find them used exactly this way in many congregational constitutions.

Jesus says: when someone in the church does you or others wrong go speak to them. Go privately. If they don’t listen, take two or three others from the church with you and talk to the person again. This emphasizes the seriousness of the trouble. But it also protects the accused from false and exaggerated claims.

If reconciliation and peace still cannot be worked out, take the matter to the whole church. If the person is wrong and refuses to make things right, treat him like an outsider, gentile, a tax collector. And we all know how Jesus treated them.

He reached out to them. He sought their hearts. He forgave them. They were among those for whom he showed greatest concern and forbearance.

Jesus did not seek to throw anyone out. Mutual correction in the church is not for the purpose of making anyone grovel. Jesus has one desire: to make peace, to restore unity, to nurture harmony so that joy abounds in the community of faith.

Jesus concern is different from ours. He moves our feet in a direction opposite our normal path. Go to the one who has wronged you, he says. Speak with them.

More often, we retreat to our corners when we feel wronged or are upset. In our disagreements, we seek those we believe will agree with us, who will not question us, if keep peace in the family.

We go to our personal ‘amen’ corners where others will solemnly nod their heads in agreement and say, ‘Yes, you are right to be offended. This is wrong, outrageous, unthinkable. You’re right to be angry.’

We don’t want perspective. We don’t want our friends to correct our understanding at this point. We want someone to tell us that we are right and the one who troubles us is wrong or stupid or both.

You can think of dozens of examples of this. It’s typical human behavior, not just for individuals but for all kinds of groups, political parties and even nations. Take the recent political conventions, Democrat and Republican, for example.

But Jesus doesn’t give a wit about our self-righteous claims or our need to feel superior to others. These things only fracture relationships and create division in our homes, our schools, our neighborhoods, our nation and our churches.

Jesus sends us to each other to make and nurture peace, promising always to be with us, no matter what.

Jesus wants our congregations, indeed the entire Christian church (to say nothing of the cosmos itself) to experience his presence in the forgiving love, the gentle care, the humble self-giving, the kindness of mercy that we share in our relationships with each other. He wants us to know his nearness in the harmony of human souls within this fellowship.

Where two or three gather in my name, I am there, Jesus says. Our divisions, hard-heartedness and harsh judgments obscure his presence among us, diluting our experience of his love.

So he calls us beyond our fear, beyond our wounds, beyond our self-righteousness, beyond our need to look down upon others. He calls us to make peace, to forgive and be forgiven. So that as we gather, we will know his presence that our hearts may soar.

Pr. David L. Miller