“A Brother Who Sins Against You”

In light of the devastation caused by Katrina, to preach today’s lectionary without mentioning what is weighing so heavy on our hearts, would not be appropriate. Matt will respond to this disaster in his next sermon, offering words of hope, encouragement, and a vision of God’s love in action. Given the time and space of a week, perhaps we will be in a better place to see God’s activity revealed.

For now, I offer these insightful words from David Bartlett from my second sermon.

In “every tragedy or loss, God is still God

and still moves our lives, and all of history, toward what is good.

Even when contemplating the enormous tragedies of human history, natural disaster, or human viciousness, faith reminds us that God is still at work in the midst of evil, working toward the good.”ⁱ

The Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ According to Matthew 18:15-20

A Brother Who Sins Against You

   "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

   "I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

   "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."

 This is the Word of the Lord:

Thanks be to God.

Life is a series of interactions between one person and another, between the individual and God, between the community and the individual, and between the community and God.

When Jesus was asked in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 22 verse 36: “What is the greatest commandment?” he responds:

“You should love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”

Jesus answered the question so we can move on right? Wrong!

It wasn’t Jesus’ complete answer. Jesus continues on to say “You should love your neighbor as yourself. On these two laws depend all of the law and the prophets.” Loving your neighbor and building healthy relationships therefore is not something we can choose to do or not do, it is a commandment straight from Jesus’ mouth. He states it in unequivocal, explicit, and unambiguous terms. While much of what Jesus says is cloaked in the ambiguity of parables and filled with hidden layers which have to be peeled back to reveal the true meaning and essence, here we have Jesus answering directly. He answers directly because this is so important that we cannot get it wrong. We must have good, healthy, and loving relationships with all of our neighbors. We must honor every human being by loving them unequivocally, just as God so loved the world, we too must love the world.

From the moment we are born we start the process of building relationships. As infants, the relationships that we are a part of are completely dependant. Our parents are our survival. We have no say in the matter. Whether we get hugs and kisses or are left unattended in soiled diapers is completely out of our control. But the results of how our caregivers relate to us will have a direct impact on the quality of our life that will play out as long as we live. It is well documented that children, left unattended in orphanages in third world countries, have a hard time developing mentally beyond infancy. They also fail physically to meet normal stages of development despite the fact that there is nothing biologically wrong with them. On the other hand, exposing babies to classical music was shown to increase their mental development so much, that when Zell Miller was the Governor of the State of Georgia, he attempted to implement a program to distribute free classical music to expectant mothers. The research concluded that classical music had a positive effect on the intellectual and creative development of infants and children. From the moment of our creation until the moment we die, the quality of our relationships with others, how we are cared for, and how we care for others, directly impacts our lives. Jesus knew this.

Humans are social creatures, and we need social interaction to develop and grow. As we get older our interactions grow beyond our immediate family and into the neighborhood, from the neighborhood into our community, from our community into the world. At each juncture there is an opportunity to strengthen our relationships with others and to develop more fully. Likewise, as our relationships grow more complex and complicated there are increased chances that at some point or another, either we, or the person we are interacting with, will be faced with a situation that causes the breakdown in that relationship.

Reconciliation.

It is an oft repeated theme in Matthew. Reconciliation is making whole again that which is broken. When we confess our sins we are reconciling ourselves to God. The form of this type of reconciliation is called expiation. Our actions are directed at the thing that has caused us to be separated from God, namely our sins. And by confessing our sins and praying for restoration, we seek to repair our relationship with God. And God’s answer to our prayers and our acknowledgement of our weakness is found in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

There is another form of reconciliation. It is called propitiation. With propitiation our actions are directed at the person who has offended us or whom we have offended. Propitiation is the form of reconciliation that Jesus calls for when we have broken relationships with our brothers and sisters, and indeed all of humanity.

Today’s scripture passage begins: If your brother sins against you go and show him his fault, just between the two of you.

The first step in repairing broken relationships is to take the problem directly to the person with whom you have a grievance. This is tough love. It isn’t easy to confront someone whom we love with some issue or aspect that we find offensive. Not only do we expose them, in their weakness, but we must also expose ourselves. Honesty is the key. Remember that I called it tough love; it is tough because not only do we expose their weakness, but we must expose our weaknesses as well. We must be willing to accept our complicity in the breakdown of the relationship. There are things that we have done in our ignorance, or our vulnerability, perhaps out of anger, that have contributed to the breakdown of the relationship. We must be open to the possibility that we ourselves are equally responsible for the breakdown. The cause of the breakdown, whatever it is, is unimportant. What is important is to stop the cycle of blame, anger, and brokenness that perpetuate the brokenness in the relationship and begin the cycle of dialog that rebuilds the relationship.

Today’s communication technology is beyond anything a first century Christian could have imagined. Faxes, emails, telephones, ham radios, the Postal Service, UPS, FedEx, are just some of the ways we have invented to communicate with others without the inconvenience of actually having to be in the same room. None of these was available to early Christians.

I should add that if they had ham radios in the first century they couldn’t have used them due to Levitican prohibitions against pork.

The fact that most people were illiterate meant that there was only one option for settling disputes, a face to face meeting. And perhaps we should consider this as the only means for mending our broken relationships. How much more harm comes about because a letter is misunderstood? There is no interaction in a letter, no opportunity for an immediate response, no give and take. Writing a letter may open the door to restoration, but it is not an adequate substitute for a face to face meeting.

William Barclay in his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew points out that “very often the act of stating [the grievance] reveals how trivial the whole thing is.”ⁱⁱ

By meeting face to face, we are forced to confront the possibility of our own foolishness. Likewise it impresses the importance of the issue if it is not trivial, but a genuine response to a legitimate complaint.

Besides accomplishing these tasks, a face to face meeting fulfills the second part of Jesus’ instruction which is to share the grievance in private. Faxes can be read by whomever passes the machine, letters by whomever opens it, there are speaker phones and conference calling and how many emails have you had passed on to you by the injured party to show just how unfair or unkind somebody has been to them. Technology is not a suitable way in which to address serious issues that threaten the unity of our family, our community, our country, the world, or the church. Technology is not God. Technology cannot take the place of God. Jesus’ promise is that whenever two or more are gathered in His name “there am I with them.” The great I AM. GOD. God’s promise is that he will be with us when we gather together, two or more, to help us not only reconcile with each other but to help us reconcile ourselves to the I AM.

So how important is it that we reconcile with our brothers and sisters?

Immediately preceding today’s reading we are told that a shepherd with 100 sheep will leave 99 to restore the one. Immediately after we are told to forgive someone not once but, 7 times 70. All of chapter 18 is dedicated to restoration and how we are responsible to take an active role in restoring our relationships.

Today’s offertory prayer comes directly from the Gospel of Matthew chapter 5 verses 23 and 24 and it demonstrates the importance that Jesus ascribed to reconciliation. It reads:

“If you are offering to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go.

First be reconciled to your brother and then go and offer your gift.”

Christ is telling us that before we can fulfill the first commandment, which is to love God with all that we are, we must first fulfill the second commandment, which is to love our neighbor and restore our relationship with him or her. To bring our offerings to God with unfinished business with our brother or sister is to do things out of their proper order. On these two commandments depend all of the laws and prophets. They are interdependent.

We take bread. Whole. Complete. We break it. It is Christ’s body which is broken. We eat. And the fractured, torn, pieces are reconciled within us. We become one body again. The body of Christ. Amen.