Matthew 1815 If one of my followers sins against you, go and point out what was wrong. But do it in private, just between the two of you. If that person listens, you have won back a follower. 16 But if that one refuses to listen, take along one or two others. The Scriptures teach that every complaint must be proven true by two or more witnesses. 17 If the follower refuses to listen to them, report the matter to the church. Anyone who refuses to listen to the church must be treated like an unbeliever or a tax collector.
18 I promise you God in heaven will allow whatever you allow on earth, but God will not allow anything you don’t allow. 19 I promise that when any two of you on earth agree about something you are praying for, my Father in heaven will do it for you. 20 Whenever two or three of you come together in my name, I am there with you.
The people who lived around the time that Jesus lived were just like us. They loved and the fought, they cried and they laughed, and sometimes they didn’t agree with each other. When those disagreements got too big, they pulled in others to take sides. Jesus didn’t want his followers to fight like that. He wanted his followers to get along and focus on the things that needed to change in our world. Jesus wanted everyone to love and care for each other.
In order to help the community who was following Jesus, he talked to them about how to solve conflict. He told them to be brave and take responsibility if they hurt someone else’s feelings. He told them to talk to each other in private when someone felt hurt.
But Jesus knew that some conflicts were too big for a small, private conversation, so he told his followers to ask for help when a private conversation didn’t solve the problem. And only if that didn’t work, bring in the whole community to help solve the conflict.
And if that didn’t work, Jesus said it was okay to tell the person causing trouble they had to leave. But that person would not be alone, they would be with others who helped remind them what it meant to be a follower of Jesus.
Even in conflict we are always given as many chances as we need to remember how to love like Jesus wants us to love.
Matthew 1621 From then on, Jesus began telling his disciples what would happen to him. He said, “I must go to Jerusalem. There the nation’s leaders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the Law of Moses will make me suffer terribly. I will be killed, but three days later I will rise to life.”
22 Peter took Jesus aside and told him to stop talking like that. He said, “God would never let this happen to you, Lord!”
23 Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Satan, get away from me! You’re in my way because you think like everyone else and not like God.”
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples:
If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself. You must take up your cross and follow me. 25 If you want to save your life, you will destroy it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find it. 26 What will you gain, if you own the whole world but destroy yourself? What would you give to get back your soul?
27 The Son of Man will soon come in the glory of his Father and with his angels to reward all people for what they have done. 28 I promise you some of those standing here will not die before they see the Son of Man coming with his kingdom.
In last week’s story when Peter told Jesus he knew Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus was so happy he said Peter’s statement would be the foundation for the new community Jesus was trying to build. This week we realize Peter didn’t understand fully what being the ‘Messiah’ meant.
Peter wasn’t a bad friend, and Jesus wasn’t calling him a horrible person for not understanding. However, Jesus was frustrated. Peter did not understand and instead of trying to understand and support Jesus, he tried to talk Jesus out of following through with God’s plan. The Messiah had to experience some hard things and actually die and come back to life so everyone would see the power and importance of everything Jesus was trying to teach.
It’s easy and more comfortable for us to say the bad things can’t happen and to turn away when other people are struggling, but that’s the opposite of what Jesus asked of us. Jesus wants us to face the hard things and help each other through hard things. Because, when we help others we are showing what true love looks like, and that is what Jesus came to teach us.
Matthew 16 13 When Jesus and his disciples were near the town of Caesarea Philippi, he asked them, “What do people say about the Son of Man?”
14 The disciples answered, “Some people say you are John the Baptist or maybe Elijah or Jeremiah or some other prophet.”
15 Then Jesus asked, “But who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter spoke up, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
17 Jesus told him:
Simon, son of Jonah, you are blessed! You didn’t discover this on your own. It was shown to you by my Father in heaven. 18 So I will call you Peter, which means “a rock.” On this rock I will build my church, and death itself will not have any power over it. 19 I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and God in heaven will allow whatever you allow on earth. But he will not allow anything you don’t allow.
20 Jesus told his disciples not to tell anyone he was the Messiah.
One of the more confusing things Jesus said was not to tell anyone he was the Messiah, even though we know that is who he was. Why wouldn’t he want people to know that?
Perhaps it has to do with what the people who lived around Jesus thought the Messiah would be.
There were a lot of different ideas about the Messiah. Some thought the Messiah would be a military leader to help get rid of the Romans. Some thought he would be a special king like King David who would talk the Romans into letting them become independent. Some thought he would be both the king and a military leader. Some thought there would be only one Messiah. And some thought there would be multiple people who were all the Messiah with specific jobs to do.
None of them imagined a quiet man who didn’t like violence, and told everyone to love each other and take care of each other. That was not the message anyone expected from the Messiah.
Jesus was the Messiah, but he was not who anyone was expecting him to be.
And maybe Jesus wanted to control the time and place of the announcement so people wouldn’t have the wrong idea about him.
Matthew 15 10 Jesus called the crowd together and said, “Pay attention and try to understand what I mean. 11 The food you put into your mouth doesn’t make you unclean and unfit to worship God. The bad words that come out of your mouth are what make you unclean.”
12 Then his disciples came over to him and asked, “Do you know you insulted the Pharisees by what you said?”
13 Jesus answered, “Every plant that my Father in heaven did not plant will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Stay away from those Pharisees! They are like blind people leading other blind people, and all of them will fall into a ditch.”
15 Peter replied, “What did you mean when you talked about the things that make people unclean?”
16 Jesus then said:
Don’t any of you know by now what I am talking about? 17 Don’t you know that the food you put into your mouth goes into your stomach and then out of your body? 18 But the words that come out of your mouth come from your heart. And they are what make you unfit to worship God. 19 Out of your heart come evil thoughts, murder, unfaithfulness in marriage, vulgar deeds, stealing, telling lies, and insulting others. 20 These are what make you unclean. Eating without washing your hands will not make you unfit to worship God.
21 Jesus left and went to the territory near the towns of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Suddenly a Canaanite woman from there came out shouting, “Lord and Son of David, have pity on me! My daughter is full of demons.” 23 Jesus did not say a word. But the woman kept following along and shouting, so his disciples came up and asked him to send her away.
24 Jesus said, “I was sent only to the people of Israel! They are like a flock of lost sheep.”
25 The woman came closer. Then she knelt down and begged, “Please help me, Lord!”
26 Jesus replied, “It isn’t right to take food away from children and feed it to dogs.”
27 “Lord, this is true,” the woman said, “but even puppies get the crumbs that fall from their owner’s table.”
28 Jesus answered, “Dear woman, you really do have a lot of faith, and you will be given what you want.” At that moment her daughter was healed.
Today’s Bible readings give us two stories of frustrations and challenges. First a Pharisee challenges Jesus and his followers for not washing their hands properly before they ate and how that made their meal ‘unclean’. The second story is Jesus being challenged by a mother from Canaan who wanted her daughter healed, and this time Jesus was the one who was unreasonable.
Often we teach that Jesus was perfect, that he couldn’t make a mistake, and that he knew everything about a conversation before it started. Thinking about Jesus like that means we have a hard time relating, because people are always making mistakes. So it’s time to forget about ‘perfect’ Jesus, and start to see him as a regular person who sometimes said and did the wrong things.
But… Jesus was a person who could quickly learn. He learned from the Canaanite mother that God’s love and hope was for everyone, not just the Hebrew people.
With his own followers he reminded them that there was no good food or bad food, that it was the things that come out of our body that cause problems, not the things we put into our body. If we lie, steal, and hurt people we are ‘unclean’. Jesus taught us that was not the way to live.
In this episode, Debb and Deb hop into the Way-Back Machine to discuss Biblical creation myths, the Big Bang theory, and how how you think the world started affects how you interact with it.
Matthew 14 22 At once, Jesus made his disciples get into a boat and start back across the lake. But he stayed until he had sent the crowds away. 23 Then he went up on a mountain where he could be alone and pray. Later in the evening, he was still there.
24 By this time the boat was a long way from the shore. It was going against the wind and was being tossed around by the waves. 25 A little while before morning, Jesus came walking on the water toward his disciples. 26 When they saw him, they thought he was a ghost. They were terrified and started screaming.
27 At once, Jesus said to them, “Don’t worry! I am Jesus. Don’t be afraid.”
28 Peter replied, “Lord, if it really is you, tell me to come to you on the water.”
29 “Come on!” Jesus said. Peter then got out of the boat and started walking on the water toward him.
30 But when Peter saw how strong the wind was, he was afraid and started sinking. “Save me, Lord!” he shouted.
31 At once, Jesus reached out his hand. He helped Peter up and said, “You surely don’t have much faith. Why do you doubt?”
32 When Jesus and Peter got into the boat, the wind died down. 33 The men in the boat worshiped Jesus and said, “You really are the Son of God!”
The Barefoot Evangelist 