“Grace, mercy, and peace be with all of you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.”
If you’d asked me ten years ago what I thought of this particular chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, I would have told you that this is a collection of independent, disconnected sayings of Jesus recorded here for us to ponder one at a time. But with some more study and maturity, I believe that this whole chapter is one coherent arc that has been pieced together, intended to show us who and what we are as Christians.
The whole chapter moves from an admonishment to humility, through a set of warnings which are quite stern, to a reminder of the loving and pursuing love of God, and then to the task of reconciliation. One coherent, connected arc.
We start at the beginning. The disciples ask who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and one can imagine that they are awfully confused about that topic because of the readings we’ve had here in church the last two weekends. Two weekends ago it was Saint Peter. Jesus says, “Who do people say that I am?” And people have all sorts of answers, and he says, “Who do you say that I am?” And Saint Peter says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus praises him: “Blessed are you, Simon Son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. And you are,” — and this is where he gets his nickname, Peter — “a rock, and on this rock I will build my church.”
I mean, you’ve got to feel — if Jesus is praising you for getting the answer right, that is better than the best moment in the most important sports game you’ve ever played in your life, right? He’s thinking, “Yes, I’ve got it.” Which leads us into last week’s reading, which was Saint Peter appoints himself as Jesus’ trusted advisor. And Jesus begins to tell his disciples that he’s going to have to go to Jerusalem and be betrayed and mistreated by the elders there and then be crucified and then on the third day rise. And Peter’s like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a minute now, Jesus. Here’s what I think is going to happen. God forbid that you do any of that stuff, because that’s a really stupid idea. You’re going to get yourself killed.” And the one who gets called Peter, the rock, now gets called Satan. “Get behind me, Satan, for your mind is set on the things of earth instead of the things of heaven.”
So the disciples naturally are confused, and we come to our reading here now. Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? If it’s not Peter — Peter has his highs and his lows — then who is it? What is it that makes you great in the kingdom of God?
And Jesus immediately picks up a child and puts the child in their midst. A child, a small child, probably a toddler, a little kid, like some of the kids that we had up front here just a minute ago — putting an actual living, breathing, and easily ignored human being in the midst of their theological debate. And he says, “If you would like to become greatest in the kingdom of God, you must become like this little child. Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
What is it about that child that makes them such an example? Children in the ancient world had no status, no power, no rights. All they could do was receive. They were not treated as special treasures. They were thought of as liabilities, at least until they reached the age where they could do chores on the farm. That’s it. They weren’t good for anything. They were just recipients of care. And that’s the point. You need to have nothing to prove and everything to receive in order to be welcomed into the kingdom of God. You climbing your ladders, you trying to ascend in rank, you trying to seek that pecking order that puts you at the top and others beneath, you trying to be in charge — that’s the problem. The kingdom of God is about those who are humbled like that child.
And then the narrative swings hard. From a warm image of this child being welcomed in the kingdom of God to Jesus’ stern warning about the millstone. He says, “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.”
My older two children are lifeguards. One of the things they have to do for lifeguard training is they have to retrieve a brick from the bottom of the deep end, okay? I have tried this exactly one time. You think, “I’m a big guy, a brick isn’t that big” — it’s exhausting. But a brick is about this big, and a millstone is this big. A brick is about this thick, a millstone is this thick or more. There is no hope for one who has a millstone fastened around their neck and is drowned in the depth of the sea.
The “little ones” here now — we’re not speaking just of small children, but we are speaking about little ones who believe. The phrase “little ones” has expanded to anybody who is vulnerable in their faith. And the warning is incredibly severe. Those who would cause those who are vulnerable in their faith to fall away from Christ — this is the reason Jesus gives a warning about this millstone that is so pointed.
And then he says, “Occasions for stumbling are bound to come.” They are inevitable, but woe to the person who brings it.
Then he gets to the ugly, meaty sayings. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. And then the really ugly one: if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Because it would be better to enter the kingdom of heaven maimed than to burn in hell. The point here is not literal self-mutilation, of course. The point is that nothing is more important than staying in the kingdom. Your hand is not more important than your soul. Your reputation is not more important than someone else’s faith. It’s time to get radical about what you are willing to give up for the sake of the kingdom of God. Better to enter life maimed than to be thrown into eternal fire.
But lest we think then that this is simply about straighten up, fly right, do what you’re supposed to do, then we have the lost sheep sayings. Here is Jesus’ heart for his little ones — those who are vulnerable, those who are small and struggling in their faith, people like you and me who don’t always have it all together, who don’t always keep it together with the flock. A shepherd who has a hundred sheep on the hillside, and then one wanders off, and he leaves the ninety-nine and goes and pursues the one. And when he finds it, there’s more joy over that one sheep who wandered away and has returned than there is over the ninety-nine who did what they were supposed to do. God’s will is that not one little one should perish. Every sheep is worthy of being pursued. God’s love encompasses everyone.
This is the God who appoints sentinels on the wall, as Ezekiel the prophet says — giving warning about the bad things that are out there, but also encouraging all to come into the safety of the fortified walls of the kingdom of God.
But occasions for stumbling are bound to come, Jesus himself said it. So then we come to the last portion, the last six verses of this passage we read today — the part about reconciliation. Now Jesus shows us what it looks like when one of these little ones actually does wander into sin, because we don’t treat them as other or outside.
He says, “If your brother sins against you, go to him alone.” This is the only Christian way, the only way that Jesus Christ himself endorses for dealing with our problems. Not going to your friends, not complaining about it to your family, not posting about it on social media, not texting your friend group and telling the group chat about how badly you have been wronged. The only Christian way to resolve this is caring about the faith of the other person as strongly as you care about your own flesh — to go to them one-on-one.
And if he listens, Jesus says, “You have regained your brother.” Notice the family terms that come back in — brothers and sisters in Christ, siblings adopted by the Lord Jesus to be part of his kingdom, part of his family. And he says, “If he listens, you have regained your brother. You have restored a relationship with somebody who should be to you as family.” He doesn’t say, “If you go to him one-on-one and if he listens to you, you won the argument. Good job.” Or, “You’ve punished him. Way to go.” You have regained him. The whole process is built around getting the person back, restoring the relationship, reconciling with one with whom you have a problem.
And if he won’t listen, it continues. If he won’t listen, take witnesses, in the presence of two or three others. And if he still won’t listen, take it to the church, seek reconciliation where it might be found. And if he won’t listen to the church, then treat him like a tax collector and a Gentile.
Which sounds like he’s being cast out. But here’s the key. What does a Gentile and a tax collector mean when we are hearing this being recorded by Saint Matthew? Saint Matthew, who himself, before he came to Christ, was a tax collector. For Saint Matthew, that means it’s the people that Jesus keeps seeking, keeps eating with, keeps sharing his good news with. The people that Jesus kept pursuing, the people that he died for.
That’s where the promise comes then: where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them. And it’s worth noticing — I’ve said this myself too, recently, like this week I’ve made the claim that when two or three people are gathered in the name of Jesus, there he is among them. And we use this in committee meetings and we talk about this in Bible studies: where two or three are gathered, Jesus is with us. But we don’t think about the context. The context of that particular quote is a capstone on a section of church discipline. Not just “get together with two or three people and that’s what — Jesus is there with you,” yes. But more importantly, Jesus is saying: when you do the hard work of reconciliation, when you reach out to make sure that every person is reconciled to you, when you deal with confrontation, when you empty yourself in humility, when you are dealing with vulnerability — Jesus says, “I am there with you.” That means that the hardest conversations in the church are holy ground for those who are willing to walk on it.
What God is doing for us in this passage today is creating us into the beloved community. The community of those who do not put themselves above others, but are simply the humble followers of Jesus who died for us on the cross. The beloved community, the community of the little ones — the ones whose faith is vulnerable and who are beloved by one another.
May you know the love of the God who pursues you in Jesus Christ, who reconciles with you through the cross and his resurrection, and may the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds strong in Christ Jesus our Lord to life everlasting. Amen.