Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Eighth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VIII). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers the lives and the witness of Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), Bishop of Down and Connor, Teacher of the Faith; Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), Nurse, Social Reformer, and Octavia Hill (1838-1912), Social Reformer.
I have been staying overnight in Dublin during a family visit, and I am flying back to Birmingham late this afternoon. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Matthew 18: 15-20 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 15 ‘If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. 16 But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector. 18 Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19 Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.’
Today’s Reflection:
In this morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Matthew 18: 15-20), Christ has just told the parable of the lost sheep, and how the shepherd goes in search of the one that goes astray, and rejoices over finding it (Matthew 18: 10-14).
So now, how should the Church respond to one member who has gone astray or who sins against other members of the Church?
The first response is to try taking that person aside to point out their fault. But that person should not be humiliated in front of others, and this should be done alone.
However, if you are not listened to, one or two others should be asked to be present as witnesses.
If the person still refuses to listen, the matter should be brought before the whole assembly of the Church, the εκκλησία (ekklesia). If the offender refuses to listen even to the Church, then, as a final sanction, that person should be treated as an unworthy outsider.
Christ then says that ‘you’ – the whole assembly of the Church, the ekklesia – have the authority to bind or condemn, to loose or to acquit, as if this is a decision that has divine authority.
Finally, Christ tells us that he is present in common prayer, study, and in decision-making, even when only two or three members of the Church are present. Christ is to be found in community.
How does Christ define the Church?
What makes up and defines the Church?
During the pandemic shutdown, when so many church buildings were closed, many of us comforted ourselves with phrases such as ‘the church is not a building’ and ‘people make the church.’
When Christ is talking about the church as εκκλησία then, he is talking about all the members of the church community, who have equal rights, equal power, equal duties, equal responsibilities and an equal and respected say in what is going on.
Baptism makes us all equal, without discrimination, in the Church.
And the Holy Communion, the Eucharist, is the lived continuation of our Baptism.
There is only one Body of Christ, and so there is only one Baptism and only one Eucharist.
For the Apostle Paul, the Church is one body, the Body of Christ, where there is no discrimination among those who are baptised and who share in the sacramental mysteries (see I Corinthians 12: 12-13 and Ephesians 1: 22-23).
And what Christ does in this Gospel reading is not to give power to the Church but to warn us as the Church about the power we already have as the εκκλησία and the consequences of how we use that power.
A few verses earlier, in yesterday’s Gospel reading (see verses 10-13), Christ reminds us not to despise the little ones, to go after the one sheep from among the 99 that might go astray, to make sure that not even one of the little ones is left to be lost.
Now he tells us that in the Church there is no room for us to refuse to talk to one another, to bear grudges, to refuse to listen to one another.
And he warns us against the real dangers of trying to use the powers that the Church has in the wrong way.
For Christ to say that what the Church approves of or disapproves of has implications of the highest order is not Christ endowing the Church with supernatural powers. Rather, he is warning us of making decisions, going in directions, exercising discrimination, in the Church that will have not merely temporal and worldly but also eternal and spiritual consequences.
There can be no petty divisions in the Church, if we are to be true to the meaning of Baptism and the Eucharist which form and sustain us in one body, the Body of Christ. And the Church has to be a haven for those who are the victims of division, discrimination and disaster. Our haven can be their heaven.
When we discriminate against others, the consequences are not just for them, or even for us, but for the whole Church.
In the US, many megachurch and evangelical leaders supported Donald Trump’s campaign for re-election and continue to support him despite all the horrors that have unfolded across the United States since he took office in January. Yet they are hauntingly silent when it comes to his bullying, illegality and corruption, to racism, to the plight of refugees, the rise of Islamophobia and antisemitism, and to other pressing issues such as climate change. In those instances, that part of the Church that claims the moral high ground is being found to be morally impoverished.
There is fear that the riots across England last year, fomented by people who are racist and who discriminate against people who need our compassion and support, may return to our streets before summer is out.
Faith leaders were quick to make their voices heard. Against this background, Justin Welby, then Archbishop of Canterbury, made an important intervention last summer when he wrote in the Guardian this time last year saying Christians cannot be part of any far-right group ‘because they are unchristian’ (12 August 2024). He condemned the use of Christian imagery by rioters as exploitation and ‘an offence to our faith, and all that Jesus was and is’.
We must be ready constantly to seek forgiveness and to forgive, yet we need to be clear when we seek to identify evil in the name of the Church and we must be fearless in condemning it.
Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 13 August 2025):
The theme this week (10 to 16 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Serving God in the Gulf’ (pp 26-27). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections from Joyaline Rajamani, Administrator at the Church of the Epiphany, Doha, Anglican Church in Qatar.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 13 August 2025) invites us to pray:
Lord God, we praise you for the Church in the Gulf. Thank you that it is thriving, empowered by your spirit, and many people are coming to know you.
The Collect of the Day:
Holy and loving God,
you dwell in the human heart
and make us partakers of the divine nature
in Christ our great high priest:
help us who remember your servant Jeremy Taylor
to put our trust in your heavenly promises
and follow a holy life in virtue and true godliness;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God of truth,
whose Wisdom set her table
and invited us to eat the bread and drink the wine
of the kingdom:
help us to lay aside all foolishness
and to live and walk in the way of insight,
that we may come with Jeremy Taylor to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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