Loving God, you have made us your children and have called us to live together as members of your household.  Help us always to grow in wisdom and understanding and teach us to love as Jesus loved; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

    Today’s gospel, in case you didn’t catch it, is addressed to the church.  It is addressed to people who are brothers and sisters in Christ and who gather together to worship, to learn and to serve.  Jesus, apparently, knew that such gatherings would not be without their problems.  People would sin.  People would act in ways that are hurtful.  This is not the way of Christ, but it would happen, nevertheless.

    So when it does happen, of course, the question is, what to do?  A member of the church has said or done something that is hurtful to you.  What are your options for how to deal with it?  (1.Go away and never come back.  2.Go to that person privately and let them know how you have been affected.  3.Go and tell everybody else what a miserable so-and-so Mr. X or Mrs. Y is.  4.Hurt them back.  5.Say nothing and then explode later when they do something the least bit irritating.)  

    So -- out of all of these options, which is the best option?  (Addressing it with the person – straight from the gospel) Why would this be the best option?  Why would Jesus tell his followers to do this?  (Allows for reconciliation / restored relationships – gives room for confession and forgiveness -- potential for turning anger into positive energy)

    Okay - another survey question for you: How often would you say that people speak directly to the person who has hurt them?  (Probably not very often) So why would you avoid doing the one thing that could bring some resolution and reconciliation into your relationship with that person?  (Prefer revenge – prefer to avoid confrontation – low expectations for resolution – learned patterns – like “righteous anger” better than forgiveness – might involve some effort -- don’t want to say something you’ll regret -- assume that the person won’t listen).

    From Jesus’ perspective, the most important goal is to restore broken relationships – in this case, between Christian brothers and sisters.  And so, if somebody has hurt you or sinned against you, and you go to that person and tell them how their actions have affected you, there is an opportunity for them to confess their sin and for you to offer forgiveness.  However, you might go to the person, only to discover that they don’t believe that they’ve done anything wrong.  What do you do then?  

    Of course, this is when the two or three witnesses could come in.  (And if you’re thinking it’s not serious enough for two or three witnesses, then is it worth worrying about?)  At any rate, you would go and have the same conversation with two or three other members of the church present.  In doing this, the purpose would continue to be to restore the broken relationship.  At the same time, the witnesses are there in order to see who is acting as a follower of Christ and who is being willful and unrepentant.  It may be that the person who is doing the confronting is off base.  It may be that the person being confronted is off base.  It may be that there is a simple misunderstanding that can be sorted out and resolved.  Remember – the goal remains restoring broken relationships.

    Of course, the final step of telling the whole church about the matter would be a last resort if somebody is unrepentant and continuing to sin.  This would happen only after somebody has been confronted privately and then with two or three witnesses present.  Once again, the goal is not to stand in judgment or to humiliate people, but to restore relationships.  If there is somebody in the church who is willfully hurting others and has a broken relationship with God because of continuing in sin, that person can become almost like a cancer that grows in the community.  In order to have a healthy congregation with healthy relationships, it needs to be dealt with.  And so Jesus gives his followers a means of doing so.

    So – next survey question:  If an offender refuses to listen even to the church, they are to be treated like a Gentile and a tax collector.  What does this mean?  (Love them and include them? – Exclude them? – Hate them? – Pray for them?)  How did Jesus treat Gentiles and tax collectors?  (Ate with them – included them – ministered to them)  Matthew, being written for a Jewish audience, undoubtedly would have brought to mind the traditional Jewish attitude toward Gentiles and tax collectors, which would have been to avoid associating with them.  Yet, wouldn’t Jesus also love them and pray for them?

    We started out today by saying that Jesus knew that there would be problems along the way as people gathered together to worship and to learn and to serve.  Jesus knew that sometimes people would act in sinful or hurtful ways – even people who are members of the body of Christ.  So why gather together at all?  Why gather together as church when sinful human beings are bound to get in the way?  Why do we gather together? (To strengthen and grow in our faith – because we need to worship – to learn how to love and forgive – because Christ is in our midst – because God calls us into community – because we can do more together than we could on our own, especially in loving and blessing the world).

    Those who are part of the church and who follow Jesus Christ are not perfect, just forgiven.  This is not to say that we purposely hurt people or that we choose to continue in sin.  God is gracious and forgiving but also calls us to repent – to turn around and head in a new direction.  For all those who believe in Jesus Christ, that direction is toward him – growing in love as we continue to learn from him.  The new commandment that Jesus gave his followers was simply this: “Love one another as I have loved you” (Jn. 15:12; 13:34).  The challenge for us continues to be to learn how to do this!  Yet, thankfully, the God who loves us and has saved us continues to teach us and to empower us by the Holy Spirit.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Lectionary 23(A)                                Matthew 18:15-20
September 4, 2011
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

© 2011 Lynne Hutchison  All Rights Reserved