In this week's text Jesus says to confront a brother or sister who sins against you. If that doesn't work, bring someone with you. If that doesn't work, bring it to the church. If that doesn't work, treat the person as an outsider. It would be easy to misinterpret this passage as a "three strikes and you're out" pattern for church discipline, but that is unlike the Jesus we know in the Gospels. Jesus is giving us personal and persistent patterns for healing the conflicts that inevitably arise among Christians. Unity among believers is as important as health to a body, because when one part hurts, we all suffer.
Last week we saw Jesus praise Peter for recognizing that Jesus is the Christ, and now moments later Peter gets Jesus completely wrong. Peter recognized the victorious Christ, but he completely missed the need for the suffering Christ, including his death. The two can’t be separated. As we celebrate communion this week, we embrace the sacrifice Jesus made for us on the cross. We must also hear Jesus’s call: “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.”
Matthew 16 is the first time Jesus presses his disciples to say out loud who they think Jesus really is. Peter gets Jesus right: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Jesus grabs that testimony and makes it the foundation for his people – the Church. If as the Church we don’t get Jesus right, we lose our foundation and our identity. May we see Jesus this week as we open his Word. Next week we’ll look at the second part of this scene where Peter gets Jesus all wrong.
This week we are looking at Jesus’ encounter with a Canaanite woman. This woman approaches Jesus with great faith that he will heal her daughter, but Jesus defies our expectations by ignoring her, ostracizing her, and even insulting her. The woman, however, persists in her request. Her actions prove an understanding of Jesus that goes beyond the surface level of his words, and Jesus praises her faith. May we listen beyond the words so that we truly hear the God who speaks.
We don’t need much convincing that we are not perfect people; sin is a huge problem for us. Yet God has adopted all who believe as his children and has declared that we have full rights as his heirs. What kind of God can do that? Today churches around the world focus on the triune God: the Father who created us and adopts us; the Son who by his life, death and resurrection opened the door to the family, and the Spirit who seals our adoption and shapes us to live into the family name. May we live into our family identity as we walk in step with the Spirit.