Worship at home audio test

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Prayers:

Confession and words of assurance:  

Gracious God, amidst our songs of joy, our hearts are touched by fear.  Sin plagues our world, sorrow enters our lives, even as we seek to hide from the truth of our ugliest thoughts and actions.  Cover us with your forgiveness and grace and reconcile us with your love and compassion.  Bring us closer to you that we may be welcomed into your presence and assured of your steadfast love and hope. Amen. Whenever two or three are gathered in Christs name, God is with us.  With God there is healing, forgiveness, reconciliation and unlimited love.  We are forgiven and made one with Christ and with each other.  Thanks be to God, Amen.  

Reading:  Matthew 18:15-20

Reflection:

Whenever the Sunday lectionary of readings throws up a short passage of Scripture like this, it is always worth looking to see what comes just before and what comes just afterwards.  Before this passage comes the parable of the lost sheep, where we discover that Jesus keeps looking for those who are lost, even when most people would have given up the search long ago.  And then afterwards comes Peter’s question, “How many times should I forgive?”  Jesus answers that there is no limit to forgiveness.  We should keep forgiving even when everyone else would have given up on the idea long ago.  There is a continuous theme here about reaching out to people, and never giving up on them.   

Our reading for today, sandwiched in the middle, follows that theme.  On the surface it seems like a rather legalistic blueprint for handling complaints and discipline within the church.  First we speak to the offender ourselves, then we take another person as reinforcement, and if that doesn’t work we involve the whole church.  If none of that works then, Jesus seems to be saying, we throw the offender out, treating them like a tax gatherer and a sinner.  Many in the past have treated this reading in a legalistic way where it has become a hard, and unforgiving means of control within the church.  But this teaching is not a blueprint for discipline which we follow legally step by step. We should know by now that Jesus is never legalistic.   

In the gospels Jesus is always trying to restore broken relationships, and bring back into community those who have lost their way.  Jesus own response to the lost tax collectors and sinners was to never give up on them.  He kept reaching out to them.  He never stopped looking for the lost.  He never stopped forgiving the sinner.  And here he teaches his brothers and sisters in the church to never stop trying to restore and reconcile themselves with those who have done wrong.  It is a lesson the church has repeatedly failed to learn, but of course it is never too late, even for us.

Hymn:  StF 712, “Put peace into each other’s hands”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwvYConbz0k&list=RDvwvYConbz0k&start_radio=1