The Rev. Paul J Cain, Jr.
St. Matthew 18:15-20
Reconciliation
Proper 18, 04 September 2011
Immanuel Lutheran Church, Sheridan, Wyoming
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
In an
interview, best-selling novelist John Grisham recalls:
One of my
best friends in college died when he was 25, just a few years after we had
finished Mississippi State University. I was in law school, and he called me
one day and wanted to get together. So we had lunch, and he told me he had
terminal cancer.
I couldn’t
believe it. I asked him, “What do you do when you realize you are about to
die?”
He said,
“It’s real simple. You get things right with God, and you spend as much time
with those you love as you can. Then you settle up with everybody else.” Then
he said, “You know, really, you ought to live every day like you have only a
few more days to live.”
Mr. Grisham
concluded, “That left an impression on me.”
Few things
impart more wisdom than to face up to the fact that we will all die sooner or
later. For many Americans, the reality fragility of life and the uncertainty
when it will end, was driven home ten years ago on September 11th.
For others of us, personal sadness and tragedy teach us the same thing.
Next Sunday, we will pause to continue to pray for our
leaders, our nation, and our world.
When death looks us in the eyes, things get very simple.
Grisham’s friend said, “You get things right with God,” and he’s off to a good
start. The way we get right with God is through Jesus. God has made things
right between Himself and us. Our relationship is restored to how God intended
in Eden, a preview of what awaits us in the New Heaven and Earth.
Jesus takes
reconciliation a step further. Since we have been reconciled with God, He
prepares us to reconcile with one another.
If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault,
between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your
brother.
How many
people are involved? Two. You and the person who sinned against you. You are
not to gossip about the matter. You aren’t to decry them around their backs.
This also rules out nasty phone calls where your derision and disdain for them
pours forth. You aren’t to hold a grudge for 20 years. You are to go to them,
one on one and discuss the matter. Be patient. Be tactful. Be considerate.
Share the truth in love, and confront them with the law and the reality of
their sin. But don’t be surprised if they don’t take your word for it.
But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with
you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three
witnesses.
Now and
only now, after you’ve tried clearing it up just between the two of you,
do you involve other people. Ask some Christian friends to go with you. Ask
them to pray for the situation—that you will have the right words, that they
will come to repentance, and that the issue will be resolved quickly. But that
doesn’t always happen.
If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And
if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and
a tax collector.
Matthew 18
outlines what is known as church discipline, culminating in excommunication.
A pastor
(Tony Evans) once wrote about the time his younger brother rebelled against
their father.
He didn’t
like my father’s rules…Now little brother was the Maryland state wrestling
champion in the unlimited weight class. At 250 pounds, he was big and strong…
My father
told him to do something. I don’t remember what it was, but my brother didn’t
think he should have to do it. So he frowned, shook his head, and said, “No!”
Dad said,
“Oh yes!”
Little
brother said, “No!”
My
father…took him upstairs, and helped him pack his suitcase. My brother jumped
[up] and said, “Yeah, I’m leaving. I don’t have to take this!”
And he
walked out of the house. But he forgot a few things. He forgot that he didn’t
have a job. He forgot that it was snowing outside. He forgot he didn’t have a
car…
So twenty
minutes later…knock, knock! Brother was at the door wanting him to come home.
My father delivered him to the elements that he might be taught respect…
So it is with those who come under church discipline. Like
the little brother, a person coming under church discipline may be big and
powerful in their own eyes, or even in the eyes of the congregation—actively
involved, regularly serving, perhaps even in a position of leadership or
responsibility. The most important thing they have in common with the younger
brother is the word, “No.” Our Heavenly Father has laid down his rules for His
household. When a person says, “No,” it is up to a congregation and pastor to
be faithful, even if it means excommunication.
Church discipline is not a pleasant business. Nor is it fun
for the person being disciplined or the congregation and pastor forced to
impose the discipline. It is simply being faithful to the Word of God and the
specific Gospel appointed for today.
Sometimes we’re afraid of following Matthew 18, of using the
law, church discipline, even excommunication. “Isn’t it unloving? Isn’t it
insensitive? It certainly isn’t Christian!” some say. Such statements have a
point if the motivation is wrong. If the motivation is just to get what is
considered “dead wood” off the rolls, then it would be unloving and
insensitive. If the motivation is ultimate restoration, as our Lord intends,
and as the father in the story intended, then comments about church discipline
being supposedly unchristian are naive, misplaced, and ignorant of this Scripture
and Jesus’ use of the law.
What is the purpose of the law? It is to show our sin.
Consider the Ten Commandments. They are excellent to help you prepare for
confession. Sex, power, money, popularity, and false idols can be “gods” in
place of the true God. Using God’s name as a curse word or to lie under oath
break the second commandment. Claiming that you are too tired to get up on
Sunday or that your kid didn’t want to come to Sunday School or that you were
too busy all show, bottom line, that you despise the Word of God and the Lord’s
Day. God is not mocked. Think about the other seven commandments. They hit us
where it hurts. Do they not clearly show you your sin? Do they not condemn
youth disrespecting parents?
Think about all that the law reveals as sin: lying,
stealing, premarital, homosexual, or extramarital sex, holding grudges,
speaking poorly of your neighbor, living together outside of marriage, hating
someone else, coveting, telling white lies or half-truths, coveting,
disrespecting the government, verbal, physical, or psychological abuse, etc.
Sin is ugly. It needs to be exposed to the light. God’s law
accomplishes that. The law exposes sin so that it can be dealt with. Sins need
to be confessed. There is only one solution—the Gospel, the forgiveness of
sins, reconciliation with God, and then with one another. The whole purpose of
Matthew 18, of the law, of church discipline is to bring the person to the
realization of the seriousness of the situation so that they will confess and
be forgiven.
As Jesus told the woman caught in the very act of adultery,
whom He had forgiven, “Go and sin no more.” Sinful habits must end. Sinful
situations must be abandoned. Go and sin no more. Reconciliation is the goal.
Reconciliation is the goal, the ultimate purpose of excommunication. One is
driven away to that their faith may be reawakened, that they come to their
senses and be restored to the fellowship, to the body of Christ.
Truly, 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. Again I say to you, if two of
you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my
Father in heaven. For where two or three
are gathered in my name, there am I among them."
This section
refers again to the office of the keys, which we heard about two weeks ago.
Christ gives the authority to forgive the sins of repentant sinners, but to
withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent. This
is not something to be doubted, but according to Christ’s promise, that by the
pastor’s words, sins are forgiven (or bound) before God in heaven.
Consider
the rest of this section of Matthew 18. “Again I say to you, if two of you
agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father
in heaven.”
Of course, a standard Biblical understanding of prayer is
assumed here. We can ask for nothing contrary to the Word, contrary to God’s
will. And we pray according to God’s will, not our own.
Consider the implications for what came before here in
Matthew 18. Let us pray for those estranged from the Church, especially those
hurt by the action or inaction of the congregation or any pastor. Do we not
have God’s promise to hear us and answer our prayer? Let us, as more than two or three, pray for our
prodigals, for our inactive members, for those in our fellowship who are hurt,
for those in our fellowship who have hurt others, for those in our community,
our country, our world who need to hear the message of reconciliation in Christ
Jesus and His good news.
“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I
among them.” We have our Lord’s promise. He is with us. He is with you when
you’ve been sinned against. He is with you, reading wand willing to forgive when
you have sinned against Him and your neighbor. He is with us to bless us.
The Lord, who has blessed you with reconciliation with God
by His sacrificial death and Resurrection, enable you to live by His Word,
according to your public pledge, to actively and regularly reconcile with one
another. Amen.
The peace
of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ
Jesus. Amen.
