Matthew 18:1-20
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. 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.”
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week, I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Gospel reading for Sunday, September 10, is from Matthew chapter 18, verses one through 20. 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, to be drowned in the depths 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 eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For 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. What do you think? If a man has 100 sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the 99 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 99 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, here since the reading. This is a lot there is so much going on in this reading, I'm going to do just a little snippet of every little piece in here. So we begin with a question of the disciples who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and Jesus points to a child. Now, one of the things that you have to know when Jesus says this, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven, is it's not the way that we normally think of it. We often think, Oh, they're so cute and trusting and wonderful and innocent, and you just have to be trusting like a child. It's not really the way people thought of children, we have a very different understanding of the value of children in our society. Back then children were just the lowest of the low, you might see them, you certainly wouldn't want to hear them. Because you have to remember little children, they died. The death rate between birth and five years old was something like 50% kids died all over the place. And they were basically worthless. They were the bottom rung of society, outcasts. And they only really mattered once they got up into into adulthood, so they could finally contribute to the family and to the rest of the world. So when Jesus pulls out a child, he isn't saying all become precious and innocent. He's saying, Look, you all think this is the least important person in the entire village, you need to be like this. Similarly, he goes on to say whoever receives one such child, one such despised and lowly person receives me, but Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin it would it be better to have him have a great millstone around his neck and be thrown in the depths of the sea. So again, it's not just the important people we have to deal with even the lowliest of the low. And now even we as Christians having generations of this and our different view of children, we often want children to sort of be tucked off and off to the side. especially when it comes to worship. They we act like they're a distraction or like there's something that we need to keep out so we can do the really serious business of the church. But we're supposed to welcome them, welcome them, even though they are sometimes considered the loneliest and least important, they're not going to get out, they're going to be loud, they're going to be rustling. Jesus says, welcome them. Jesus continues, Woe to the world for Temptations to sin. He says, If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. And he goes on. Of course, I don't see anyone who is actually physically doing that. In fact, if anybody took this seriously, all of us would be without arms and legs and knees, and feet, and eyes and mouths, and well, we'd kind of be dead. But most of all, what we'd have to do is we'd have to cut out our hearts. Because sin doesn't come from our hands or our eyes or our mouth. But it comes from our tendency of our heart to want what it shouldn't have. Jesus is instead telling us that we are supposed to cut out the things that cause us to sin in our lives, cut out all of those things that are, are tempting us and try to stay true and focused on the Christian life. Jesus goes back to the little ones and next one, he says, See that you do not despise one of these little ones. Again, he's, he's talking about the lowliest, right? We're not supposed to despise the people who were despised in that society. They are important. Now he goes, If a man has 100 sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the 99 on the mountains and go search for the one that went astray? We hear that so often we go of course, of course, if a sheep leaves, you're gonna go out and find it. But that's crazy. If you have 99 sheep on a mountain, and one goes away, what do you do? Do you leave the 99 and let them hang out on their own that nuts. Jesus is showing that he's kind of crazy, that every shape is so important, even the lowliest children, that he leaves and goes to get them. The last piece of this is the order of a, a way of talking about how we deal with sin in the Christian church. It's if your brother sins against you, first, go and talk to him on your own. And if he repents, you've gained a brother back. Second, take some witnesses on with you. Third, if that doesn't work, take it to the church. And if that doesn't work, treat them like a Gentile and a tax collector. We call that the process of excommunication. And then he gives it a spiritual thing. He says, Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. This is an interesting thing, where he says in connection with sin and dealing with it, if you forgive a person, their sins, that it is forgiven, but if you hold on to it, if the church says you are unrepentant, it actually is retained. Now this isn't there to kick the terrible sinners out or to be judgmental and cruel. This is there to try to bring about repentance. And it matches up well with what is the keel says about if we give a word to the sinner, and we don't say it. It's on us. God calls us to speak to the sinners and call them back to repentance in Christ so that they can have forgiveness and be one with us. That's the end of our reading. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai