Episode Details

A sermon on Matthew 18:15–20Opening“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I among them.”In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.Amen.The Church as the Place of Christ’s PresenceI think the reason I am where I am and do what I do is at least partly because I love the Church. What I am about to say may sound slightly extreme, but I do believe that the Church holds out the only real hope for this world. I do not believe this because of the greatness of the Church as we see it here on earth—far from it—but because of the presence of Christ in the Church.Christ seeks to bring healing, joy, reconciliation, and peace: between God and humanity, and between men and women and children. The Church is the principal place, the principal forum, in which Christ has promised to manifest his grace in this world.Of course we get it wrong so much of the time. Of course we do. Yet it remains the promise we have from Christ, as we heard in our reading today. The Apostle Paul says elsewhere in the New Testament: “We have this treasure in jars of clay.” It is a very powerful image—jars of clay. We are fragile, feeble, sinful, vulnerable, and easily broken. And yet, in a very real way, Christ entrusts the message to us; and in a very real way he also entrusts himself and his presence to us.Christ’s Teaching on ReconciliationOur Gospel reading begins with advice from Christ about reconciliation in the Church. How do we bring about reconciliation when relationships are broken? The point of the whole passage is that the unity we share together as a Church has heavenly significance. The unity of prayer and concord that we share is a manifestation of Christ in the world—and that is why it is so important. That is why Christ gives us this advice for trying to win back someone who has sinned.“Go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone,” says Christ—presumably because it is easier to persuade someone when it is just the two of you rather than when many people are present. If this does not work, Christ says, bring some others along and see if he listens then. If he still does not listen, tell it to the Church—the assembled congregation. That is a fearful proposition. And if he still does not listen, let him be to you as a tax collector and a Gentile—not meaning someone completely cut off (Christ himself spent time with tax collectors and Gentiles), but someone outside the fellowship of the Church and therefore in need of further calling to repentance.This is Christ’s teaching on bringing about restoration. It is worth pointing out that the explicit aim of what he says is to bring about healing in relationships and therefore unity in the Church. Even the treating of someone as a tax collector or Gentile is spoken of by Saint Augustine as a kind of medicine to cure the soul—to cure the one who will not listen to rebuke.Honesty, Humility, and Personal ResponsibilityThe teaching of Christ reveals that there is something healthy and right about being open and honest with other people, especially when they have hurt us or done something wrong to us. It is of course easier to internalise our anger; it is easier sometimes to speak behind people’s backs instead of confronting them honestly. We gossip and slander to others—perhaps simply to offload our grievances, or perhaps to get others on side in a kind of campaign against the person who has hurt us. This is the temptation when things go wrong. All of it is toxic: toxic in the Church, toxic in any organisation, toxic among any group of human beings.So Christ tells us: if someone has sinned against you, go to that person (if it is appropriate to do so) and speak honestly. If you need advice about how to do this, I was once told that the best approach is first to state the effect the other person’s behaviour has had upon you, rather than making a direct accusation about their personality or patterns of behaviour. “When you said or did that, I felt concern