Praying Together 10th September 2023

It’s a measure of just how well Jesus understands human behaviour that He finds it necessary to teach about resolution of disputes, even among the fellowship. Worse, and sad to say, it’s quite often that this Gospel teaching (which is clearly about addressing sin and subsequent reconciliation) is used instead as a means of exerting discipline in church congregations when there has been disagreement and argument, especially by those in leadership positions who don’t like their authority questioned. It is deployed – wrongly – as a Scripturally-based multiple step approach to getting one’s own way and suppressing disagreement.

The way it goes is this. If someone doesn’t agree with you:

Step 1 – Take him or her on one side and ‘in love’ tell them they are wrong.

Step 2 – If that fails, get a couple of people who will take your side of the argument, and again ‘in love’, tell him or her they are wrong.

Step 3 – And if that doesn’t work, claim your authority to insist the whole church should fall into line in agreement with you, and then tell ‘the transgressor’ in public how wrong they are – of course, still ‘in love’.

Step 4 – Boot them out of the fellowship and treat them as you treat dogs.

Which is not what Jesus is saying at all. The steps Jesus suggests are ways of making sure that actually you’re not the one holding the wrong end of the stick. At each level, there is a need to test and validate your belief by eliciting the opinion of others, all the while being conscious of your own fallibility. Certainly, the other person may be wrong – but so could you be. Never forget that just because someone dances to a different drum than yours, they must inevitably be the one who is in the ‘sinner’.

There’s an even bigger sting in the tail regarding your subsequent action in dealing with ‘sinners’ when all else fails. Jesus tells us to treat our opponent as a Gentile or a Tax collector in the same way He treated them. How? The same way He treats Jews, Greeks, Slaves, Free, Men, Women: as sinners, but still people who He loves enough to die for.

Yes of course we have a responsibility to address sin – but before we criticise others, we need to start with ourselves. Today’s Gospel message is not about condemnation. Rather, it’s about not being the one who casts the first stone.