Matthew 18:15-20
September
6, 2026
Where Two Or Three are Gathered
Theresa Duaghtry
A pastor from
Texas told me this story.
He had just started a new call at a church in a
small town.
Soon
after he started, he was in a grocery store.
One
of the members of his church saw him from down the aisle.
He
was right behind him, he said “hello, Pastor”
a
couple of times. He had to have heard him.
The
pastor ignores him.
He
acts like he didn’t see him and scoots quickly down the aisle.
The
member is offended.
The member
tells his wife: the new pastor ignored me.
He saw me and avoided me. Maybe he’s mad at me.
She tells her
friend who is on the council.
Do
you know how much money we give to this church?
The
council talks. We have seen signs. The new pastor is not friendly.
Other
church members are told.
Maybe
we made a mistake in calling him.
There’s
phone calls and quiet discussions.
Yes,
we noticed it too. City people. He thinks he’s better than us.
Sunday,
people seem cold to him, the pastor doesn’t know why.
The
pastor doesn’t find out until after church when
one
“concerned” spokesperson comes to talk to him.
“Some
people are not happy.”
(Always
a good line to hear on a Sunday morning.)
Well,
what’s the problem?
You
didn’t say hello to Joe in the grocery store.
Why
did you ignore Joe in the grocery store?
The
pastor is caught unaware.
The
pastor thinks, that doesn’t sound like me.
After
a little thinking he remembers:
the
battery in one of the pastor’s hearing aids gave out,
so
he didn’t wear them to the store that day.
If
he doesn’t wear his hearing aids, he can’t hear.
He
never heard Joe.
He
explained it to Joe, and then to the congregation,
and
apparently they worked it all out because
the
pastor was there for the next 20 years.
This story is
true.
Well, this is how it was told to me by the pastor.
And
I believe it, because this happens a lot.
I’m
sure we all have a story or two like this.
Some
a lot more destructive than this one.
People
complaining to other people instead
of
to the person their complaining about.
It
happens in families, at work, in organizations
and
definitely in churches
maybe
most often in churches.
I think it
might happen in the church even more
than other organizations because we’re supposed to be nice.
We get this impression that we’re supposed
to
be of one mind and one opinion and thought.
We think that
to be church means that we’re
supposed to only be sweet in front of one another.
To
show no disagreement. So when we do disagree with someone,
when
we’re frustrated we couldn’t possibly tell them.
That
wouldn’t be nice. That could be rude. That could create conflict.
So,
we just tell someone else. Maybe even innocently, concerned.
We
have parking lot discussions and share gossip.
I
have surely participated in it.
I
bet most of us have.
If it helps
at all, we obviously haven’t been
the first people to do it this.
We’re
in Matthew 18 this week.
The whole concept of the church has just been brought up
for the first time in
chapter 16 when Jesus tells Peter that
he
was going to build his church on him.
And
here Jesus is, two chapters later,
telling
them how to deal with disagreements.
Almost
instantly, after church, there was church conflict.
Matthew 18.
This
is maybe the most directly applicable,
and
the most practical advice we’re given in the whole bible:
If
someone sins against you, if someone does something to you,
like
snubs you in a grocery store,
the
first step is to talk to the other person directly. Alone.
Don’t
tell a bunch of other people first.
Don’t tell them in the middle of a meeting.
Or
in the middle of the Narthex where other people can hear.
Don’t
copy everyone in an email to them about their problem.
Don’t tell their spouse or their friend about it.
Don’t publicly scold them on social media.
Go to them.
And give them the chance to fix it.
So
much in the church and the world would be solved
if
we just went to that first step.
We wouldn’t have any comedies if we did that.
But it would solve a lot of problems.
And if that first step doesn’t work, there are other practical steps outlined too:
Take a couple of people and talk to the other person.
(Of
course, there’s always a chance the other
two people might disagree with you.)
And if that doesn’t work, then tell the church.
Then bring it up
in a meeting. And if all that doesn’t work,
then
treat them as a Gentile or a tax collector.
Of course, we
know how Jesus treated Gentiles and Tax Collectors.
This
gospel was, of course, written by Matthew-
the
Tax Collector – a disciple chosen and loved by Jesus.
So this is
simple advice.
If
you’ve got a problem, go directly to that person and talk to them.
Simple.
So why don’t we do it?
Why
is it that churches, who have this in our scriptures,
forget
to do it so often?
The fact is,
the steps might be simple and clear,
but they are very, very hard.
They leave us very vulnerable.
Telling other people, individually, that they’re behaving in a way
we
don’t like, having an honest discussion with them,
and
not walking off in a huff is difficult.
Staying
connected with someone you disagree with is difficult.
They could get angry, they could tell you something about yourself in response,
they could stop talking to you all together.
Whenever I have to do it, I know I get a knot in my stomach
and
it worries me for days.
This is often
what, I think, turns people off of the church.
It
turns people off of organized religion.
When
it goes wrong, it’s a den of gossip and endless
parking
lot complaints.
But
if we actually do it the right way –
and
in accordance with this advice from Jesus himself –
it
can be extremely difficult and uncomfortable.
Have you ever
told someone that you were involved in the church
and
they told you that they were “Spiritual but not religious”
They
just don’t like all that church stuff?
A UCC pastor
named Lillian Daniel wrote a great little blog entry
more than 10 years ago called:
“Spiritual But not religious? Stop boring me.”
She
complains about the people that she meets on planes
when
they find she’s a minister,
most
people tell her that “they’re spiritual but not religious.”
She
writes:
Such a person
will always share this
as if it is
some kind of daring insight,
unique to them,
bold in its rebellion
against the
religious status quo.
Next thing you know, he's telling me that he finds God in the sunsets.
These people
always find God in the sunsets.
And in walks
on the beach.
Sometimes I
think these people never leave
the beach or
the mountains,
what with all
the communing with God they do
on hilltops,
hiking trails and . . .
did I mention
the beach at sunset yet?
Like people who go to church don't see God in the sunset!
What she goes
on basically to say is that being spiritual by yourself
with
nature that doesn’t talk back, doesn’t have it’s own opinions,
doesn’t change its mind, doesn’t have a bad day, doesn’t have
any baggage, or hurts, or
history is really unchallenging and,
in
her estimation, kind of boring.
It’s
comfortable to be spiritual but not religious. It’s safe.
Religion
is people who experience the spiritual together.
It’s
people. And really, people are the problem here.
I
guess I don’t BLAME people who have decided to leave
religion
and the people that come with it.
Church
life is difficult, community is tough, people are complicated.
Religion,
and all of its humanness can be infuriating.
We
have to deal with institutions that we didn’t create ourselves,
with
traditions that might be very important, or irrelevant,
and
we have to decide which is which.
We
have to deal with people with different experiences,
different
upbringings, different backgrounds,
different
temperaments, and often very different opinions.
And
we have to come together to experience something
that
is nebulous, vague, unclear, amorphous
(I
used a thesaurus for those words)
Sunsets,
in comparison, are simple. No attitudes.
no
different opinions, they don’t talk back,
they
don’t question your methods or motives.
That vein doesn’t pop up in the side of their head when they’re mad at you.
Because sunsets
are never mad at you.
Sunsets
don’t want you to be anything different than you already are.
They
don’t want you to grow or learn.
Sunsets
don’t ask anything of you at all.
Sure,
sunsets and mountains and beaches are
beautiful
and can rest your body, mind, and soul,
but
is that all that God is? Rest?
I
think God can be rest, but God is also challenge,
God
is questions, God is restlessness, God is opinions,
God
is sleepless nights, God is messy.
God
is more complicated than sunsets and beaches.
And
church is a reflection of that.
Church
is not for the faint of heart.
Community
is not for the faint of heart.
I
say people, like all of us, who are willing to get in
and
get messy, with each other, we are the bold and daring ones.
Sunsets
are simple. People are hard.
On the other hand – I think that people also get turned
off from church because people are told they can’t voice
their opinions and things tend to fester and burn.
Challenges and complaints are looked down on.
Then things are swept under the rug.
Sins and offenses are allowed to go on and grow
We use forgiveness as an excuse for avoidance.
Then any type of conflict is ignored until it becomes unbearable,
and then it becomes an all out fight or division.
In Ohio, I was on the synod team that dealt with
churches that were in conflict and
I have been to congregational meetings that have
been so destructive, and the words so spiteful
that I have had a crisis of faith myself.
You get that microphone set up in the
fellowship hall and people who are normally very
reasonable people suddenly sound like professional wrestlers
challenging the champ to a fight next Saturday night.
I have left those meetings thinking that a sunset would
be a much better option.
The
advice that Jesus gives this week doesn’t say,
“when someone sins against you just deal with it and keep it to
yourself.”
or “Just forgive them in your heart and everything will be okay.”
Or “just wait and air all your emotions out at a public meeting”
Jesus says talk to that person one on one.
Get involved. Be engaged. Talk to each other directly.
Be vulnerable. Of course, again, this requires us to be
uncomfortable.
A lot of those public fights at meetings could have been avoided
if there were conversations that were had earlier.
Sometimes 10 or 15 years earlier. This works on the personal level,
it works on the church level, and call me naive,
but I think Jesus
advice would work on the international level too.
In my work on the conflict team I saw some terrible things,
but I have also seen miraculous and beautiful things.
Sometimes things are untenable, and
sometimes the best thing is for one of the parties
to remove themselves from the situation.
But sometimes conversations are had, and agreements
are made, and reconciliation happens.
Relationships that were broken are repaired.
When this happens at this micro-level, we can see
what God can do. And what God will do, in big ways.
We become signs of God’s grace, love and power.
I will trade a sunset in for that experience any day.
God is fixing and repairing and rebuilding all the time.
God is reconciling, and renewing, and resurrecting everywhere.
And we, as church people, get to be partners in that work.
In our own hearts and in our own messy petri dishes
of challenge, conflict, death, and rebirth, which is the church.
Sunsets are fine.
But God’s real miracles happen
when we find God’s image in other people,
people that think different than us,
that have different experiences,
different cultures and backgrounds,
different opinions and understandings.
And especially maybe, in those who disagree with us.
Because where two or three are gathered in Christ’s name –
when we can support one another, work together,
across differences and still serve God and serve our community—
it is a miracle!
And we know that God is with us.
