In our Gospel today, Jesus is talking with the Disciples about what to do if another member of the church sins against you. The expression, sins against you, is not very clear. Jesus is not being very precise when he says that, and there are all kinds of debates about if this type of sin is relevant here or not. But Jesus is likely using it in a general sense to mean that if someone has wronged you, what do you do about it? Jesus says, first go talk to the person one on one. If that doesn’t work, take a couple of people with you. If that doesn’t work, take it to a bigger circle, and if none of this works, then treat them like a Gentile or a tax collector.
But what does that mean? The standard interpretation is that the Gentiles and tax collectors are outside of the community. So to treat someone like a Gentile or tax collector means to kick somebody out of the community. A Gentile is, by definition, not a part of the group. You have Jews and you have Gentiles, you have us and you have them. Tax collectors were a part of the group, but then they started collaborating with the occupying Roman Empire to oppress the people, so they got kicked out of the group. These are folks that you don’t hang out with, and that you may even shun. There are Christian communities who take this passage from Matthew’s Gospel and use it to engage in practices of excommunication or shunning. After an earlier service, a parishioner came up to me and shared her earlier experience of being publicly excommunicated at her church with a reading of a letter. This is based on a literal understanding of what Matthew is talking about.
My problem with this interpretation is that the world may have been shunning these folks, but Jesus doesn’t. So this interpretation is not in line with what Jesus does with Gentiles and tax collectors. What does Jesus do with these folks? He eats with them. He heals them. He invites them in. He engages with them. He, dare I say, loves them.
What does it mean to treat someone as a Gentile or tax collector if you’re following Jesus and want to do what Jesus does? It doesn’t mean to push somebody away. It means to keep engaging with them in love. Love, that center of the Gospel message: from Incarnation to Death and Resurrection, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son; there is no greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. It is all about love. When Jesus asks what the greatest commandment is, he says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. On these two hang all the law and the prophets. But who is my neighbor, the lawyer asks. It doesn’t mean that person, does it? And Jesus said, it sure does. It might even mean a Samaritan. That goes over our heads, because for us it is the Good Samaritan, like the name of a hospital in Corvallis. Samaritans are good people, but that is not how people understood it when they heard this Gospel. A Samaritan was the last person you can imagine as your neighbor. So Jesus says you have to love even those people that you really don’t want to love. If that’s not clear enough, at one point Jesus says you have to love your enemies, too. Love is the center of the Gospel.
This passage that we hear today, this teaching from Jesus, is about how we love. We remain in relationship with people even when we are in conflict with them, and we treat them in love.
It is the same thing in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans: owe no one anything except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. This follows directly from last week’s reading when Paul was talking all about love. He said do not return evil for evil, but return good for evil, for it is like heaping burning coals on their head. There is nothing that the bully hates more than someone loving them back. It shakes everything up. So Jesus is teaching us the Gospel message to love.
I know it is not always easy. In fact, it is rather difficult sometimes. We think of love as being that feel good feeling, but love is so much more than that. Love is the very intentional practice of caring about another person, even when there doesn’t seem to be very much to care about. Love is that act of blessing and not cursing that Paul talked about last week. Love is not an easy thing. It is one of the most challenging things to do sometimes. So we might be relieved to think we can treat someone like a Gentile and ignore them. No. We have to keep engaging. You may need to create some boundaries about how you engage to avoid abuse, but that doesn’t mean we give up on trying to love them.
So, my friends, school is starting, which means you get homework, and that is to love. Love your neighbors, love at home, love at work, love out in the community. Love the person that is really easy to love, and love the person that is really hard to love as well. Love just as God loves you.
AMEN.
