True Community

Matthew 18:15-20

Matthew was concerned with community. We all say we want it, and we generally have no idea it is to come by

The framework for reconciliation provided in this week’s Gospel is much harder than talking behind people’s backs. Many of us have no background in resolving conflicts. Walking away is what we know best.

In this week’s Gospel passage, Jesus is teaching a skill for reconciliation and restoration of community. A skill isn’t enough; there must also be humility and love, found in relationship with God.

A history of repentance is helpful in reconciliation. Our egos bend more easily. Prayer practices can prepare us for this.

Our world needs true community. Too often, we settle for a surface level or false community. 

Communities often form around a negative view of an “out group”, and become oppositional groups which are not true communities but rather loose alliances of those with similar grievances.

Our Christ Church motto is “going deeper.” As we do this, we find that true community is not so much something we build, but something we discover in the deeper level of communion among the Trinitarian God.

God pulls us into community. When two or three are gathered to seek agreement, Christ is an active presence drawing them together.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.