Grace,
mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
The sermon
text for today was inspired by the Holy Spirit through the apostle St Matthew,
who was a former tax-collector. And I get the impression that this is a very
personal part of his gospel, since Jesus says, If he does not listen even to
the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. And so we
read from this gospel reading today:
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.
Prayer: Lord
Jesus, send to all of us today your living and abundant Holy Spirit, to me that
I may preach well, and to all of us that we may hear well. Amen.
Today our Gospel reading is a
simple six verses, but a profoundly rich text, that we could spend a good few
weeks chewing over and learning so much from it. And particularly this reading
today hits right to the heart of church unity, peace and love in the church,
and what it means to be one fellowship in the Holy Spirit. St Paul says at the
end of 2 Corinthians such a wonderful blessing: The grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
It’s that wonderful gift of fellowship in the Holy Spirit, the communion of
the Holy Spirit as one church together that Jesus talks to us about today.
And so our Gospel reading today
has two parts. The first part is where Jesus gives to us straight out of heaven
wonderful advice of how to go about resolving a conflict when someone has
sinned against us. The second part is where Jesus speaks about the power of the
unity of the Christian church and what that means.
I.
So firstly, let’s go to the first
part of our reading.
As pastors, we are called to
preach the Gospel. And the whole church lives and breathes from the Gospel. And
basically, what I mean by the Gospel is the forgiveness of sins. Basically, I really
don’t have anything else that I have to say to you on a Sunday morning apart
from the forgiveness of sins. And Luther says in his Small Catechism: Where
there is the forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation. How
many blessings come from the forgiveness of sins, we just can’t begin to
imagine!
But also, there’s another side to
this preaching that we pastors are called to do, and that is to preach God’s law.
If we’re going to preach the forgiveness of sin, we also have to preach about
sin, and tell you what it is, and what it’s about, and all that kind of thing.
If there’s no sin, why would anyone want forgiveness for it?
St Paul says: All Scripture is
breathed out by God, and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for
correction, and for training in righteousness.
And I have to admit that when I
look at our reading today, I see that there is a need to use this scripture not
just for teaching, and St Paul says, but also for reproof, and correction
and training in righteousness. We want to talk about the peace and the
unity of the church, and we can look around and see that throughout the world
the church can be pretty divided and disunified. But as a pastor, I’m not
called to preach to the whole church everywhere all throughout the world—I’m
only called to preach to you: to you the people of St Mark’s Lutheran Church,
Mount Barker, because I am installed not as the world’s pastor, but simply as
yours. So, we have to ask ourselves, what about our peace and unity here in our
congregation?
Well, let me say a few words to
you as one Christian friend to another: our gospel reading today, if we really
want to take it seriously and humble ourselves and learn from it deeply and
drink from its goodness, then these words have the potential to completely
change our whole congregation from top to bottom. And since I’ve been here,
it’s been a great joy to serve you as your pastor. But one thing here is very
unusual—and I want you to know that it is unusual and that not every
congregation has this problem. We have a gossip culture in this congregation
that has been ingrained for so long that it even has a pet name—“car park
talk”. You have to know as a congregation that this undercurrent of damaging,
corruptive talk is sinful, and it works against the Christian faith. Now, as a
congregation, we have been seeking for many years to redevelop our facilities,
and we seek God’s blessing in all of it. But what we also have to understand is
that God is actually real—and he’s not stupid. He knows very well that there is
so much potential for wonderful things to happen in this place, whatever they
might be. But God also knows how to slow our plans down to teach us to return
to him in a new and fresh way. Remember Jesus’ words: By this shall all
people know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
You know, it’s precisely right
into our midst, into our congregation, into this place and this
church gathered here that Christ actually physically comes down to speak his
words: I forgive you all your sins. Jesus is so gracious and so
overflowing with mercy and forgiveness that he actually seeks to build his
kingdom right in our midst without our help and without our contribution. But
then he takes us by the hand and he says: Follow me. He wants us to join
him in his mission and to be part of it, and not to work against it.
And so it’s right to people like
us, sinners like us who need direction and who need help and who need to be
taught the basics, that Jesus speaks the words from our Gospel to us today: 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.
There’s another passage where
Jesus says: If you are offering your gift at 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 come and offer your
gift.
So according to Jesus who should
be the first person to seek reconciliation? The person who has committed the
sin or the person who has been sinned against? In the first passage it says: If
your brother has something against you. And in our Gospel reading today it
says: If your brother sins against you. So whether or not, someone has
something against you, or you have something against them—if they have sinned
against you, Jesus calls you either which way to make the first move, and to
take the unity and the peace of the holy Christian church on earth into your
hands. Jesus wants this unity and this peace to be your responsibility, and
your calling, and he sends you with his blessing.
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. We are not talking here about things that
happen in public, as when a person says something offensive in the public
media. If the matter is public, they can rightly be criticised publicly. But
here Jesus is talking about things that happen privately. Ask yourself, who has
hurt you? Who has sinned against you? Jesus shows us here that even the
smallest disagreement that we might have with another person in the church
needs to be addressed. Jesus doesn’t actually allow us to talk about the person
behind their back—they must be addressed face to face. And so if someone comes
to us and says that someone has sinned against them, then we must also
encourage the person to go and speak to that person themselves as Jesus has
commanded here. And also, if someone is talking about two other people that
they have nothing to do with, then they need to be told to hold their tongue
and shut their mouth. Now, if we really thing this through—and someone might
immediately come to mind who has sinned against us—we might be immediately feel
completely filled with dread and fear at the prospect of having to talk to a
person to their face. Well, Jesus is giving us a gift in this advice today—he’s
not guilting us into something that almost seems impossible to us. He has
already forgiven us, and now he lets us share in his life so that we can share
that wonderful freedom with someone else. So, my advice to you would be when
faced with this reading and all you experience is complete fear, then commit
the thing to Jesus himself – ask him to provide the timing, the opportunity,
the words, and if possible, the reconciliation. He will give you everything
that you need in his time, and he will prepare you and train you on the way. In
the meantime, it’s not for you to destroy the person’s reputation behind their
back. It’s time to commit them into the hands of Jesus.
Just think what the wonderful
blessing comes from this: If he listens to you, you have gained your
brother. Just to think, that just as Jesus has gained us through baptism
and through the forgiveness of sins, we too are allowed to share with Jesus and
work together with him in gaining people: brothers and sisters in his kingdom.
Secondly, Jesus gives us a
further procedure: 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.
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.
We might like to practically
think through and practically nut out in our own minds the various situations
in our own minds and sharpen our minds against this passage. This procedure is
not the kind of thing that happens in a week. We might go to a person privately
again, and then take a friend along again, before then bringing the matter into
the public forum of the church. What is at stake here, and what Jesus teaches
us here is just how the unity and the peace and the love within the church must
be such a strong concern for each of us. And if a person is ever excommunicated
from the church, where a person is publically rejected from the church and
denied fellowship with the church, being treated as a Gentile and a tax
collector doesn’t mean treating them badly, but that our concern for this
person’s soul must increase even more, because their salvation is at stake.
They have been so stubborn in allowing their sin to destroy the church’s peace,
that they won’t even listen to the church anymore. And it’s the church that
speaks to that person the forgiveness of sins, and gives them life and
salvation, as Jesus has commanded.
So let’s take these words of
Jesus as a wonderful challenge. They are not words that come from a self-help
book among many that you can go down to a bookshop and buy. This is advice that
comes from heaven, from Jesus who is the head of his own church, he is the
heavenly bridegroom, from our heavenly shepherd and he knows how to keep his
sheep in order. Let’s study and learn this passage and let it sink into us
deeply.
II.
Let me read to you now the second
part of our reading: 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.
You can see here, that the church
here joins in with Jesus in forgiving people, and withholding forgiveness from
people. If you receive the forgiveness of sins here in the church, then you
know that Christ himself forgives you. This is him speaking here in the church.
He says: Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. But if
forgiveness of sins is withheld from you on the basis of the word of God, then
you know that Christ himself has withheld forgiveness from you. Whatever you
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.
And what Jesus promises here, he
actually gives to his apostles when he says after his resurrection: Receive
the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone their sins, they are forgiven them. If
you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.
This passage is worth another
sermon just in itself. But let me read what it says about this in Luther’s
Small Catechism, which is our church’s confession of faith when it comes to
this area. It says: I believe that when the called ministers of Christ deal
with us by his divine command, in particular when they exclude openly
unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation, and absolve those who
repent of their sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain,
even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us himself.
We receive this forgiveness
through the ministry of pastors every Sunday when we confess our sins, and the
pastor says: On behalf of my Lord Jesus Christ and by his command I forgive
you all your sins. We actually fulfil this prophesy today which Christ
makes in our Gospel reading today.
But there’s also a sense, that
each one of us, as we go around and seek to build and strengthen the unity of
the church, seeking to gain our brother, that this is a word that is
empowered by Jesus as he seeks to loose the chains that still grip a person.
This is not our work here: this is Jesus work in binding and loosing. Just
before our Gospel reading today, Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep. Our
reading today shows us how Jesus goes about seeking his sheep, and opening the
door of heaven for people, through us, both as Christian pastors and Christian
people wherever he sends us.
But at the end of the reading
Jesus says something absolutely wonderful. He says: 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.
In my previous parish, I had five
congregations to look after, and some of them were very small, and yet we never
had less than two or three at church! And this is such a wonderful
encouragement to us, and it flies in the face of a worldly understanding of
being a successful church. Most of the time when people put surveys together
about healthy churches or successful churches—they often mean large ones. But
think about our friends in Iraq at the moment—there are many faithful
Christians who might worship in small numbers in humble church buildings, with
huge mosques across the road. Are the mosques somehow more blessed because they
have more people than the Christians? No—the Christians preach truth, and
across the road people will only hear lies. Jesus didn’t say wherever two or
three thousand are gathered, but two or three.
And so wherever there are
Christians agreeing on earth about anything they ask, Jesus says: it will be
done for them by my Father in heaven. Do you see how important the unity
and peace of the church really is? Do you see what power Jesus is giving to his
church on earth, to his holy people? And Jesus says that even the smallest
little group of Christians, that are gathered faithfully in his name, and
around his word, that he himself will be with them in the flesh, physically,
standing as one of them, being the loving heavenly husband with his bride, the
church, on earth, speaking to us his words himself, feeding us with his own
body himself and pouring out that wonderful, healing, strengthening, forgiving,
atoning and purifying blood into our own mouths. For where two or three are
gathered in my name, there am I among them. Do you hear that? I am among
them. Not a ghost, not a memory, not a spirit, not a fake. I am among them. I,
myself, I, and nothing less that our Lord Jesus himself in the flesh. What a
wonderful gift! Amen.
Lord Jesus, come down into our
midst and gather us in body, soul, mind and heart around your powerful and
life-giving word. Teach us in everything we do what it means to be a city
shining brightly on a hill, so that people may see our good works and give
glory to your Father in heaven. Amen.
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