All too often we find the Matthew passage used as an almost legalistic procedure for bringing a member of the community that is Church to book and yet it is not condemnation and expulsion (as we also find in 1 Corinthians 5) but reconciliation that is the focus. Why? The Ezekiel passage demonstrates the results of sin on person, community and nation. The call to repentance and the call to act as watchmen for one another, lest we all perish, is clear.
If we were to examine the Ezekiel we see it sandwiched between judgment (1) and restoration (34) calling us to look at our response rather than God’s, as is this whole book and these are to be watchmen for the whole and repentance in the individual 9and also of course, corporately, the whole).
So we are first to be WATCHMEN – a sentry or lookout to warn of approaching danger. For a watchman to miss the enemy was for people to perish – it might be one, it might be all – but their blood were on the sentry’s hands. So to is it if we permit others to act in such ways as they lose their lives through enemy action, and we know who the enemy is and what his weapons are, don’t we?
Of course, when we see it and we warn them, how do we convince them of the danger? Living in Libya and seeing a column of dust approaching makes it easy to warn people of approaching danger. But the app on your phone that calls you to gamble, the magazines on the top shelf that cause your eyes to wander, the many possessions calling out to possess you. Not such an easy task.
But God takes great pleasure in repentance and reconciliation, He’s not about punishing, but will if there is a need for this is justice. So we need to be ALERT – Romans calls us to wake from our slumbers and be alert to the fact that the day of judgement is nearer now than when you got out of bed and put our houses in order. To put aside those things that bring us to destruction and live our lives openly in the light – for it is only those things that are wrong that we choose to do under cover of darkness. But time is ever growing shorter and so the need surely becomes ever greater?
So we must work hard to RECONCILE ourselves to one another, for this is one of the ways that we demonstrate God’s love – see how these Christians LOVE one another – and must cry out our warnings to those who are under threat from the enemy.
We do this by the process in Mathew. Interestingly (well I think so) the passage is stuck between the shepherd who leaves his sheep to recover the lost member of the flock (parallels with Ezekiel and the shepherd prophecy perhaps) and the ‘unforgiving debtor’ (you know, the 70*70 forgiveness bit). Reconciliation is about dialogue, awareness, forgiveness and concern and some comments lead people to think it is OK to condemn ‘sinners’ and exclude them, for Jesus uses the examples ‘Tax Gatherers’ and ‘Gentiles’ but I have to ask how He treated these people? Is this not an example that we need to follow rather than stick with the crowd?
It is too easy to leave the lost ‘lost’ and remain in our holy huddles (in empty buildings). It is too easy to engage in righteous anger and conflict. We seek to bring a peace that is more than an absence of conflict – it is the Shalom of God.
May we, and those with whom we live with, worship with and proclaim Christ as Lord together always experience this shalomyness through the Grace of God and our humble desires to live the life that Christ has won for us through the Cross and lives in us by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Pax
Ezekiel 33: 7 - 11
“Now, son of man, I am making you a watchman for the people of Israel. Therefore, listen to what I say and warn them for me. If I announce that some wicked people are sure to die and you fail to tell them to change their ways, then they will die in their sins, and I will hold you responsible for their deaths. But if you warn them to repent and they don’t repent, they will die in their sins, but you will have saved yourself.
“Son of man, give the people of Israel this message: You are saying, ‘Our sins are heavy upon us; we are wasting away! How can we survive?’ As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live. Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die?
Romans 13: 8 - 14
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarrelling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Matthew 18: 15 – 20
“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.”
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