A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on September 6, 2020 at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on Matthew 18:1-20. You may play the audio of the sermon here.
A mostly unedited transcript of the sermon follows the jump:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from the Gospel according to St. Matthew, the 18th chapter:
At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire. “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. 11For the Son of Man came to save the lost. What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
It all hinges on this word, for where two or three are gathered in my name there am I among them. And you look at me and you go, what in the world are you talking about? But this whole passage actually hinges on that last thing that Jesus leaves us with. It might not be something that we ordinarily just think of but it is something that is there for us to consider, where two or three are gathered in my name there am I among them. It's true. It's true and you have to ask the question, all right, so where are two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name? Where would that be?
Well, very clearly, the church. When we gather together in worship in this way, Jesus Christ promises to be here among us. Where two or three are gathered in my name there I am. There I am in baptism. There I am in the word preached and proclaimed. There I am where sins are forgiven. There am I in the supper. Because when two or three get together in Jesus’ name, you can't help but have a church service. And so God has indeed promised that he is present in these things.
But now we have to kind of work backwards. If two of you agree on earth about anything that they ask it will be done for them by my Father in Heaven. Well, alright, this is great. All I gotta do is get somebody to agree with me that I need a million dollars and then I'm going to pray and God is going to have to grant that, right? No, that would be asking essentially for the wrong thing. I mean you could ask for a million dollars, but God is not under no compulsion to do it. Instead, when two or three are gathered in Jesus name, what are we asking for? The forgiveness of sins. Grace. Mercy. Peace. Life everlasting. These things we agree on and God will indeed give them to you when we are asking him for them. Everything again hinges on those last words.
See, all of this is actually about the forgiveness of sins and Matthew talks a lot about this. You have to remember, Matthew was a tax collector. Tax Collectors were seen as traitors, especially in Israel. A tax collector doesn't just go around and make sure that you're paying your 20% to the government. The tax collector is going to go around making sure that you pay 20% to the government, but then they're going to tack on whatever fees they like to get the money from you. Tax collecting was a bidding process. One tax collector would tell the government they could get $200,000. Another would say $300,000. Of course, the ruler is going to take the higher bid. But now the tax collector better deliver. That means, not only is he going to get that money, but he’s going to get quite a bit for himself. People would rightly be annoyed by this; they were being bilked. And then add to that, a tax collector in Israel who was a Jews would have been seen as a big no-no. A Jew working for the Romans was a huge betrayal. Matthew, Levi, the tax collector, was called by Jesus to be an apostle and you have to imagine the other people around him saying, oh no Lord, we don't want a tax collector here. You may not know it but he's really bad and we don't like him. But Matthew had been forgiven much by Jesus in that call. And so it is that we find the forgiveness of sins littered all over Matthew's gospel.
And so it is today that we find this long speech of Jesus about the forgiveness of sins and about the binding of sins. We've actually talked in recent weeks about that, talking and thinking about the keys that Jesus gives to the church. We have a reminder here in our church, right up on St. Peter’s window above the altar, with the two keys. One key to forgive and the other key to retain sins. In fact, we even had that symbol in our bulletins, right after our absolution. It's to remind you that you have now had the key of the forgiveness of sins exercised for you that you are now free to enter into the safety of God's mercy, God's kingdom, and there you can live in security.
Well, Matthew talks not only about that. But he also talks about the other side of things. He starts off with this idea of, well, who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, which is really rather a stupid question to ask because, honestly, as Christians, if we are concerned with the idea of who is greatest, then our eyes are on the wrong thing because we're two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name we are to be about the things of God, not the things of man. And so Jesus takes one of the most despised things around them, a child. A child is a drain on resources until he or she is old enough to do work for the house. A child is dirty and filthy. You never know where they've been. A child is just seen as kind of the forgotten. No wonder so many orphans were wandering around Israel. No one would want to take one in and yet Jesus calls us to be kind to them. And in fact today he tells us that the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, if you're going to count greatness, is going to be like one of these children. You must humble yourself to be great.
If you humble yourself in order to be great, then that's the problem. But if you humble yourself, you will be called great. You see the distinction there. Jesus says we must be like little children. And in fact, we need to be as innocent and as trusting and as wide-eyed as children, that we might receive the mercy of God with awe and wonder.
And then whoever receives a child just like this, or one of us who are just like that, receives Jesus, because we come where two or three are gathered humbly before God. We come before him not haughty, not thinking more of ourselves than we need to, but we come before God in Jesus Christ knowing who we are as sinners, knowing that we indeed deserve no mercy, no grace. We know instead that, because of our sins, not only that which is in us, which we have inherited from Adam, but that which we have committed since the moment we were conceived in our mothers’ wombs, we deserve nothing but hell. For our sins of anger and frustration, for our sins of haughtiness, for our sins of arrogance, we deserve hell.
But, if we humble ourselves before God confessing who it is that we are before him, knowing that we are sinners, and saying that to him the same thing as the law of God, which accuses us, yes Lord, I am a sinner, then we are received. We are received not only by those around us, for we are all in the same boat, but we are also then received by God into his kingdom forever, because when we know that we are a sinner, we know that we need a great Savior, and we have one in Jesus the Christ. Whoever receives one just like this receives Jesus.
But woe to the one who causes someone just like this to sin. It would be better for them to have a millstone tied around his neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea. And this is a big thing. Again, we’ve talked about this, but you need to remember the Jews were not very fond of the sea. They believed that if you drowned at sea, there's no body for you to be resurrected in. For Jesus to come back and resurrect you, it just isn’t possible in their minds. And so Jesus is saying if you cause one of my Christians, one of my little sinners who are repentant, to sin again, it would be better for you if you have this giant millstone tied around your neck, where you cannot break free of it, to take you to the bottom of the ocean where you will find no resurrection of the dead, because if you were to be resurrected you would have a hell worse than hell.
Woe to the world for the temptations to sin. Truly, the world does tempt us to sin and there are those in the world who do tempt us to sin. That is not a good thing We should avoid such things as much as possible. But even if we can’t, we have a Jesus still who does forgive us.
Then Jesus says something really interesting and you really have to consider this. If you get this wrong, you definitely miss his point. If you get it wrong, you’ll leave thinking that you can atone for your own sin simply through self-mutilation. Jesus says if your hand or your foot causes you to sin cut it off because it'd be better for you to enter heaven mutilated than to enter hell with both hands or feet. Jesus says if your eye causes you to sin you should just pluck it out because it'd be better that way for you to enter Heaven with no eye then to go into hell with both. But here's my question to you: When did your hand cause you to sin? When did your foot cause you to sin? When did your eye causes you to sin?
You see, our desires are wrong. The desire that's in our heart, whether it be lust or envy or jealousy, whether it be anger, whether it whatever, the things that are within us are moving us into sin. Our desire moves us to sin, not our hands, not our feet. If we could pluck our desire from us, we should, but we can’t. And so, there is a second meaning here: Jesus is pointing out that if a member of your body, the body of the church, where two or three are gathered in his name, if they should cause you to sin, it'd be better that they be cut off from you. Even if it should be a member of your body, a member who should be leading you into righteousness, who causes you to sin, it would be better if they be cast out. We don't need people around us who are tempting us into sin. We don't need people around us who are trying to drag us down into hell with them. And that may seem harsh, but it's necessary that we should cast them out of the church, that the church might indeed still be saved.
He see these people will try to lead us astray, Jesus’ little ones, his children. There are even all the Heavenly Angels who are looking after us. And Jesus says it would be better if these people leading them into hell would just go away, be cut off, because now you are grieving the angels who are in heaven.
You see Jesus came to save the lost. And there are so many who have gone astray, but many who have been rescued by Jesus, many whom he went off to find.. So many of them have gone to be with him forever, but we’re still here. And if we’re honest with ourselves, we often go astray. So Jesus comes to us, looking for us, finding us, and in heaven, then there was much rejoicing when Jesus brings us back into the fold. He does this through His Word and Sacraments, and it is indeed great joy when we are restored to his care.
But when Jesus finds us and we dive bomb off the cliff rather than go with him, the angels in heaven weep along with him. They sorrow over us because they know us, they know us because we are the church and they want to be with us. Jesus wants also to be with you forever. But if instead we choose sin, we end up separated from Jesus and his love and face instead only the wrath of God forever.
In that same vein, then, with that same thought in mind, we should be very loving in trying to bring people back into the fold of Jesus Christ. If a brother sins against, you you need to go and tell him so that he can repent and be forgiven. That’s what life is. That's wonderful. If you do that and he listens to you and he does repent and he is forgiven, you are now again the two people among whom Jesus is. If he doesn't listen to you, you're supposed to take two or three other witnesses. In the law of God, only one other person is required to witness against one’s misdeeds. If one is to be convicted, there only have to be two people who say the same thing. Jesus here is saying now it is not just you and not just another but instead where two or three are gathered, you bring those who, with you, make up the church. And if they still won't listen, then you take it to the entire church. And if they still won't listen to the entire church, if they still won't repent and be forgiven, then cast them out, cut them off, treat them like a tax collector, treat them like a gentile, avoid them at all cost, stay away from them because it would be better for you to be missing these body parts than for you to go to hell with them.
Jesus is in the business of forgiving sins. That's what he came to do. He came to bring all people to himself. And as much as he desires that, he also does give us the freedom to reject him and his work and that is sad. It is sad when people do that. It is not a fault of God that we reject his work. It is the fault of man. Jesus instead wants to save us. So, where two or three are gathered here in this church, we look to that saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross for us, taking our place, taking our sin, facing the hell that we deserve. We look to him. We find the Forgiveness of sins.
The church should be a forgiving place. And so we are. We do retain the sins of those who sin and do not repent. But as soon as they do, it's almost as if the words are coming out of their mouth, I repent, that we yell back, I forgive you.You are forgiven. Welcome back to the fold.
We should be among those who are most welcoming and most desirous of people to be among us, not because we look for numerical strength of our church, but because we know the great love of Jesus Christ found in that forgiveness of sins. And we know that, because for so long now, we are two or three gathered in his name. And Jesus will indeed give us all things that we ask for, forgiveness, life, and even salvation, for he has promised it and he will do it. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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