Matthew 18: 15-20

15 "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. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 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. 18 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. 19 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. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

On Being Forgiving

These words are easy to misinterpret. So dangerous it would almost be better if they had been lost and we didn’t have to deal with them. They seem to give us a power and authority we dare not exercise. A power and authority which runs contrary to the spirit and will of Christ. A lot of bad has happened because of these words.

What ever else we do with them we must interpret them in the light of the strong and clear call to be forgiving rather then condemning which echoes throughout the Gospels. This means we don’t make things black and white; rather we struggle to work at the dynamic of reconciliation and do not settle for anything less. We remember how often forgiveness is necessary - not 3 times but 77 times! We are not into controlling people but in setting them free to live in the grace of a loving God.

Nothing makes any sense in the words of our Gospel UNLESS...unless there is something to the power of love to overcome all things.Then, maybe, just maybe, it is possible that all things do work together for good for those who dare to love. Love in the sense of deeply and genuinely wanting the best for all. This is the ideal of Christian love.

The challenge is to help a person find his/her truth and live in it. It is the challenge of tough love. Love enough even to cut them off...kick them out...not to destroy them but to help them come to their truth and want back in again. Want to be loved again. This is the format of AA - and it works!

The unique gift of love is that it wants the best for all, and is even willing to sacrifice and struggle so that might happen.

Matthew 16:21-26
21 From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, "God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you." 23 But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men." 24 Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life?

“Life Without Limits?”

The challenge for all of us is not only to try figure out what God’s will really is;
it is also to be willing to suffer rather then lose our integrity. The secret of life is that it has to be lost to be found; it has to dare suffer to be real and have integrity.

As a poet once said, “Life is a sum of habits disturbed by a few thoughts.”

When we try make it be easy we lose what it really is - as Henry James has said -
“Life is effort, unremittingly repeated.” It is not without limits.

Life without limits, without a purpose beyond having it bigger and better; without struggle, commitment to something beyond my own happiness and economic security; without denial, without the struggle which comes in loosing oneself in being an instrument of love in a world of hate; life without integrity and responsibility, servant hood and compassion is no life at all! It is indeed very thin!

“Get Behind Me Satan”

Peter had the best of intentions at heart when he tried to talk Jesus out of the way of suffering. He had no intention of being an evil temptation.

Peter wanted suffering eliminated from Jesus life. We all would like to see the same.
Suffering is so costly; it hurts so much, demands so much, takes so much.

Helmut Thielicke has said the problem for Americans is that we don’t know how to deal with suffering. We regard it as something “which is fundamental inadmissible, distressing, embarrassing, and not to be endured.”

What Peter and we do not understand is that suffering belongs to the very nature of this world and to the very nature of Jesus - the suffering servant who emptied himself.

To be caught up with the will of God is to take on suffering as a part of loving. The only way to eliminate suffering is to eliminate love. Love makes sense out of and gives meaning to life, even suffering.

“...life without any kind of suffering would be no life at all; it would be a form of death. Life - the life of the spirit like the life of the body- depends in some mysterious way upon the struggle to be...suffering-as-struggle belongs...to life’s foundational basis and goodness...A pain free life would be a life-less life.

We suffer because we are human and out of our suffering comes our capacity for compassion. For ‘suffering integrates us into life and makes us more fully and truly ‘alive’.”

Douglas John Hall, “God And Human Suffering”, pp. 57-66

I

Matthew 16:13-20

13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesare'a Philip'pi, he asked his disciples, "Who do men say that the Son of man is?" 14 And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Eli'jah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15 He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" 16 Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 17 And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." 20 Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

“Saying More Then We Know”

Peter was saying more then he knew when he confessed Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
The words came strangely to his lips from beyond his own understanding. It is so also with us, as Luther wrote long ago: “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in my Lord Jesus Christ or come to him...”

Faith is not having all the answers to the riddle of life; not never having to doubt again; or be perplexed about things; or afraid; or confused; or ever having to feel lost again. It is not a magical formula which takes away all the hurt, pain, and fear out of life.

Faith is the God given capacity to hope when all looks hopeless; laugh when much is heavy; dance when there is little reason to dance; pray when God seems far away and not tuned in. It is the God given capacity to list all the reasons why there is no God, and yet...and yet believe in God!

“Faith is a power and passion in authority among the power and passions of life.
P. T. Forsythe

It is the sure and certain hope that God is for is, not against us. No matter what!

“What If...

What if what is really important is not what we think about Jesus but what Jesus thinks about us? What if what is really important is that we let Jesus tell us who God is and who we are in God’s eyes, and let God love us with a love which will not let us go, let us down, let us off - ever!
What if the main point of it all is not that we love God but that God loves us!
How incredible this truth is!

Faith is not our doing! It is God’s doing in us.
It is more important to be doing the works of God then to be talking about them.
Our challenge is not to figure out who is saved and who isn’t. Our challenge is to let the great and precious promises of God not only live in our hearts but live in our world through us. To be who we say we are - the people of God who live by grace and want to pass it on.

Matthew 15:21-28

21 And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon." 23 But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, "Send her away, for she is crying after us." 24 He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." 26 And he answered, "It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." 27 She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." 28 Then Jesus answered her, "O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire." And her daughter was healed instantly.

“Great Is Your Faith”

The Canaanite woman wanted something of the goodness of God’s grace in her life too.
She persisted until she got it. She took the rebuke, came back for more, and hung in there until Jesus could only do what he came to do - bless her.

It is often our vulnerability, our deep needs, which lead us into the arms of a loving, gracious God. It is also our persistence - our faith which will not give up - which sees the worst in life redeemed and turned into blessing.

Expect to have something of the goodness of God’s grace in your life - and don’t give up until it happens!

“A God Of Grace”

There are no favorites with God. God loves all equally much. He is a God of grace.
It sounds like Jesus is saying there are favorites, but he isn’t. He is identifying his ministry- he is not excluding anyone.

The miracle here is not just the healing; her faith is a miracle.

God’s grace comes to us in Word and Sacrament. AND in acts of kindness, compassion, and friendship experienced and shared in the human experience.

i.e. Don Quixote: When he looked at that cheap and gaudy woman through the spectacles of his grace, he saw a splendid woman. He said to her, “It’s all right even though everyone says you’re all wrong. When, she embraced that grace and began to feel it’s power, she became what Don Quixote saw.

Matthew 14:22-33

14:22 Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat, and to go ahead of him to the other side, while he sent the multitudes away. 14:23 After he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into the mountain by himself to pray. When evening had come, he was there alone. 14:24 But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, distressed by the waves, for the wind was contrary. 14:25 In the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came to them, walking on the sea.* 14:26 When the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It’s a ghost!” and they cried out for fear. 14:27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying “Cheer up! It is I! Don’t be afraid.”
14:28 Peter answered him and said, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the waters.”
14:29 He said, “Come!”
Peter stepped down from the boat, and walked on the waters to come to Jesus. 14:30 But when he saw that the wind was strong, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!”
14:31 Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand, took hold of him, and said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” 14:32 When they got up into the boat, the wind ceased. 14:33 Those who were in the boat came and worshiped him, saying, “You are truly the Son of God!”

“A Sound Of Sheer Silence”

Jesus finally is alone. Finally he has a moment to catch his breath, gather his wits about him, and just be with God in silence, to pray.

This is no game he is playing. He needs this time away in prayer.
It takes silence to ‘see who we are’, for it is in silence we touch the deepest part of our humanity as well as God’s divinity.

Thomas Szasz, an American psychiatrist has said;
“(Humans) cannot long survive without air, water, and sleep. Next in importance comes food. And close on its heels, solitude.”

Faith cannot exist without solitude either.

“Only in silence, in the space between noise, speech, and activity, is there room for a person to become focused, to achieve gravity and centeredness. Only in waiting before the mystery of existence itself, in brooding upon the world and eternity, does one become endowed with true worldliness and true everlastingness.” John Killinger

“Compassion is the fruit of solitude (silence) and the basis of all ministry. Henri Nouwen

To be about God’s business we need to seek a sound of sheer silence, so we can be compassionate as our God is compassionate.

“Let ‘s Walk On Water”

Miracles just don’t happen. They are caused by mortals such as Peter, you, and I, who dare risk in the face of overwhelming odds. Who dare act in faith.

God most often acts in concert with a mortal rather then going it alone. In fact we could say, God limiteds Himself to working with mortals - and waiting for one of us to be there before He does what He always wanted to do.

God wants us to walk on water; be a miracle of happiness and peace in our world.

Faith is to risk being caught up in a miracle; it is being open to the new creation God seeks to create through us for all.