Proper 18A
September 6, 2020

O Divine presence, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

It’s Labor Day weekend, our secular signal that the summer is ended. That brings Jeremiah’s lament to my mind: “the summer is ended, and we are not saved,” say the people. The Lord responds: “For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?” …“It is because the people do not know me,” says the Lord of Love. That’s not the Hebrew Bible reading that our lectionary offers us this morning, but you might read chapters 8 and 9 in Jeremiah later on for extra credit.

Although, I often quarrel with the scheduled selections of the First and Second Testament, and Gospel readings, and especially how they get combined, today I love them. Today, the reading from Exodus in the Torah, the piece of St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, and the Gospel passage from Matthew all speak to each other so beautifully, at least to my ears. I especially love the way the first two readings can help us realize what the Gospel reading is all about, not in a way that props up the Gospel, but in a way that illuminates the path for us.

It’s strange to hear the instructions for celebrating Passover, when we are approaching Rosh Hashanah, but the instructions are pertinent any time of year. The instructions are to remember and celebrate the Love that frees from enslavement or oppression. In Hebrew, the word for Egypt, mitzrayim, literally means “narrow places,” the tight spots in which we find ourselves – you know, between a rock and a hard place. Love is the way out. Throughout the Torah is the repeated admonition to remember what it was like to be in Egypt – in narrow places, not just so that the people can be happy. Freedom comes with the moral obligation to also ensure the freedom of others. Elsewhere, the Torah instructs: “you shall not wrong or oppress a foreigner for you were a foreigner in the land of Egypt” and “love the alien as yourself for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” Don’t repay evil for evil. Make it better for other people.

In Paul’s letter to the Romans – we have this beautiful teaching: that love is the fulfilling of the Law (that is, the Torah). Owe no one anything except to love one another. All I owe you is love. All you owe me is love. All we owe each other is love. That’s how we are to live — honorably and respectfully, loving one another. Love is the fulfilling of the Law and the Prophets. Love comes with the moral obligation to love others. So, keep the teachings of Exodus and Romans in your minds while we move to the Gospel according to Matthew’s instruction manual for community discipline.

There’s wide agreement that these instructions were not quoting Jesus directly. They don’t appear in the other Gospels. But reconciling with others, loving one another, removing whatever obstacles get in the way of Love – those are Torah priorities, and thus priorities according to Matthew and certainly to Jesus. Matthew has already included the instruction that “when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your sibling has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go, first be reconciled to your sibling and then come and offer your gift.”[1] Also, just because Jesus didn’t say it, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

The context for this instruction about community reconciliation is that Jesus and his disciples are in Capernaum, in the Galilee of the Gentiles as Matthew calls it earlier. It was a cosmopolitan region. In the beginning of this section of Matthew, the disciples ask Jesus, “who is the greatest in the realm of God?” Jesus calls a child into their midst and says, “whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the realm of God, and woe to anyone to tries to trip up one of these little ones.” Jesus goes on to warn, “Don’t mess with vulnerable people, because in their faces is the face of the Divine. If a vulnerable person goes astray, the Good Shepherd goes in search of the one who went astray. And if they find it, there is great rejoicing in heaven.” In the verse before we pick up today’s Gospel portion, Jesus reminds folks that “it is not the will of God that one of these vulnerable ones should be lost.”

You might remember that there are two translation issues with the first verse in our passage that can distort what the earliest manuscripts said (and furthermore the earliest manuscripts in this case are not identical).[2] The one word that here gets translated “member of the church” is simply brother – adelphos. It could be translated fellow, or countryman, or companion or neighbor, but “member of the church” is an anachronistic leap. I mean, maybe your brother is a “member of the church” and surely Matthew the Gospel writer was talking about the newly developing church by the end of the first century, in which members referred to each other as brothers and sisters, but if it’s functioning as a narrative of Jesus’s teaching, translating the word adelphos as “member of the church” seems intellectually dishonest to me.

Then some ancient manuscripts say, “sins against you” – some just say “sins.” In general, a version with fewer words is usually older than a version with more words. Sacred narratives usually get embellished, rather than pared down. Also, what comes before is about a sheep going astray. The word for sin means going astray, wandering away from the path of honor, being mistaken, missing the mark, or being without a share in.[3] So I think it’s not a sin against you – singular. How ironic that in a teaching about being led astray, the translation is doing that to us!

So: “If your companion on the way strays from the path of honor, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If they listen to you, you have gotten them back on the right path.” The rabbis taught that a person should never shame another publicly.[4] This is not an instruction for a victim to confront their abuser privately. By the way, this is an instruction about the responsibility in a community to redirect people who have veered away from a path of honorable and respectful living.

This is the community antidote to watching someone stray and shrugging one’s shoulders, or watching someone stray and feeling smug, or even worse, taking pleasure in their suffering. Jesus says, “Go find that person and point out where they went astray.” This is an amazingly good standard operating procedure for holding the community together while working through conflict. Notice that Jesus is calling every person in a community to be accountable for resolving conflict. Jesus says, start by going to the person who has gone off the honorable path and state your case in private. That gives the lost one an opportunity to hear the grievance and to make amends – and importantly, it gives the lost one the ability to save face. I can’t stress enough how valuable that part is in resolving conflict: offering a strayer or an offender a path to return to dignity and honor. The point here is to restore relationship. In Biblical terms, the problem with sin always has to do with broken relationship. Broken relationships make individuals and families, whole assemblies, entire communities, indeed whole nations unwell.

But if, in private, he doesn’t listen to you and return to the honorable way, your work is not done, you are to take one or two others along with you and try again — not to outnumber or gang up on the dishonorable offender, but because two or three can witness to the offense and can be much more creative in conflict conversations than one person alone. If that doesn’t work, tell the assembly. If the dishonorable offender refuses to listen even to the assembly – and this is the best part of all – treat that person as a Gentile or a tax collector. That would seem to say, separate from them, ostracize or shun them – unless we think about how Jesus treats Gentiles and tax collectors in the Gospel of Matthew – with scandalous hospitality and deep compassion. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus treats Gentiles and tax collectors with respect and compassion, with healing and with food. Jesus eats with them, invites them to follow him, parties with them as friends, feeds more than 4,000 of them. In other words, go out of your way with the respect and compassion.[5]

Do you know how I know that Jesus is talking about treating people who behave dishonorably with scandalous hospitality and deep compassion? Because right after this passage, Peter says, “wait a minute – how often I am supposed to forgive the same person who sins against me? As many as seven times?” And Jesus says, either seventy-seven or seventy times seven, depending on how that is translated. Does it matter whether it is 77 or 490? Who could do that? Who could do that? (Who is one of the names of God, so the answer is yes.)

I imagine that you’ve been reminded of some conflicts with people in your own experience as I’ve been talking. Maybe you’ve gotten so distracted that your mind has wandered away altogether. If that’s the case, I’d like to call you back to ponder what this teaching might have to do with conflict in this community. Every community has conflicts that have been well established, and new conflicts that pop up. Every community has, from time to time, people who stray from honorable and respectful behavior. Maybe you are thinking of behavior you are unable to forgive. Don’t start there. Start with something easier!

You know, it’s not by accident that this instruction follows Matthew’s descriptions of little faith and flagging zeal, Jesus’ followers judging and finding fault with one another, and people wandering away. When people start wandering away, it is the lack of forgiveness that is the chief suspect – forgiveness of oneself, of another. The call to forgive sets faith communities apart from other attempts at creating community. Forgive us as we forgive others, we say in the Lord’s Prayer every time we gather for worship. We who have been forgiven have a moral obligation to forgive others.

According to Jesus’ instructions, the work of reconciliation begins with accountability of every person, with respect for dignity, with hospitality and deep compassion – generosity of spirit and sound discernment in community. And then Jesus reminds his followers – in what I imagine was their stunned silence – he reminded them of what he has said before – that they have the authority to “bind” and “loose” the commandments. Together they can discern how to apply a commandment – under what circumstances it must be applied (that is, bound) and under what circumstances it did not apply (that is, loosed). They can decide what obligations or terms are binding, or what rules or agreements can be loosely applied. Here it’s clear that it’s not just Simon Peter alone who has that authority. The authority to discern comes from agreement within the community of disciples.

Jesus might have said “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there will be conflict!” Indeed, he’d already said earlier in Matthew that following him would cause all kinds of conflict. What he offers here is blessed assurance. “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Just like Rabbi Hananiah ben Teredion says in the Mishnah, “if two sit together and words of the Torah [are spoken] between them, the Divine Presence rests between them.” [6] What Matthew’s Jesus is offering here is blessed assurance of Divine Presence and hope for reconciliation, in other words, the balm in Gilead.

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