SEP 4, 2011  SERMON ARCHIVE

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen.

Dear friends, if each one of you can somehow manage to listen to Jesus and take these Words to heart—if you can stop sidestepping what Jesus tells you here and actually do what His Words command you to do— your homes will become much happier places; your friendships will become much closer friendships; your congregational life will become a much dearer fellowship of believers.

The question you need to ask and to answer for yourself today is this: Will you listen to Jesus and take His Words to heart when He says to you,

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.

Dear Christian friends,

Sin is a terrible power and destructive force in everyday life, both in your life and in the lives of your fellow Christians. Sin does more than punish with death and threaten with hell. One of the here-and-now, devastating effects of sin is that it divides and separates people here-and-now.

Sin isolates and cuts Christians off one from another, banishing its victims to lonely exiles of anger and regret. Sin has the power to divide and separate people, even while you gather together at the family table or sit side-by-side in the Sunday pew, leaving too many things unsaid.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus wants you to know that things do not need to be that way for you, for your family, or for your congregation gathered here. (Yes, for all of our congregational peace and harmony, sin nevertheless continually operates as a divisive force among us.)

Jesus wants you to know that, rather than being separated and driven apart by sin, you now have divine power—power to use even sin to your collective advantage. Call it the power of forgiveness; call it a clear perspective on what is truly real and important; call it a memory that has been washed clean of resentment, anger and pain in the daily flow of your Baptism: Jesus wants you Christians—that is, you brothers and sisters, as He calls you in today’s Gospel—Jesus wants you to know that you now have the power to make sin something that gathers, rather than separates.

Because of Jesus and His great, forgiving love for you, your ever present sin can now draw me closer to you, you closer to me, and us closer to those around us. Jesus speaks this power to you in today’s Gospel when He says to you, "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."

Dear friends, JESUS IS SPEAKING PERSONALLY TO YOU, NOT SOMEONE ELSE

As you listen to these Words of Jesus, you could easily fool yourself into thinking that these Words are actually more applicable to other people, and not so much to you. When you think that way, you sin. For example,

You could say that other peoples’ sins are not your concern; as long as they leave you alone, you do not care what they do. By all means, you must bear with the weaknesses of the weak, you must be slow to judge and quick to place the best construction on the actions of others.

But forbearance should not be confused with ignoring or neglecting your brother, and your brother’s public and unrepentant sin most certainly involves you. You are all the body of Christ together, each accountable to one another.

No, you cannot live someone else’s life for him or make other peoples’ decisions for them. Nevertheless, when your Christian brother falls into public, unrepentant sin, he is doing damage to you and to your reputation. The unbelieving world will draw its conclusions about you—and about the entire Church—based on the unrepentant actions of one brother or sister in your midst.

You could say, "No, I am too old or too young to get involved. I also do not want to ruin my friendship with this person. Showing my brother his sin needs to be someone else’s job."

Dear friends, If you respond to Jesus’ Words in that way, saying that you do not want to get involved, then you am not much different from the person who walks down the street and ignores the woman or child who is getting attacked in broad daylight.

Granted, each one of you is only able to love according to your individual abilities, but no one gets exempted from the command to love! When you say to yourself that it is someone else’s task to "go and tell [your brother] his fault," you are really saying that is someone else’s task to love your neighbor and not your own.

You might say to yourself, "My brother’s sin really is no big deal. These days, everyone lives like that. It is not like he has killed somebody."

Ask yourself: do you really want to tell Jesus that sin is no big deal? That would be like saying your Lord’s death and resurrection are no big deal, since Jesus died for sin— yours and mine and your brother’s. Jesus sounds pretty emphatic about the seriousness of sin when He says in today’s Gospel,

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.

Or you could say, "I am guilty of many sins!.". "What business do I have, pointing out to my brother the sins he has?"

Yes, you have many sins. Go ahead and admit them when your brother shows you your fault. The point of calling one another to account is not so that we can keep tabs on who lives the holier life. Jesus is not commanding us to be morality police, or to run around with flashlights at night, spying into peoples’ kitchen window.

The point of showing your brother his fault is repentance and faith, reconciliation and fellowship, forgiveness of sins and eternal life. The point of showing your brother his fault is love for your brother. That is why Jesus says to you here, "If he listens to you, you will have gained your brother."

"If your brother sins against you," says Jesus, "go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone." You could easily sidestep these Words of Jesus.

You could emphatically convince yourself, that these Words of Jesus apply more to other people than they do to you. If you do, you will only be compounding the devastating, separating effects of sin in your everyday life and in the lives of those around you.

· When your brother sins against you—whether you are bothered by his son or not—when your brother sins against you, he has begun the age-old process of isolating himself from you and cutting you off from him. · When your brother sins against you, and you REFUSE "to go and tell him his fault," you further, perhaps even permanently complete, the separation and isolation. You add your sin to his sin by your sinful silence.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus wants you to know that things do not need to be that way for you, for your family, or for your congregation gathered here. Jesus wants you to know that, rather than being separated and driven apart by sin, you now have divine power—power to use even sin to your collective advantage. The benefits you receive from listening to Jesus’ Words—the benefits you receive by going and telling your brother his fault—these benefits will totally change your life, your view of your brother, and your appreciation for God’s living and powerful Word.

Jesus says, "Go and tell [your brother] his fault." Browbeating the guy is not the point. The point is to focus your brother’s attention upon the Word and Law of his God. When you tell your brother his fault, not only do you open to him the powerful Word of God—which Word alone is able to bring about his repentance—but you yourself also learn courage by trusting in God’s Word alone.

Not only does your eloquence lack the power to turn the guy around, but it is also a frightening thing to confront another person. God’s Word is trustworthy. You will quickly learn to trust God’s Word when you tell your brother his fault. Even if your brother refuses to listen to you, you will still have had exercise and training in trusting the Word.

As you earlier protested, you are indeed guilty of many sins. Rather than using your guilt as a way of ignoring Jesus’ Words, use your guilt as a way of standing ever closer to your guilty brother, especially when you tell him his fault.

Approach with your hat in your hand. Plead guilty of every sin, just as you do in the Lord’s Prayer. Explain to your brother that you yourself are a beggar. Emphasize that by telling him his sin all you are attempting to do it to show him his hunger—the hunger you share.

But then tell your brother also where he may find food: in the forgiveness given by Jesus. Jesus’ forgiveness is for you, full and complete and free. Jesus’ forgiveness is so great and so all-encompassing that there is more than enough to go around.

"If he listens to you, you will have gained your brother." Both of you will have new understanding of what it means to be the body of Christ, one joined to the other.

You will know better your brother and he will better know you. You will better understand your brother and he will better understand you. You will better appreciate your brother and he will better appreciate you. You will better love your brother and he will better love you.

(Some of you already know that what I am saying is true because you have been down this road before, either with me or with one of your other Christian brothers.)

We are not individual sinners and individual believers. We are "the holy Christian church, the communion of saints." We have but one Lord, one faith, one baptism (Ephesians 4:5). We are one fabric, co-equal in guilt and co-equal in the white-clothed holiness Christ Himself has given us in baptism.

"If your brother sins against you," says Jesus, "go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone."

This is not an act of judgment in today’s Gospel. This is an act of reconciliation.

Jesus has given you today’s Gospel because Jesus is way more powerful than all of your sin put together. Jesus is so powerful—His death and His resurrection are so world-changing—that He has even changed the direction of sin and its effects. Sin no longer needs to divide and separate because Jesus’ blood has changed the tide. Sin now has the power of binding us together in understanding and forbearance.

Remember, Christ is Risen.