Matthew 18:15-20 (NAB)
1) “If your brother sins [against you], go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.
2) If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’
3) If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.
4) Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
5) Again, [amen,] I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.
6) For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
I must start out this morning by admitting I got a little nervous when I read the gospel reading this morning. I got nervous because the reading immediately brought to mind my own brother. It brought to mind not only my own brother, but rather the relationship that I have always had with my brother.
My brother, whose name is Adam, is younger than me by 18 months. I have learned over this time that 18 months of age difference between two brothers is the exact amount of time that is required to ensure a lifelong animosity. Incidentally, 18 months is also the amount of time it takes for either of us to acknowledge something we have done to one another, it is the amount of time it takes to apologize, and it is the amount of time it takes for the other to accept the apology and move on.
Long story short, when I read the gospel this morning, I heard it speaking directly to me. Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever read a piece of scripture and realized that it was directed at you, and not only was it directed at you, but it was directed at you in a bad way, pointing out a flaw, an error, a mistake that you have made, or continue to make. And you realize that at that moment, you and God are on the same page about your flaw. You’ve known God has always thought so, but at that moment in time you realized that you were the one making the mistake, you were the one whose behavior needed to change. It is easy when we read scripture and can point out others who fall into those categories. But it is something else entirely when we see ourselves in that way.
Truth be told, we don’t like it at all. In fact, I would be lying if I said that it doesn’t bother us. I would be lying if I said that when that happens we honestly accept our faults and attempt to change in order to be more in line with what God instructs. The truth is, most times we don’t. It is just too hard to change. It is just too hard to admit mistakes, especially when they are our own.
That happened to me recently. I don’t see my brother that often. Sometimes, I like it that way. I go months without seeing him at all. When we do talk, it is mostly through text messages. We rarely talk on the actual phone. It makes me uncomfortable to talk to him, and I bet it makes him uncomfortable to talk to me. The only time we talk is if we are in the same room or if Eimy or my mother makes us talk on the phone. And you know what, I hate that. I really hate that I have that type of a relationship with my own brother.
But, you see, it is His fault. I have always been willing to look past his defects. I have always been accepting of his differences. He’s the one that has never accepted me for who I am. He is the one who is being the one that won’t accept. He is the one who won’t open up. He is the one who won’t love me the way that I want to be loved.
I did see him recently. We got to talking, which after two or three minutes turned into the usual inquisition. The usual questions started. Why didn’t I finish my master’s degree like I had planned? Why, when I was looking for work, didn’t I follow through with the leads he had given me? Why wasn’t I working somewhere that I could make a better living and provide better for my kids? I guess it came down to the underlying question, the one that was never asked but was understood. Why wasn’t I more like him?
However, I bet if you asked him, you would get a different version of the story. You see, I left something out about our conversation. My brother did say something that took me by surprise. It is something that he has said before, but not that often. He is not the kind of person who wears his heart on his sleeve. He is very much a type A personality. He is very much like my father. My brother said to me, that he loved me to death. These questions, these inquisitions, were not made in disgust or in frustration but in an attempt to understand me better. In his own way, a way that sometimes seems foreign to me, he just wants to understand me better. He wants to love me in a way that he can and in a way that I can understand. As I look back on our relationship over the past year or so, I came to the realization that things have changed. We still converse via text message, but much of that has been started by me. He actually has called me a couple of times. He asked Eimy and the kids and I to go on vacation with him to Portland, somewhere neither of us had ever been. He had been seeking reconciliation, and me, in my own version of stupidity, couldn’t recognize it.
You see, reconciliation is at the heart of the gospel message this morning. It is a nice thought. Let’s reconcile our differences, but reconciliation is an action that is very hard to do in all reality. Think about it. Is there anything harder than confronting someone who has grieved 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 will listen. Anyone else that is, except the one we ought to. But this is what the gospel is all about. It is about how we should behave if we are indeed going to call ourselves members of God’s family.
Let’s take a moment and look at what is going on in this straightforward gospel passage.
There are no secrets here. We don’t have to look too far beyond the images Jesus uses in order to understand what he is saying.
In addition, it is often helpful 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 1, the disciples ask Jesus who the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is, and he says it is anyone who is like a little child. In fact, he says unless you become like a child, you cannot enter the kingdom. And 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.
Today’s gospel follows directly after this parable. All of this concerns what our faith life should be like. Bottom line: we should look after one another and be honest with one another. But of course, that is not as easy as it sounds, and we know this. We often fail, even in the best of circumstances – or more accurately, in what we know should be the best of circumstances. But this is life. Gossip happens and people are wronged in many different ways. We all make poor choices at times. We are human; life here will never be perfect.
So this gospel talks about reconciliation. Reconciliation, because our actions have an impact not only on the one person we have wronged, but on the whole community. Because we are the people of God, what we do affects the whole.
A few years ago you may have started hearing about something called the “Butterfly Effect.” This idea supposes that everything on earth is interconnected. The name comes from the idea that if a butterfly flutters its wings in Japan, or York, or anywhere on earth, the air movement is affected on the other side of the world. It sounds a bit extreme, however, there is some truth to it. This is especially true in communities. We show that in the way we worship together. That’s why we baptize and confirm people within a community celebration. 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 have a lot of “we” and “us” in them instead of “me” and “I”.
So, Jesus says, go to the one who wronged you. If that doesn’t work, go to the community. Now, more than one thing can happen. Going to the community means sharing perceptions. Maybe we’ve misunderstood what someone has done. The community could help us see our misperceptions – see things in a different light, so to speak. Maybe it turns out that we have not been wronged at all.
But if the other is at fault, he says, and if the community doesn’t seem to be able to help, treat this person as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. His disciples would understand that image immediately. A gentile or a tax collector was about as much of an outsider as you could be in Jesus’ culture. They could be pushed aside, they could be ignored.
Except, these same disciples had seen how Jesus treated gentiles and tax collectors.
Remember the story in Matthew about the Canaanite woman. Remember how Jesus was forced to go 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.
So, evidently, we can’t put limits to our forgiveness either. We can’t say, “OK, fine, that didn’t work. I don’t have to do anything more.” Reconciliation means the door to forgiveness has to stay open. But there is more! When we wrong others, we must repent.
This is key. There are at least two groups in this church that not only believe this, but put it into practice daily. Do you know who they are? I don’t know if any of you have ever been a member of AA or NA. If you haven’t, that is ok. But if you have, you know that one of the 12 steps is acknowledging that your actions have impacted those around you. And not only acknowledging it, but apologizing for it and making amends for it.
Truth be told, one of the most important ministries that St. Paul’s does is providing a safe place for these groups to meet. However, it is also important to realize that we as a church have a lot to learn from them as well. Because they not only serve to teach us the value of reconciliation, but they also understand that it is in a group where this reconciliation makes the most impact.
And that is the point that Jesus ends with in today’s gospel. Wherever two are three are gathered in my name, I am there. There are more than two or three here this morning, can you feel His presence with us? I hope you can.
Anyone who has ever been in a meeting of NA or AA or any other of a dozen similar groups will tell you that Christ’s presence there is so apparent that everyone can feel it.
Faith is not something that you can do by yourself. It has to happen among a community. Whether it is a community like St. Pauls, or a community like NA or AA, or even a community of friends, our faith grows strong when it is shared.
If we want our life as a church to grow, we need to work constantly on our witness. 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 won’t always do it. But as we try to live as we are called to live, we have only to remember that Jesus said, “Where two are three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.”
I hope that as you go about your lives this week you will keep in mind these words. I hope that you will look in your own life and forgive those who need your forgiveness. I hope that you will seek forgiveness with those who you may have wronged. I hope you will think of more ways that St. Pauls can be a beacon of faith in this community and find ways to show this. I hope that you will make a point to speak well of each other, to speak well of this church, to speak well of the ministries that we support. I hope you will make a point to support and learn from those ministries like NA and AA and the good that they do. I hope that you will make a point to welcome a member of Shekinah to our building and our community and give thanks that we are able to share the community of faith with such a wonderful congregation like Shekinah.
It is not going to be easy, I know for me. One thing I am going to do is talk to my brother. I am going to tell him that I love him to death too. I am going to make sure that he knows that I respect and admire him and I am going to tell him that in many ways he reminds me of my father. I see a lot of my father in him and for that I am thankful. I might not see him that often, but at least for now, I have realized I have a lot to learn from him, even though we have wronged each other so much in the past, we can move forward with the knowledge that if we ask for Christ to guide our love for each other, the road ahead will be a little easier and a lot brighter.
Amen!
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