Proper 18 Year A, 2023: Matthew 18:15-20

  If you’ve been through the Road to Emmaus class here at Grace, you might know that I have opinions about Bible translations. Because translation is interpretation. This isn’t a judging statement: it simply is, because the meanings of words change over time. And translating is hard. Especially if you’ve ever tried to translate an idiom from one language to another, you know that you have to do more work than just straight up finding the words for “let the cat out of the bag” or “kill two birds with one stone”. If you don’t understand the culture, it sounds insane. You pick up on what phrases like these mean by living in the language. The Gospels were written in Greek, but Jesus would likely have been teaching in Aramaic, which makes me wonder what kinds of linguistic gymnastics the authors had to make to begin writing in the first place.

This brings us to the King James Version. I have much more patience with the King James Version than I have with many modern translations. I’ve heard it said that the best Bible translation to use is the one you have in front of you. But I have usually heard this said by people who have not historically been excluded from academia by reason of their gender or race. For example, look at the English Standard Version, or ESV, first published in 2001. And, like the King James Version, you may notice that the translation team contains zero women. This exclusion is a purposeful choice in the ESV - there were definitely women scholars in 2001. And since translation is interpretation, you end up with an entire Bible that doesn’t have any input from 50% of the population. To argue that you should use this translation on the merit of its existence is ludicrous. But the King James Version is truly well intentioned scholarship. It’s just 400 year old scholarship. Since its publication, many earlier and more accurate manuscripts have been discovered and most modern translations are based on those. So if you like reading your King James Version psalms, I’m not going to take them away from you. But please, please if you’re looking for serious Bible study, look elsewhere.

That being said, what we have in front of us today is a King James translation, so instead of distributing a handout, I’m going to work with it. Jesus gives steps to follow “if your brother shall trespass against thee”. “Brother” here being a much more personal word (and technically accurate) than the New Revised Standard Version’s “another member of the church”. Jesus, of course, does not mean your literal brother, it’s more like what we mean today when we say “sibling in Christ”. Jesus then quotes Deuteronomy. No one would be taking notes at this point. Jesus isn’t saying anything new. To quote the New Revised Standard Version: “A single witness shall not suffice to convince a person of any crime or wrongdoing in connection with any offense that may be committed. Only on the evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be sustained. If a malicious witness comes forward to accuse someone of wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days, and the judges shall make a thorough inquiry.” (Deut. 19:15-18)

And then, Jesus continues, after you take the case to the religious authorities - that is, the assembly of the church, “if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.” “Heathen man” and “publican” are actually technically accurate translations of the Greek words there, but going forward I’m going to use what the NRSV uses - which are also technically accurate, but are words you might be more familiar with: Gentiles and tax collectors. 

Relations between Jews and Gentiles and between Jews and tax collectors weren’t violent, but the groups did not mix. One of the problems Paul addresses in First Corinthians is how Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians can break bread together. Tax collectors were themselves Jews, but they were Jews who were colluding with the occupying Romans, collecting Roman taxes and extorting their fellow Jews for additional money. If you had a tax collector in your family, it would be more difficult to marry off your children, as others did not want to marry into a family with tax collectors as members.

So it might seem like Jesus is letting us off the hook - treat this person who has wronged you in the same way in which you treat these other people you don’t like. But that should raise a giant red flag, because Jesus - the same Jesus that just said in last Sunday’s Gospel reading “if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24), doesn’t have a history of making things easier for his followers, especially when it comes to how we treat one another. His disciples may have been thinking, “Great! We already don’t like Gentiles OR tax collectors, so we’ll treat this person who has wronged us in the same way we treat these other people we don’t like.” But what are the odds that the same Jesus who was constantly in trouble with the religious authorities over being too welcoming to outcasts is telling us that if we have a falling out with one of our siblings in Christ that we can shut them out too?

For answers, let’s look at how Jesus treats Gentiles and tax collectors.

In Matthew 8, a centurion - read: Gentile - comes to Jesus to heal his servant. Jesus said, “I’ll come heal him.” The centurion said, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed.” Jesus responded, “Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.”

In Matthew 9, Jesus saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, as he was a tax collector. Jesus said to him, “follow me”, and he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners.”

It seems the disciples have an inkling of what Jesus means by saying “treat them as Gentiles and tax collectors,” because after Jesus finished speaking Peter had this follow up question: “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” The number seven suggests completeness and Peter seems to be offering a pretty good deal, right? Seven feels like a more than fair number of times to forgive. But Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven, or seventy times seven, times,” the Greek is unclear. Either way, it’s not meant to be a tally. It means continually forgive.

So what are we to do with all of this? I think Jesus is providing us guidance with two important relationship points: reconciliation and forgiveness. Oftentimes we jump to situations where we clearly ought to not be in relationship with the person who has wronged us, asking questions like, “so does that mean we’re supposed to welcome our abusers with open arms?” The answer to that question is “no.” Jesus provides the answer within “treat them as a Gentile or tax collector.” He tells us that we are to work to mend mendable relationships. If the other party isn’t ready, they won’t sit down at the table and you cannot reconcile with someone who is unwilling to do the work of reconciliation. We see willingness to reconcile in the way the tax collector Zacchaeus responded to Jesus’ invitation: to repent and change his ways, repaying anyone he had defrauded multiple times over. An expensive act of reconciliation.

Peter’s question reinforces our call as followers of Jesus: we don’t get to just write someone off because we don’t like them, like Jesus’ disciples learned regarding the Gentiles and tax collectors. Even with those with whom they, and we, cannot reconcile, we are called to continue to pray for them, not literally seventy times seven times, but to Jesus’ point, always. That is where healing takes place, because healing and love are not found in alienation, but in forgiveness because forgiveness changes me, it changes us.

Jesus concludes today’s Gospel with a hopeful reminder, “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Jesus constantly reminds us, you are not alone. You have each other and you have me. The Gospel of Matthew ends with Jesus saying, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” - the word used for nation is derivative of the word used for Gentile, meaning the nations of which the Gentiles are members - “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Keep the door open, forgive one another to set yourself free in love, and know that Jesus is always there with us. Amen.