Proper 18 Year A

Twelve Months of Sundays – Year A
Ordinary Time
Proper 18

Exodus 12.1–14
Romans 13.8–14
Matthew 18.15–20

Jesus’ followers are to struggle to live by the law of reconciliation. It’s always a struggle, but it’s always a law. Some say, of course, that Jesus couldn’t have spoken, as in Matthew 18, about a ‘church’, because there wasn’t one then; but, conversely, only in Jesus’ lifetime would the saying about Gentiles and tax-collectors mean what it does here. The word translated ‘church’ can, in fact, refer to the gathering of Jesus’ followers, such as might well take place within a village or town where he had passed, preached, healed and taught. Jesus was establishing little cells, loyal to himself, within the kingdom of Herod. The striking rule by which they were to live was that of forgiveness and reconciliation.

But it is always a hard-won reconciliation. Appropriate confrontation is the necessary prelude: reconciliation does not come by sweeping things under the carpet, or by pretending that nothing is really wrong. Equally, confrontation that does not aim at reconciliation is worse than useless. The model of Matthew 18, which has both in balance, is conspicuous by its absence in many church circles, where people prefer
to associate with the like-minded rather than, so to speak, the like-faithed...

Taken from Twelve Months of Sundays Year A by N T Wright

Published by SPCK