Text: Matthew 18:15-20
Date: September 20, 2020
Event: The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A
Matthew 18:15–20 (EHV)
15“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his sin just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have regained your brother. 16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And, if he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as an unbeliever or a tax collector. 18Amen I tell you: Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19Amen I tell you again: If two of you on earth agree to ask for anything, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. 20In fact where two or three have gathered together in my name, there I am among them.”
Be Your Brother’s and Sister’s Keeper
There are certain tasks that we don’t like to do, but that are important, right? If you have a pet, you know cleaning up after the pet be it a litter box, an aquarium, or while out for a walk is important. If you’re like me and tend to have a chaotic desk and workspace, cleaning up and organizing it regularly, while a pain, is important to make sure you can find anything and things don’t get lost or damaged while they’re spread all over the desk or floor. Perhaps it’s cooking meals to ensure your family is fed or doing preventative maintenance on the car so that it runs well.
Some tasks are unpleasant or tedious, but important. So it is with what Jesus directs us to today. Sin is eternally dangerous, and we have the duty to warn people about that eternal danger, especially our brothers and sisters in faith.
If you think back to the earliest chapters of Genesis, the first children born to Adam and Eve were Cain and Abel. Cain was jealous of Abel and his approval from God, so he ended up murdering him. God came to Cain to talk with him, to show him his sin and bring him to repentance. God’s first question for Cain is, “Where is Abel, your brother?” Cain’s response is callous, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9).
That’s not just the response of a murderer trying to hide his sin; that might be our response to many different situations. Am I my brother’s or sister’s keeper? Surely not! They have their own lives, and I shouldn’t meddle. They make their own decisions, and that’s none of my business. They do their own thing, and I shouldn’t interfere.
And in a lot of ways, that’s true. We do well to mind our own business. But what if someone is plunging themselves into danger and don’t know it, or even if they do know it, what if you have the ability to rescue them? Shouldn’t you act to rescue them from known or unknown danger? You’re walking along a bridge and someone near you slips and slides through a broken part of the fence and is barely holding on. You’re right there. You can pull them up. Do you say “Well, that’s none of my business”? No! You stoop down and help them! Or someone is ready to take a drink from a bottle they think is filled with soda, but you know you’ve repurposed that bottle to store hazardous cleaning chemicals. Do you say, “Well, they clearly want to drink what’s in that bottle. They think it’s good for them. I’ll just keep to myself”? No! You interject yourself into that situation to rescue them from making themselves really sick or even dying!
There are a lot of things that people might choose to do that is not in the scope of what Jesus is talking about in our Gospel. Sin is not the same thing as something I disagree with. Someone might make a choice I find to be unwise in regards to a chosen career path, schooling options, books to read, movies to watch, places to live, etc. But doing something I disagree with is different than sin. Sin is not a matter of opinion; sin is disregarding what God clearly says is right and wrong. Sin is always a problem not because it makes me uncomfortable and might be something I find to be morally repulsive; sin is always a problem because it is discarding God’s will. Sin is always disastrous because sin always harms saving faith in Jesus, and left unchecked sin always leads to eternal death in hell. Even if someone feels that it’s no big deal, that it’s “not hurting anyone,” sin as God defines it is always hurting the one committing it.
That’s why Jesus is so adamant, “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his sin just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have regained your brother.” If someone has sinned against you—really sinned, not simply done something you disagree with or makes you upset, but has done something that God says is wrong in his Word—you have the solemn responsibility to talk to them about it. Not talk to others about it—talk to the person about it. This is a private conversation to address the sin. And, ideally, that conversation is productive. The person recognizes their sin, apologizes, maybe even tries to do something to make up for it. And in that moment, you can assure them of your forgiveness for them and even more importantly God’s forgiveness for them. Thus, you have regained them.
But, it doesn’t always work like that, right? Sometimes the person is resistant to the rebuke, correction, the call to repentance. They deflect and ignore like Cain did. And so, Jesus says, your work is not over. “But if he will not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ ” While the initial approach is private, it begins to be slightly more public as you have to call in some help, to reinforce that this is not simply you trying to get your way, but confirming that this is dangerous sin. But perhaps the person will even ignore the small group, so then what is happening must be brought to the church: If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And, if he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as an unbeliever or a tax collector.
In the end, a lack of repentance indicates that someone has cut themselves off from God’s forgiveness. They’ve rejected God’s clear directions on right and wrong and, more to the point, have rejected Jesus. They have decided that their actions are fine, that they don’t need forgiveness for this sin, and that they are fine to stand before God in judgment for it. Of course, you and I know that’s not true, and so the last option we have to warn this person of the horrible severity of their sin is to separate them from us to make clear that their actions have separated themselves from God. So, the church’s last act of love is excommunication, a final warning that says, “You’re no longer connected to this congregation because you’re no longer connected to your Savior.” It is a harrowing, gut-wrenching thing. Our prayer is that this last action leads them to see their sin as the danger it is, that they turn from it, returning to their Savior and thus also to their brothers and sisters in Christ.
Sometimes this work ends in an encouraging way—you have regained your brother! Sometimes it ends in a troubling way—treat him as an unbeliever or a tax collector. But, regardless, the work must be done. So we cannot deceive ourselves. We cannot think, “I won’t talk to that person about this. It won’t do any good anyway. They won’t listen to me. They won’t change. It will always be the same.” Does Jesus say to address sin only when you assume your words will have an impact? Does he leave room for avoiding the situation and just holding on to animosity or a grudge against the person who has wronged you? No! “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his sin just between the two of you...” There’s no wiggle room here. This is not optional. This is the responsibility of the Christian to his or her brother or sister.
Likewise, we should be ready to be on the receiving end of this work. If I am caught in a sin that is enticing or frustrating, and my brother or sister comes to me concerned about that, how should I respond? In anger at them for being nosy? Should I ghost them because they are frustrating? No, I should see them as the loving brother or sister that they are, even if I don’t really understand at first what they’re talking about. I should listen to them, dig into God’s Word with them, and see if their concerns are backed by God.
We don’t embark on this work out of spite or pettiness, but out of spiritual concern for the one who is trapped in a sin. We know what it is to be besieged by sin because we’ve been there ourselves. We know what it is to feel trapped because we’ve been dead in sin as well. But we also know what it means to have our Savior wipe that slate clean. We know that every time we’ve refused to talk to the brother or sister who has sinned against us, every time that we haven’t wanted to turn away from a sin, every stumble, every fall, every rebellious act we’ve had toward God—all of these are why Jesus lived and died for us. He has removed them all.
So we go into this work knowing what it is to be rescued and brought from death to life. We reach out to the person dangling off the spiritual bridge; we slap the spiritual soda bottle filled with chemicals out of the person’s hand; we address sin. In every case, not to hold ourselves up as the be-all, end-all of doing the right thing. It’s not about us at all—it’s purely concern for the people who are killing themselves, whether they know or acknowledge it or not. It’s to show them their Savior who has rescued them from this sin, no matter what it is!
This work is difficult, regardless of whether you’re the one addressing sin or the one whose sin is being addressed. No matter what the outcome, whether joyful or disastrous, it’s important to remember that this work is backed by God. A few weeks ago in our Gospel, we saw Jesus give Peter the “keys to the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 16:19). Here, Jesus revisits the concept and assures the disciples that this isn’t just something for one person to manage; this is the responsibility of the Christian church at large: “Amen I tell you: Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
When we have to say to someone who is unrepentant that their sin is not forgiven, God supports us in that—whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. When we get to tell someone who is repentant that their sins are forgiven, God assures us that is true—whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. So when you do this work, uncomfortable as it may be, as an individual or if we even have to do it together as a congregation, we’re never doing it alone. God is by our side, supporting and backing this work up, work that he’s told us we need to do.
We have the solemn responsibility to address sin, but we also have the unbelievable joy to announce God’s complete and free forgiveness in Jesus to the repentant person. Lord, give us strength to carry out this task as you direct and to your glory alone! Amen.
