Making Jesus’s Way of Love Real
Proper 18A | Matthew 18:15-20
There are two reasons why people completely misunderstand this passage. And misuse it.
- We read it out of context.
- We have messed up ideas about sin.
If these slim verses were all we have, well, this would sound like a solid plan of reconciling our differences, doesn’t it? It is actionable, ordered, and reasonable. We could cut and paste this into a human resources manual and sound faithful.
And get the purpose so wrong that we abuse people like they did at Mars Hill in Seattle.
Because the context turns our assumptions on their heads and our sorry understanding of sin leaves us lost.
So we’ve got some big ideas to tackle.
Let’s start with sin.
We often think of sin as an individualistic behavior. Because that is how we talk about it. As something someone has done for which they must repent. This is why many in the church make such a big deal of sexuality, smoking, drinking, or other things we can refer to as vices.
But sin has always been relational. There are victims of stealing, adultery, and murder. And God names those broken relationships as the primary problem of sin.
And since our relationships with each other are not independent from our relationship with God, but, in fact, reflect it, our sin reverberates.
As a community of faith, a school of love, our work together involves growing, healing, and a generous invitation to love. To love God, each other, and our neighbors as if they were us.
So we treat someone who sins the way we wish to be treated about our sin.
And here’s where we get love, forgiveness, and mercy wrong.
We don’t receive forgiveness before we repent. We sin, repent, and receive forgiveness.
In the same way, our work is not to avoid dealing with the sin of racism, for example. Precisely because it is a sin that continues in our community without repentance. The city redlined whole neighborhoods, transferred generations of wealth away from specific people and to specific people. I don’t see anybody giving that money back or apologizing.
We have a distorted view of mercy because we have a distorted view of sin.
Our view of sin is too high and mercy too low.
We turn sin into something huge. So a lot of things doen’t even get counted! And we turn mercy into some nothing thing we can throw around or withhold. Because we want the sinner to be the problem.
We do this because we don’t know what to do with responsibility, recurrence, and restitution. So we forgive the easy stuff like it’s no big deal and refuse to forgive the hard stuff.
This is the opposite of what Jesus teaches. It is our normal. And it is our sin. Because we hurt each other and don’t try to fix it. And we hurt God and don’t try to fix it.
So, we must lower our view of sin and raise our view of mercy.
Which looks like seeking forgiveness for the things we do. And giving it to the people who ask for it.
In short:
Normalize Mercy.
This is the twenty thousand foot view of sin. And it helps us see why we get so mixed up in it. Because we choose to focus on it in a way that hinders mercy. Or complicates our attribution of sin. Because people don’t like being called sinners! And many want to refuse mercy!
And if we had read the first fourteen verses in chapter 18 and kept going, reading what happens next, we’d get an unsparing view of mercy. No matter how much we want to wallow in our own sin. Or compel others to.
Our job isn’t proactive forgiveness. It’s forgiving every repentance.
Now hear those directions again.
When someone sins against another, go and point it out to them in private. Not as a righteous warrior, but as one giving another the opportunity to recognize the sin so they can repent for it.
Jesus knows this isn’t easy. For anyone. But restoring all is the project.
If that doesn’t work, try more. Raise the stakes. Involve the community. And if that doesn’t work:
“if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector.”
Here’s where our paying attention to Jesus comes in.
We know how the Hebrew people in general feel about Gentiles and tax collectors. The former are outsiders and the latter are outcasts. But how does Jesus see these people? He used to see them that way. But not anymore. They are new neighbors.
We want this sequence to be condemning.
Jesus wants this sequence to be welcoming.
This is why understanding the nature of sin and mercy and getting a hold of the context are so important to this passage. Because many people read this completely wrong. And then use it to justify abuse.
And even when we’re inclined to read it the way Jesus wants us to, our unrooted expectations deceive us.
This whole sequence is about restoring people. Not an excuse to let people go. Or worse, to shun them.
There’s a beautiful logic to treating someone who sins as a beginner again. Because their refusal to repent demonstrates immaturity of faith. And the way to restore them to the community isn’t to punish them. Or to say “everyone has their own opinion” and shrug it off.
If a student doesn’t show mastery of the subject, they can retake the class.
Jesus is inviting us to offer generous invitations to belong. Not force us to hammer out a deal.
Binding and Loosing
We prove that we get the character of Jesus’s teaching, don’t we? Even if we’re a bit mixed up about sin and mercy.
We get that the stuff we bind ourselves to holds us down. That we need to let things go. That, in Jesus, we really do have the power to free ourselves. Not because we are so powerful, but because we often bind ourselves to this. And he helps us find that way out.
Our ability to loose our bindings, and especially the bindings of others, is a generous and freeing act of holy rebellion.
And I also think most of us have the best of intentions. We’re not trying to abuse each other. Or trying to cover up the abuse of others. Because we follow the natural logic of our culture. It’s just not Jesus’s logic.
This way of love can be tough. Because we’re prone to thinking revenge would be satisfying rather than binding. And that these ways we shackle ourselves and each other are necessary.
We can’t imprison each other into flourishing.
Flourishing comes through love.
And we know what that looks like.
Getting together. Connecting. Helping. Hoping.
We can talk. And listen. And pray together. We can choose to love our neighbors. Seek the best for them. Ensure they succeed. Thereby ensuring we succeed.
That is holy. A divine collaboration. Getting people together here, with Jesus in our midst. To love the hell out of this world. It is the fulfilling of dreams and holy hopes. Of true love, right there. A love that can change anything. Restore anyone. Freeing us all with incredible love.