Text: Matthew 18:15-20
Other text: Ezekiel 33:7-11
It is not surprising that Ezekiel’s audience was discouraged and disillusioned. Their identity as a people and as a nation—the people and nation of Israel—was eroding. Who they were depended on a notion of God who had given them a land that was theirs to keep, a dynasty of powerful kings who would always rule, and a special spot in God’s heart. Yet now the land was occupied, and the kings and the other leaders captured and in exile. And as for God’s heart? Maybe God was fickle. The people, for their part, were losing heart.
Ezekiel the prophet was called to preach to the Israelites in exile and in the time of the destruction of the Temple, God’s house, in Jerusalem. He preached to a population that was overwhelmed by loss. They had lost their homes, they had lost their land, they had lost their power, and they had lost friends and family. More important to Ezekiel, though, is that they had begun to lose their sense of God—of their identity as a people blessed by God, of their conviction of God’s power, of their obligations under the covenant with God.
Ezekiel was called to both warn and console the exiles. He warns them that they had turned to idols. That is, they had lost sight of God because their eyes had begun to wander to perhaps more attractive partners. They were unable to hear God because their ears were seduced by catchier tunes. Israel, once the maverick and feisty nomads-turned-nation had become established, corrupt, and proud of its own accomplishments. Its hands were sore from patting itself on the back.
As a result, its people ended up in Babylon, far from home and hearth. Not because God’s heart had hardened regarding Israel. God wept for Israel. God had not punished Israel for violating God’s law and covenant. Instead, God’s law had been a force for Israel’s freedom. Israel’s agreement with God gave life. Israel’s deadly exile came about because the people had thrown away what made them good and strong.
It is odd that God, creator of the universe, should be so easy to lose. Not that we just misplace God, forgetting where to look—though sometimes that is how it feels when we need God most. But that, like the exiles, our eyes and ears get untuned somehow, and God’s words to us are less distinct. Sometimes they are covered by the cacophony of other sounds, the busy-ness of other sights of the world. And other times it seems as if we have lost the ability to hear in our native tongue.
Other losses follow (or maybe the other losses come first). Things that at times—in the history of the world and in the history of our own lives—things that seem so present become vague or fantastic or foolish or as a child might think. The power of prayer to change the world. The action of miracles. The strength and interest of the divine to protect the world and its creatures, and us, against evil. Hope in a new world. And especially the power and necessity of forgiveness.
The chapter in Matthew from which we just heard is all about forgiveness. Forgiveness is, I sometimes think, the hardest of all God’s gifts to accept. And therefore the first we discard. Or at least put at the back of the closet. Yet it is at the center of our theology and at the center of the teachings of Jesus. Forgiveness goes two ways. It is the joy of Christianity, that we are forgiven, not stuck in some evil rut. And it is the shock of Christianity, that we are called to forgive others, even the evil ones. For Jesus, the foundation of the kingdom of God is forgiving and being forgiven. But it is so hard to do that we cannot do it unless God is right there with us.
The passage in Matthew is in one sense about discipline. A person does something bad. It hurts you or people you love and hang around with. The backstory here is that your first impulse is to strike back. Or, more politely, to tell the person to take a hike. Get lost, go find some other folks to bother.
But Jesus says no. Not the thing to do. You should go through these steps. First you talk to the person one on one. (Not so easy, as you may have experienced in your own life.) Then if that does not work, you go with a couple of buddies. Then with the whole church. Then, finally, you treat the person as if he or she was a gentile or a tax collector. Which sounds pretty bad until you remember that eating and talking with gentiles and tax collectors is just what Jesus liked to do best.
These verses in Matthew on the one hand might tell us that we have to work really hard at reconciliation, going through all these convoluted steps. Or on the other hand—the hand I prefer, they might tell us that it should be really hard to lose someone. It takes many steps to let someone go.
God has a preference for forgiveness. If just a couple of you ask for anything, it will be done, Jesus promises. This promise is not the blank check it seems to be. It is a promise made in the context of reconciliation. If just a few of you folks want to get together and reconcile themselves and others, then I’ll go for it, says God. I’ll be there with them, those few folks, says Jesus.
Near the end of the book of Ezekiel, the part from which we read, Ezekiel comforts Israel with the promise of a new world. A restored kingdom. Throughout his ministry, Jesus energizes his followers with the promise of the coming of God’s kingdom, a world restored. The foundation of Christianity depends on the notion of a God who acts to renew the world. God is not fickle. God is stubborn, patient, and persistent. As far away as God sometimes seems, God is never lost.
And the foundation of the community of Christians, meaning the church, is forgiveness. The church is a place in which people can be seeds of forgiveness in a world which is juiced on guilt and blame. A church is a place to which any person may come hoping for acceptance and a place in which people here offer it. Even two or three, gathered in the name of Jesus.
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