“Texts of terror”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Thursday, June 20, 2024
Matthew 18: 10-20 (Forward, p. 53) CEV p. 1006
There is a long and wearisome history of the misuse of Scripture texts and in this regard, I think that two pieces of today’s text ‘take the cake‘. The first is the part that mentions a brother (or sister) sinning against you. This has been used as a justification or rationale for shunning or expelling a church member from the local congregation. It tells us that the member who refuses to listen to the gathered church should be ‘treated like an unbeliever or tax collector’, but does this really mean that this person is to be rejected and expelled? How did Jesus treat sinners, unbelievers, or tax collectors? He loved them, loved them even more, and tried His level best to win them over to Himself. And so, should not this be our stance as well? I think so.
And, as for the ‘binding and loosing’ power delivered over to the church, this too has been grossly misused over the centuries. I really do wonder whether this means that the church’s pronouncements and decisions are always right? Even when they are unjust or evil? Or when they are not helpful to a brother or sister or some other human being? Or even when they go against the revealed will of God?
So perhaps a bit of caution is in order here. Jesus first mentions this ‘binding and loosing’ authority in the context of Peter’s momentous confession of Jesus’ identity (see Matthew 16:19) and some sources have suggested that this power or authority was given uniquely to Peter and his successors. And yet in John 20: 23, He bestows this power upon all the disciples, in fact, to all the church. And, this makes sense in terms of our present passage, for it speaks of two or three being gathered together in prayer, in His name. So, it is not a private thing or decision, not in any sense.
And, furthermore, in saying that it is undertaken in prayer and in His name, means that we are earnestly seeking His will and His way in our decisions and actions.
So, I would suggest that Jesus’ own example—and His own words in this passage—mitigate against any harsh or vindictive application of these
words. In the short passage immediately preceding the part about the brother or sister sinning, Jesus explicitly gives us two orders: firstly, not to be cruel to any of ‘these little ones’ and secondly, to try our level best to rescue someone who strayed. And then, in the verses that follow today’s passage, we are told that forgiveness is to be without limit and is to be in the same measure as we ourselves have been given by God.
Forward notes: “So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost” (verse 14).
“In this passage, those who are least important in this world are most important in heaven. In Jesus’s eyes, ‘little ones’ are not just children but any lost, marginalized person of whatever age. Jesus’s continuing ministry to little ones is personified in the disciples and us today.
“Four-year-old Gordon always wore long sleeves and pants whenever we met. I had seen photos of the menacing bruises inflicted by his mother. My role on the child abuse therapy team was to be a compassionate healer to son and mother. Gordon defended his mother, for the pain of losing her was greater than the pain she wreaked on his body and mind. She was an abuser who had been abused. In her presence, I had to swallow bile and anger because like Gordon, she too was wounded; she too was a little one.
“Jesus met us in the therapy sessions, trudging through the trauma, pain, and tears. Each of us, according to God’s will and time, was being transformed.”
Moving Forward: “Who are the little ones in your life?”
