St. Luke's Episcopal Church
Cleveland, Tennessee

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 7, 2008
Matthew 18:15-20
The Rev. Dr. Joel Huffstetler

As is frequently the case, the context in which this passage occurs in Matthew’s Gospel is extremely important to its interpretation. I want to spend just a moment looking at the context of this gospel passage, and then we will spend some time in the sermon looking at about half of it in close detail. We can’t handle all of this passage in a reasonable length of time this morning so let’s do about half of it, but I do want to set the context for this passage.

At the very beginning of Chapter 18 of Matthew’s Gospel, we read about humility. The disciples asked Jesus, "Who will be greatest in the kingdom of Heaven?" The answer is, “The one who is humble.” Those who are humble are the ones who are truly spiritual. Jesus says they will be the greatest. So this passage is in a context of humility in Matthew’s narrative. The next little passage is when Jesus teaches to not cause little ones in the faith to stumble. Little one in this context doesn’t just mean children. It means new Christians, new followers who maybe aren’t quite so secure in their faith. Jesus says, “Don’t cause one of these little ones to lose their faith.” So here again, this is a call to humility. It is a call to be very careful how one conducts oneself in the Christian family. The next little passage that comes right before this one is that famous passage when Jesus talks about 99 sheep being where they are supposed to be but one is lost. That one lost sheep. Then Jesus says there will be great rejoicing in heaven when that one sheep is found. This is a very tender passage. Jesus is talking about humility, loving every one. Every one is to be loved and cherished in the community of faith.

Then we have this passage that comes after the story of the lost sheep. Now the passage immediately after this one is when Peter comes up to Jesus and says, “Lord, how many times are we to forgive someone? Seven times?” Now you may know from other studies that the number 7 in many ancient cultures represented wholeness or completeness. So Peter says, “Is seven times enough?” Surely seven times would be enough to forgive someone. You may remember then Jesus says, “No, not seven times, but seventy times seven.” This is a picture of incredible generosity of grace that Jesus is picturing. So it is in this context of a call to be humble and a call to be forgiving that this gospel passage occurs.
The reason I spent so much time on the context is that if you just pulled this out of its context it could be read to be kind of harsh. There is talk here about sending someone before the church, brining two or three witnesses with you, or maybe in the end putting someone outside the fellowship. If we just read this out of context, it could sound harsh. I am going to suggest to you that in its context, this is meant to be a very loving teaching by Jesus. Let’s talk about that for just a few minutes.

Let’s go through the first half of this. Jesus said, “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.” There is something very important here at the beginning. Jesus says, “When someone sins against you. . .” This is not a call to go confront someone who is doing something in general that you don’t like. This does not say if anyone is annoying you, go talk to them. It says if anyone sins against you, if somebody has done something to you, rather than fret about it, rather than let that anger build and build and build and get bigger and bigger, go talk to them. There is timeless wisdom here. Think about in your own life, as I did about my life this week, how many times you have allowed something relatively small, which doesn’t mean it is unimportant, but allowed something relatively small to just build, and build, and build, and make you angrier and angrier. Then when you finally went and spoke to the person about it, you realize it had been a misunderstanding. Or, they had no idea they had offended you. Somebody was just mad as they could be at me one time. Finally, after weeks, and weeks, and weeks, they came in to talk to me, and when they stated their case I was able to respond that I had no idea they felt this way. Here is why I did what I did. And, it just so happened that when they heard the explanation, it made perfect sense. And, that quickly, they were no longer angry at me after weeks, and weeks, and weeks of letting it build, and build, and build. And, it had been a simple misunderstanding the whole time. So there is timeless wisdom here. When Jesus says, “If some one has sinned against you, go to that person.” Then he says, “If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.” Here is where context is so important. Remember what comes just before this in Matthew’s Gospel is the story of the lost sheep. God wants that one lone sheep to be found, to be restored to fellowship, so that is the allusion here. Jesus says, “If you are reconciled, then you have found that one.” He is calling on the image of the lost sheep. This is what Jesus wants. He wants us to be reconciled to one another. We go to someone, not to confront them, not to make the situation worse, but so that we can have reconciliation. So that we can have peace restored through the grace of Jesus.

Here is where it gets kind of tricky. “But if you aren’t listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.” This is a direct quotation from Deuteronomy, Chapter 19, verse 15. In Judaic law the witness of one person was not sufficient because you could simply have a difference of opinion. So there had to be two or three witnesses to confirm a situation. So that is what Jesus is alluding to here. Take two or three people to help you work it out. Then, if that doesn’t work, present it to the church. We are going to talk about that in a minute about our time versus this time. Then the final statement in the first half of the passage, “ And if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” This, in a Judaic context, is simply a term that means ‘let them be outside the fellowship.’ So Jesus envisions a time when people will not be a part of the fellowship. They simply will not be reconciled to one another. Here is where I want to deal heavily in context for just a minute.

Let’s think about the world in which we live, vis-à-vis the world of first century Palestine. We live in a world where we are largely disconnected from our neighbors. That is the society we have come to live in in this culture. I will give you a couple of quick examples. In our neighborhood, some of you have been to our house, some have not. There is a house, I think probably seventy yards from their front door to our front door – seventy yards from us, I have no clue who those people are. I could not pick them out of a lineup if my life depended on it. They live seventy yards from our front door, and I do not know what they look like. That is the world in which we live. We have neighbors at two o’clock from our front door, I could not pick them out of a lineup either. They live sixty yards from our front door - - sixty yards. Less than the length of a football field, and I don’t know what they look like. That is the world we live in. Here is my point. In first century Palestine, people did not live like this. People lived in small communities. Jerusalem was a major cosmopolitan city but the area that Jesus ministered in primarily was made up of small villages. Think about McDonald just for fun. That is what people lived like in small clusters. Now think about this. They were totally dependent on each other. You could not just go to the doctor in Chattanooga when you wanted to. When you didn’t feel well, you could not call Meals on Wheels when you had had an accident and were laid up. You were totally dependent on each other in this culture. So here is why I am humbly suggesting that Jesus gives this teaching about taking it to two or three members and then take it to the church. In small communities of faith, which is how the church started, those communities could not exist with chronic tension or discord. People had to learn how to get along for the community to be viable. Think about it , if somebody got disillusioned here at St. Luke’s - - I pray that never happens - - but if somebody got disillusioned here at St. Luke’s, you could park you car in the same spot, and choose to go over here, or over there as there are two churches right behind us here within walking distance. You couldn’t do that in first century Palestine. There was one community of faith so there couldn’t be chronic discord. People had to work out their differences or eventually someone might just have to be outside the fellowship, because the fellowship had to continue and it couldn’t be torn down by one person refusing to be reconciled.

In conclusion, I hope we don’t see this passage as being harsh about putting people outside the church. Jesus clearly wants every one inside the fellowship. He wants that sheep found. He wants that one lost sheep brought home. Jesus wants unity and peace within the fellowship. So I leave you this morning with this passage as not in any way meant to be harsh or exclusionary. Jesus is saying from the bottom of his heart, work as hard as you can for reconciliation so that there can be unity in the church, and so that the members can love one another as Jesus clearly intends us to do.

I want to finish with one short quotation. Donald Hagner is a leading New Testatment scholar. He has written a wonderful commentary on Matthew’s Gospel. In his commentary on this passage, Hagner says this, and I want to close with this, “The supreme mark of Christ’s community is Christ’s presence. His love is what keeps the church together, his presence among us through the power of the Holy Spirit.” So when we read this passage, what Jesus is trying to teach us here is how to be reconciled, how to stay in unity with one another, so that the community will be known by his love and by his presence within it. Amen.