06/09/2026
Sermon by Rev Chris - 6/9/26 - when the truth of the gospel and the world collide.
Gospel Matthew 18:15-20
In the Gospel reading from Matthew today Jesus addresses disputes in his new community , the church. In his teaching we see another example of the transfer of control from temple to church. At the time of Jesus it was the temple to which people took their disputes so that situations could be examined in light of the law. But Jesus is critical with the way an oppressed temple is interpreting the law and so a transfer of authority is taking place. Jesus’ life and teaching interpret the law differently, unimpeded by the need to satisfy Rome.
Jesus recognises that disputes will continue even within the church, humans are human, and there will need to be processes in place to handle disputes when they arise. But that said we need to be clear, Jesus is talking about significant things – if someone sins against you – he is not talking about petty fallouts, because in a community focussed on the God of love there should be no petty things that aren’t resolved by someone speedily saying sorry for careless words or actions. Or in which forgiveness doesn’t flow quickly before there is even a need to ask for it. This is the life of the kingdom that we are invited to live. Jesus here is talking about Sin, When someone sins against you, it means they have deeply wronged, hurt, or mistreated you in a way that goes against moral or divine law. It doesn’t mean someone has sat where you normally do, or put a flower arrangement where yours would normally go, or didn’t have chance to speak to you after the service. Those things are unimportant to Jesus and they should be unimportant to us.
Here Jesus is talking about behaviours which deliberately and perhaps intentionally flout the laws of God. In those instances Christian’s are not to look to the temple as they would in the past to resolve their differences. We are to resolve our differences within the church, in the light and teachings of Jesus, with his interpretation of the law front and centre, we are not just to preach the kingdom we are to live it and in the difficult days we are to live it even more intentionally.
I fear that is going to be even more important in the time ahead, for as Emma reminded us in her sermon last week we live in difficult days where truth is often unseated by the allure fake news and the intrigue of conspiracy theories.
Worryingly for us we are beginning to see a rise in what is being called Christian nationalism. It is a far-right movement which claims a distorted version of Jesus to back up its agenda. We have seen this before in history when the the extreme right is on the move. At such times we need to be ready not only to hold our ground in the life of Jesus but to know why we do so, what Jesus actually says and teaches. Jesus expects the church to judge the world around it by the law of God as he has revealed it and to live that revelation in our lives as authentically as we can because it is how we were created to live as a human race and it was as such that God declared us good.
Jesus then goes on, once more in Matthew’s Gospel talking about binding and loosening. Binding and loosening were rabbinic terms for forbidding or permitting actions based on the interpretation of the law. That authority has been transferred to the church in Jesus because of the differences in the interpretation of the law. That doesn’t mean everything changes, we can’t suddenly disregard the whole of the Old Testament as if it’s no longer important or relevant, but how we read it must change because in Jesus the way we see and understand the nature of God changes.
So let’s have a look at the outworking of that with regard to our present time. Perhaps one of the thorniest political issues today is immigration. It is something people hold very strong views about, it shapes our political landscape at the moment in a way we perhaps haven’t seen in a couple of generations since Oswald Mosley or Enoch Powell. How do we respond to this issue around immigration as Christian’s who claim to be living the kingdom of God? First we need to ask, What does scripture say?
When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.
—Leviticus 19:33–34
When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner.
—Leviticus 19:9–10
He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.
—Deuteronomy 10:18–19
Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.
—Exodus 23:9
"So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud labourers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice,—Malachi 3:5
The Old Testament seems pretty clear, so What does Jesus say?
For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.
—Matthew 25:25–36
The word we translate as stranger in this passage from Matthew is the Greek word xenos which actually means foreigner, refugee or immigrant. The Gospel actually says ‘I was an immigrant and you invited me in.’
Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body-whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free-and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
—1 Corinthians 12:12–14
For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself."
—Galatians 5:14
I could go on, and look at the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke for example.
But Scripture is clear, Jesus is clear, Paul is clear, the kingdom of God found within the church must be clear, we as Christian’s must be clear because the truth of the gospel is that which is to shape our hearts and the actions of our lives, not that which is to be manipulated to serve a political agenda or personal peeve.
And the Gospel does not allow for half in half out, We can’t say – well we will only welcome those who come by the accepted routes! who comes and how is a matter for politicians to decide. Our calling is to live the gospel among our neighbours whoever they may be, wherever they are from and however they arrived. That is the vision of God found throughout scripture and lived in Jesus.
Where the world and the Gospel collide, we, if we are Christian, must always chose the Gospel. We must allow it to challenge and change us, because if we simply chose the bits that suit, or distort the parts that are inconvenient we have strayed from the path of God. We are called to reveal the life of the kingdom and to commit to that process of daily talking up our cross and being formed more and more into the likeness of Christ. So called Christian nationalism is a very dangerous thing, offering a parody of the truth by it’s careless proclamation of a fake gospel.
We are to bind the things which are of God and loose the things which are of the world by keeping our eyes firmly on Jesus and immersing ourselves deeply in the scriptures and living our faith courageously in the world, and I think that is going to be increasingly important .
Amen
