Twice Blessed
Text: Matthew 18:15-22
The Lord’s prayer is primarily a list of blessings. We ask for the peace of the coming of God’s kingdom, for food to sustain us, for freedom from trials, and protection from evil. But like a “which of these is not the same” puzzle, our request for forgiveness from God seems different from the rest; for it is paralleled by our promise to forgive others. Or maybe it is not a promise. Maybe it is another blessing. Maybe for us to forgive the sins committed against us is as much a blessing as for God to forgive the sins we commit.
At the end of the reading today from Matthew, Peter asks how carried away he has to be about this business of forgiving people, how many times does he have to forgive a person—as many as seven? he asks incredulously—and Jesus answers seventy-seven times, a number that means without limit. This question is a hint that the beginning of today’s passage has to more to do with forgiveness than church discipline. More about bringing people together than kicking them out.
The passage in Matthew starts with two siblings. In our Bible it says “if a member of the church sins against you,” making it sound like an organizational issue. But the text says “if your brother sins against you,” which is not quite the same thing. It raises the stakes. And makes estrangement more devastating and reconciliation more critical. But by interpreting brother to be “any member of the church,” the passage paints any sin to be as intimate as the sins of brother against brother, sister against sister.
This passage carries—I’d say unfairly—the burden of discipline in the institutional church. It is even referenced in Faith’s own constitution, which says: “Prior to disciplinary action, reconciliation will be attempted following Matthew 18:15-17, proceeding through these successive steps,” which it then lists. So it is not surprising that people see this passage as one primarily concerned with punishment and its fair administration.
Yet, though cited as a disciplinary procedure, the passage is more about reconciliation and the urgency and energy that we are called to expend to keep people near us rather than push them away. Even when they are difficult. Especially when they are difficult.
Nor is it about redemption—about making people better, fixing them up, as we often think—but rather about restoring broken relationships primarily through actions of grace that we take on our own. That is, it is not a comment about someone else’s fault, culpability, or character. It is about our behavior as Christians, as forgiving followers of Christ.
The story immediately follows in Matthew the parable of the lost sheep, which is illustrated above the altar here, in which a shepherd searches for one lost sheep out of a hundred, rather than writing off the loss. The procedure about the sinning brother illustrates not so much bureaucratic process as persistence and patience. Which shepherd, Jesus asks, would not search high and low for the lost sheep. Likewise, which of you would abandon your brother? Who would let his or her sibling—even if a sinner against you—wander away, or run away, without doing whatever you could to bring him or her back?
There is a widening circle of involvement here. It is not just about you and your brother, but about the whole community. That is because fights do not affect only the two at odds. When parents battle, children suffer. When nations battle, the people suffer. Collateral damage, as we so disgustingly call it. Violence and anger and savagery are corrupting and corrosive acts that harm others—innocents—besides the adversaries. So it is fitting that the whole community intervene.
The process has no end. According to Matthew, after all else fails, then we are to treat the sinning sibling as we would a tax collector or sinner. But this is a little joke by Jesus. For elsewhere in Matthew Jesus is named as a friend of sinners and tax collectors. And so he was. He befriended them and ate meals with them. There is no end to reconciliation. We continue until it works, even if it never does. There is no giving up, no walking away in dismay, no stomping out of the room in a fury, no exile.
When two or three are gathered, Jesus is with them. And when they are gathered, if they agree about anything, then God will do it. The word “agree” in this passage is the word from which “symphony” comes. It means harmony. Speaking together. Not necessarily saying the same things in the same way, but speaking in concert, in harmony, led by Christ.
The power given to the two or three is not some general magical power, not some incantation which God is obligated by spells to obey. The power is the power to forgive (called by Matthew binding and loosing).
It is hard to forgive. Sometimes especially so. It takes two or three or the whole church or the whole community. And for us it takes the presence of Christ. When we are thinking about giving up, or fighting violence with violence, not forgiving because it is too hard and we are intoxicated with anger or exhausted from the same old same old, can we then face Jesus in our midst and say, “We are done. Enough is enough”? It is hard to forgive, which perhaps explains why we resist, but being hard is not enough reason.
We think that forgiving others is an often-unwelcome obligation. That is because we think that when we are sinned against by our brother or sister and are choosing to forgive him or her, that we are the powerful ones, that the power is ours to wield. But it is more complicated than that.
Refusing or being unable to forgive exiles us just as much as it exiles the one who sinned against us. It burdens both. Our power to forgive or not is not unfettered. We are bound. Not forgiving depletes us. Sometimes it makes us crazy. The two or three who gather with you in the name of Christ, and the church, exist to free us from holding onto the sin just as much as they exist to forgive the sinner.
To forgive is a blessing, an act best accomplished through the help of others, with Christ included. We pray for this blessing: forgive us our sins. Let us forgive those who sin against us. Amen.
Great sermon, Pastor Stein.