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Disciples Deal with Discipline

            Want to make a quick buck?  Put together a seminar on self-discipline and learn how to market yourself as an expert in getting people to stick with a plan or go to the gym when all they want to do is lie on the couch and watch TV or say “no” when tempted to break their diet or only check their email only twice a day and at set times. There’s even a sub-culture of how-to books and seminars teaching the so-called “Christian disciplines” like sacrifice, serving, silence, solitude, fasting, and frugality.  But discipline isn’t always about self.  In fact, most often it’s about doling out discipline or receiving discipline, as in a parent-child relationship.  Without discipline a family will fall apart.

            God wants every Christian congregation to function as a family, united to grow in faith and to spread the good news about Jesus.  But what if someone conducts himself or herself in a way that hinders the spread of the good news about Jesus?  What if the sin of a member breaks up the unity God intends the congregation to enjoy?  Jesus teaches us in today’s gospel from Matthew chapter eighteen what to do as Disciples Deal with Discipline.

Using care outlined by the Savior

            When Jesus teaches disciples to deal with discipline, he leaves nothing to chance.  He outlined a careful and care-full process.  “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you.  If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.” That’s step one.  By the way, in Scripture the word brother means a fellow Christian.  Let’s say a Christian friend or family member sins against you.  Jesus is not talking about hearing something second-hand.  He is referring to the sad circumstance when you hear someone tossing God’s name around like dirt or know of someone who thinks going to church is a waste of time or get the clear message that the person you care about is into porn or weed or has decided to shack up before marriage.  Those are violations of God’s word and will, and any time God’s word and will are violated we care because we know God is hurt and we know our friend is putting a chink in their link with God.  We care so much that we yearn to get that person help.  If you cut your finger, the antibodies and cells around the cut go to work to start the healing process.  We want to start the healing process for a fellow Christian who may not even realize that he or she has sliced into his or her relationship with God.

            So Jesus says, “Go and show him his fault, just between the two of you.”  Of course, we want to keep in mind that Jesus also said, “Before you point out the speck of sawdust in someone else’s eye, you better get the log out of your own.”  No way will we want to approach someone who has sinned, “Aha!  I caught you!”  Rather, we first come to grips with our own sin and then, remembering the care Jesus has taken to bring help and healing to our soul, share that care.  “Go and show him his fault, just between the two of you,” not gossiping, not blasting it in an email or tweeting someone else or pasting on Facebook, “Hey!  Guess what I heard!”  No!  Go privately, one on one, and lay on his or her heart what God has to say about the sin.  When the erring person gets scared and starts to wonder, “What am I going to do?” then share the healing balm of God’s care for sinners.  “I have loved you with an everlasting love”(Jeremiah 31:3).  “I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; You are mine”(Isaiah 43:1).  “I have hurled your iniquities into the depths of the sea”(Micah 7:19).  Jesus said, “If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.”  Notice that he gave no timetable with this outline.  You may need to start with a few hints, move to more specifics, and have several conversations before the person grabs on to the seriousness of his or her sin.  Always, the driving force is that you care enough about that person to share that sin, any sin, is serious and a slap in God’s face.

            But what if the person you care about refuses to take your words seriously?  What then?  Write him or her off?  Jesus says, “Don’t give up.  If he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ ”  This is step two.  Two or three may succeed where one could not.  The purpose is to offer wider and deeper testimony that says, “We care about you.”  Again no timetable is given.  We simply want to do everything possible to help someone who has fallen into the mud puddle of sin with an opportunity to bathe in God’s forgiveness, which alone cleanses and empowers change.

            But what happens if that person digs the heels in?  What then?  Jesus says, “Don’t give up yet!” and provides one last resort, “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.”  This is step three.  Jesus does not mean, “Ridicule and shame that individual in public.”  He means, “Your friend needs help.  Do whatever it takes, including a total team effort, to win him or her back.”  If you neglect a cut, it could become infected and harm other parts of the body.  The whole body needs to summon defenses against infection and disease.  In a similar way the whole body of believers makes an appeal in order to win back the one who has been straying.  What a powerful demonstration of loving care!  Such concern for one soul!

            Jesus goes on, “If he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or tax collector.”  In Jesus’ day pagans (unbelievers) and traitorous tax collectors were outside the family of Israel by their own choice.  A persistently impenitent sinner is putting up a barrier which cuts off the forgiveness that is being offered.  We owe it to such an individual to tell him or her what he or she has done.  In church talk that’s called excommunication, which is not a boot out the door or a loveless hacking away at dead wood on a membership roster.  It is the last step of love to win someone back.  Yes, this last step of love is extremely serious.  I mean, how pleasant is it to know that a part of your body has died and needs to be removed?  But it’s necessary – because we care about God’s reputation, because we care about our own spiritual health, and especially because we care for the individual who is sliding on the slippery slope to hell.  Disciples of Jesus deal with discipline by using the care outlined by Jesus.

Using courage given by the Savior

            Someone may ask, “How can the church do this?  How can a bunch of people exclude someone else from the fellowship of the church?  Who gives the church such power to announce to someone, ‘Hell is where you’re headed’?”  The answer is here.  Jesus gives his church the courage to speak his words, both the threats about the consequences of sin and the promises of full forgiveness, the messages that function like keys to either lock or unlock heaven’s doors.  “I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”  Jesus gives these keys to the church.  Who is the church?  The pastor?  The church council?  The elders?  No!  The church is you.  Each individual Christian has the power and authority to warn a fellow sinner by saying, “What you are saying or doing is wrong!” and to comfort those who cringe and get scared by saying, “Jesus has forgiven you, and so do I!”  And when individual Christians gather to form a congregation, the group has the same authority.  When it comes to the last step of loving discipline outlined by Jesus, the members of a congregation rise with one voice and say, “We love our God and his words so much and we love you, dear friend, so much that we have to tell you what you are doing to yourself by your sin or error.  You are on the road to hell.  As surely as the Lord lives, he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.  Turn!  Turn from your evil ways!  Why will you die(Ezekiel 33:11), dear friend?”  That takes a lot of courage.  It takes lot of courage to speak to someone one on one and for a congregation to announce the last step of love.  So, in order for disciples to deal with discipline, Jesus gives courage.

            How does Jesus do that?  He gives courage through his promises, and there are two beauties in this gospel account.  “I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.”  When dealing with discipline and when sparring with the source of sin, Satan, it’s nice to know we can communicate with our heavenly Father about it.  Our prayers function better than a soldier’s communication link to headquarters.  With modern technology a soldier on the battlefield can call headquarters, “You better send in the helicopters.”  We have a direct communication link to the Almighty God in heaven through our prayers, “Lord, send in the helicopters of your strength and power” as we deal with discipline.

            As if that’s not enough, Jesus adds, “Where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”  Not only does God hear (h-e-a-r), but he is actually here (h-e-r-e).  Even the smallest gathering of believers has the assurance that the Lord is present with power and pardon to add to our courage.  And consider this – the smallest squadron of Christians is the Christian family.  Jesus wants us to deal with discipline first in the home – spouses forgiving each other, parents forgiving children, children forgiving parents, sister forgiving brother, brother forgiving sister.  That doesn’t always have to be so formal.  Maybe an arm around the shoulder or a loving smile or a hug that says, “Jesus still loves you, and so do I!”  But it could include something that you might not be aware of or at least may not have used.  When someone has really messed up and hurt you, and when you begin the steps of care outlined by Jesus, check out page one hundred fifty-four in the front of the hymnal for private confession and announcement of forgiveness.  I would venture to say that if Jesus’ program of forgiveness would be carried out regularly in each family, rare would be the times when a Christian congregation would get to step three.

            Peter sat there with his face in his hands.  This time the tears didn’t flow right away, but he could tell they were backed up like flood waters behind a dam as he recalled the last time he felt this way.  “What was it, twenty years ago?  It seemed like just last night that I tried to hold myself up from crumpling along that cold stone wall outside the high priest’s courtroom after Jesus gave me that look … that look of sadness and hurt after I blurted out not once, not twice, but three times that I had no connection with him and could care less about him.  Oh, how I wish it had never happened!   But here I am again.  You would think I had learned my lesson, but those old traits have a way of bubbling up and spurting out.  I had told these wonderful people in these Asia Minor congregations that Jesus had ended all the restrictions given to the ancient Israelites and that they were in with God not by their doing but alone by his keeping all God’s laws and paying for their sins.  But when those fancy-robed, high-and-mighty scholars from Jerusalem showed up, I wanted to impress them that I was still a cool guy.  So, I gave in and gave the impression that to be in with God, keeping the old dietary and Sabbath laws was still the way to go.  My friend, Paul, was right.  He was right in confronting me privately, and he was right in calling me out in front of the congregations.  I knew he cared about me, but I didn’t realize the depth of his care.  So, here I sit once again, ready to burst into tears of sadness because of my dumb sin and into tears of joy for the forgiving love of Jesus that Paul assured me I still have and for the care he showed to me.  Lord Jesus, give me courage to do the same, and use me to help other disciples deal with discipline because that’s what Christians in your family of faith do.”    Amen.

Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (www.gracedowntown.org) on October 2, 2011

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Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church | 1209 North Broadway Milwaukee, WI 53202 | (414) 271-3006

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