Readings: Psalm 149; Matthew 18:15-20; Romans 13:8-14
Our gospel reading today is fascinating! Look at the first verse – ‘If another member of the church sins against you...’. Wait a minute, isn’t this Jesus talking? So where does the church come in? In fact, as Bill Loader has explained in his excellent series on John’s gospel, the gospels were not written as history. They were written by and for various Christian communities. Just like Paul’s letters to the churches, they were targeted at issues in those communities and the stories of Jesus that were handed down were presented in a way that helped address those issues. So these aren’t the actual words of Jesus, but advice for the ‘Matthew’ community, presented in a way that incorporates some of the well-known oral history of Jesus.

Looking at the broader context of today’s reading, chapter 18 starts with the disciples asking Jesus, ‘Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?’ Jesus takes a child and says, ‘become humble, like a child to become great in the kingdom’. Then he goes on to talk about not putting a stumbling block in the way of little ones, and talks about cutting off bits of your anatomy that cause you a problem. Then there is the parable of the lost sheep. Mark tells the same parable simply; Luke places it in a context of sinners and repentance, so the lost sheep is a sinner who repents, but Matthew twists it a bit to conclude, ‘So it is not the will of your father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost’. In his version it is not sinners but children who are the sheep.

All that comes before today’s reading which is about dealing with sins in church and immediately following is that memorable passage about forgiving seventy times seven.

So from the context we see a connection between discipline in the church, how we deal with children and how we forgive.

In preparing for today’s service I did some internet surfing and found some exegetical notes from Brian P Stoffregen, an American Lutheran pastor who made this observation:

This text presents a contrast to what we often do when someone has wronged us. When we have been wronged, we usually don’t confront the person. Instead, we go and tell two or three or more of our friends, ‘Do you know what so-and-so did to me?’ Jesus did not say: ‘Go and tell everybody what that stupid jerk did to you.’ Jesus told us: ‘Go and talk to that stupid jerk about the hurtful actions s/he has done,’ although Jesus didn’t quite use those words. We are to go and talk to the person, not go around telling everybody else. We are to be so concerned about the breach in the relationship, that we are willing to do whatever is possible to restore it.’

The context of children makes sense here. When my child or grandchild does something wrong I don’t just ignore it. For the sake of the child and me and our relationship I speak up. I say ‘Don’t do that!’ I point out that it is unkind or hurtful or dangerous. Of course, I’m not in the least thinking of terminating the relationship – the relationship is all-important! But a relationship where my little granddaughter keeps pulling my hair is not going to be sustainable – apart from anything else I’ll run out of hair! She needs to learn how her actions affect others and how she should change them.

If that is true of our children is it any less true of our brothers and sisters in Christ? Our little congregation here would have been a big congregation in the early church. It was very much a close-knit community – a family – and for it to work disagreements needed to be talked through in love, not ignored in the hope that they would go away or for fear that discussing them will cause discomfort.

As the reading points out, eventually there may be a parting of the ways, but don’t be fooled by that phrase ‘let such a one be to you as a gentile and a tax collector’.

At first hearing it sounds a bit xenophobic, you’re with us or against us, you’re in or you’re out, but earlier in the Gospel Matthew gives a different perspective. Chapter 9 verses 10 to 13 say:

‘And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ But when he heard this, he said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’ (a quote from Hosea 6:6 which the Pharisees would have known but, as Jesus indicated, not understood).

For a community to function it needs to have ground rules, but if we are followers of Jesus we will be concerned about people in need both in and outside of our church community. As Bill Loader puts it in his notes on the passage, we are to ‘relate to them the way Jesus related to toll collectors and commissioned that we should relate to Gentiles: offer them a relation of acceptance and forgiveness! Don’t write them off!’

But then we come to verse 18: ‘whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven’. There seems to be a contradiction there.

I get the same feeling I got reading Psalm 149 of the writer being ‘on a roll’ and going over the top. In any case, with our understanding of heaven being a quality of life here on earth now, rather than some form of life after death, how are we to make sense of it? About the best I can come up with is to suggest that the rules we set up will determine the sort of community we are. We have set our rules – or rather, our aims, our aspirations for our community on the front page of In Touch. Let me remind you of them.

‘Our congregation seeks to be a community of Christian people who –

follow the way of Jesus, allowing his gospel to inform how we lead our lives in a changing world;

welcome all, regardless of race, age or gender;

join together regularly in worship and activities which enable us to live out God’s love in the world;

recognise that every person is unique and encourage all to share their wisdom and gifts;

affirm, support, nurture and accompany each other on our spiritual journeys; and

are committed to living out our faith by serving wherever called.’

Wow! If we can live up to those community aims it certainly will be heaven! And in a strange way although living to those standards may seem constraining it also frees us to be what God intended us to be. So we can be ‘loosed in heaven’!

A while back when I was thinking about this service I was going to use as a text the word ‘Amen’.

We usually translate ‘amen’ as ‘let it be’. And we usually use it at the end of a prayer where it tends to mean ‘God, I’ve told you of my concerns and the things that need to change. Let it be as I’ve outlined.’

But ‘let it be’ can also mean ‘leave it alone, don’t mess with it, don’t get involved’. Matthew makes it clear that that is not an option for us in our community. Note how our carpet is fitted wall-to-wall. There’s no scope to sweep things under the carpet!

The final meaning for ‘let it be’ puts the emphasis on the word ‘be’ – ‘Let it be all that it was meant to be’. Meant by whom? By God, of course, the God of love.

That sounds remarkably freeing, not tied to a set of rules, and when we turn to the reading from Romans it is clear that rules aren’t the main game. The commandments, Paul says, are summed up in this word ‘love’. Love your neighbour (whether a member of the community, a tax collector or a Gentile!) as yourself.

Note that loving yourself is an assumed starting point. Through my wife’s studies I have learnt a little about theories of the development of personality. One view is that as a child develops, narcissism, or love of self, is a natural stage of development. For some people that stage doesn’t happen as it should. If you are suffering from low self-esteem you are going to find it hard to love other people. And on the other end of the scale some people get stuck in that stage – so in love with themselves that they fail to be aware of the needs of others.

Paul calls us to find a balance – love your neighbour as yourself. And if you can manage that, you don’t need laws or rules because ‘love is the fulfilling of the law’.