Today’s author is Prince of Peace member, Scott Tunseth.
In his textbook, Fortress Introduction to the Gospels, New Testament scholar Mark Allan Powell describes four pictures of Jesus coinciding with the four gospels. This is his picture from Matthew’s Gospel:
The Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus as the one who abides with his people always until the end of time. Jesus founds the church, in which sins are forgiven, prayers are answered, and the power of death is overcome (Matt 16:18-19; 18:18-20). [p.2]
This week’s Bible text is from Matthew 18, and the subject is forgiveness. He addresses the very practical matter of what to do if someone in the “community of faith” sins against you. The process he describes sounds like a church rule: Approach the offender in private and point out the fault and the hurt it caused. If reconciliation doesn’t happen, take a witness back to the offender. And if there is still no satisfaction, bring the offender before the whole “church,” and if the offender doesn’t come clean publicly, that person will be like a tax collector or gentile in the community.
The procedure seems sound. If someone offends you, approach him or her directly and speak your mind. But if you are like me that kind of confrontation is uncomfortable. It’s easier just to gather some like-minded friends and complain about the one who has offended. Of course, that is not likely to move the needle toward reconciliation.
I find it remarkable that Jesus speaks here as if the church is already a living entity in his lifetime on earth. Powell puts it this way:
According to Matthew’s Gospel, the church did not simply come into being after Easter, as followers of Jesus struggled to understand what had transpired. Matthew portrays Jesus as starting the church during his life on earth. This church is not just a social movement but an institution, with rules and procedures for defining membership and conducting business. [pp. 104-105]
And the church in Matthew seems to be an extension of the kingdom of heaven, as Matthew’s Jesus says, “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matt 18:18). Luther describes this as the “Office of the Keys,” which is “the special authority which Christ has given to his church on earth: to forgive the sins of penitent sinners, but to retain the sins of the impenitent as long as they do not repent.”
These impenitent, Matthew says, will be like tax collectors and gentiles. Tax collectors were notoriously disliked because they collected taxes from their own Jewish people to hand over to the Roman ruling authorities. But “gentiles”? This is not the only time in Matthew’s Gospel that gentiles are described in a derogatory way. It seems a bit incongruent. Didn’t Jesus come to save all people? Why does this “us vs. them” so language often pop up in Matthew? That question can’t be resolved here, but it makes me read Matthew with a certain amount of wariness.
This section of Matthew (18:15-20) ends with a reminder that God will be present when even two or three gather to pray. Four major themes come together in this passage: forgiveness, church, prayer, presence. How remarkable that these elements still embody Christ’s church on earth after twenty plus centuries have passed!
God of mercy, help us to turn from our sins and live for you, that we may live together in harmony and peace. Amen.