Lectionary Readings: Year A, Proper 18

Years ago I was listening to a husband and wife talking about their first few months as a married couple. Most of you may have a similar story, though maybe not as in depth as these two. It all started with the toilet paper roll. The husband liked the paper to roll over the top, and the wife liked the paper to roll from the bottom. And each time one of them used the toilet, they would reverse the paper roll, only to have the other one change it back. This little feud started to make its way into the kitchen, with the way the paper towels rolled out, or where the dish towels got hung. Things were starting to get ugly. Snide comments, sarcastic comebacks, festering anger, and deeply held grievances. Until one day, after the husband had flipped the toilet roll again, the wife heard herself say, “Oh, he thinks he’ll get away with this? There’s no way I’m letting him get all the power in this relationship.”

All the power. In this relationship.

It was an a-ha! moment for her: “I don’t even care where he hangs the dish towels, or how the toilet paper hangs. This is a relationship. We are a team. What is happening to me? Why am I being like this?”

Some people in our culture would tell us this battle over power in a relationship is perfectly fine. Our culture tells us that we, ourselves, are the most important person in our lives. That we need to stand up for ourselves. That something like this is an affront to our individuality, and that we need to push for our desires and needs to be heard. 

Thankfully, the wife had this moment of clarity and was able to save the relationship before it totally went off the rails. But, if the wife had not been surprised by her own inner commentary and acted on it, I imagine that this would have escalated pretty quickly. The husband could be talking with his friends, and saying something like, “Oh yeah. She totally did that. And you know what? It didn’t just stop with the toilet paper. It was the dish towels, and the paper towels. And I thought to myself, if she leaves the butter dish uncovered one more time, that’s it. That’ll be the end of it. One of these days, I tell you, one of these days. Pow! Right in the kisser!”

That’s often how it works. That’s how most people deal with an offense. They go to everyone else except the person that has offended them. They would rather talk to everyone else on the planet, get their little posse together, find people who tell them that what they have endured is indeed, the worst thing ever. And maybe they even get some other people to observe these events and write down the information so that they can provide a witness for some future trial of the century where justice will prevail.

All because of something as silly as the toilet paper and how it unrolls. 

I know you’re thinking, “Seriously? Who does that?”

You’d be surprised. Marriages have fallen apart for things just as nonsensical as this. Churches have split over details smaller than this. Wars have been fought over the tiniest insults. Violence erupts over the smallest of things. Especially when people let things sit. When they don’t confront the problem immediately, and allow the hurt to fester in a dark pit of anger. Because our culture tells us that winning is the important thing. It doesn’t matter what happens, as long as we win. When someone does us wrong, we must set it right. And setting it right means that we must get our own. At any cost. 

But what good does it do to gain the whole world, and yet lose our soul? Because in losing our souls for the sake of winning, we lose relationships, we lose friendships, we lose family. And rather than working toward unity, we end up causing division, destruction, and sometimes, even death.

In this story of the married couple, where was God in this situation? Is God only with the one who wins the argument? Only with the husband? The Wife? Was it with the injured party? Or with the one doing the injuring? How do you even decide who the injured party is in this scenario? 

Where was God in this situation? Was God in the midst of them? Or had they pushed God out of the house?

Thankfully, God was there. In a small, but penetrating nudge that rattled the wife’s cage with a moment of clarity about who holds the power in the relationship. A moment of clarity that allowed her to reconcile with her husband, and work out just how they could work things out as a team. 

We often look to this passage when dealing with church discipline. We look to this passage because it shows us how to deal with offensive, difficult people; those who would destroy the church from within. We look to it because it shows us how to properly get rid of, or exile, these people.

Or does it?

At the end of the little snippet about how to treat this person who has caused such injury to not only one of the members of the church, but eventually to the whole church – at the end of this little snippet, Jesus says, “Let such a one be to you like a Gentile or Tax Collector,” two types of people who received much disrespect in that culture. Treat them like Gentiles. Like Tax Collectors.

And yet, remind me again, who did Jesus hang out with? Tax collectors? Gentiles? Sinners? Or was it just the righteous? And how did Jesus treat those people? 

This passage looks like punishment. It looks like church discipline. But, it is really about reconciliation. About bringing unity to the church, one relationship at a time, especially when there has been hurt and division.

The Catechism – the little teaching about the Church’s faith that appears at the end of the Book of Common Prayer – defines the Church as “the Body of which Jesus Christ is the Head and of which all baptized persons are members.” And Jesus Christ is the head of the Church because “by his obedience, even to suffering and death, Jesus made the offering which we could not make; in him we are freed from the power of sin and [are] reconciled to God.” And, because each of us is a member of this mystical Body called the church, we work toward the mission of the Church, which is “to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ” (BCP, 854, 850, 855).

Jesus suffered and died on a cross so that the world could be reconciled to God. Jesus suffered at the hands of those who would beat him, scourge him, and kill him, so that those same people who tortured him could be reconciled to God. He even uttered the words, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” while dying on the cross. Even on the cross he still looked for a way to reconcile those who were doing him harm.

And yet, we go ballistic about dish towels, and throw around sarcastic comments and stare daggers at those who would dare to challenge us.

Jesus gets the sarcastic comments. And Jesus understands why these things might sting and hurt. And Jesus knows why we might want other people to do things just the way we want them done. But whenever we find ourselves in these scenarios, we need to remember the question: “Where is God in this situation?” 

If Jesus can look down at those who tortured him, and then look to heaven in order to grant forgiveness, can’t we maybe just suffer enough to admit that we were offended, or felt hurt? This is the mission of the Church, which includes each and every one of us: we are to reconcile the world to God and to each other. We like to look at this passage and see only how this offensive, difficult person is handled, how they finally get that trial of the century in which justice can prevail. However, this passage begins with this: “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone” (v. 15). The one who is offended – the one who is sinned against – has the responsibility to reconcile with the one who has committed the offense. That is our mission. That is our job.

Our culture tells us we should win at all costs. But Jesus doesn’t want us to be concerned about winning. Jesus wants us to be concerned about reconciling first to each other, and then the rest of the world. William Barclay says it this way, “This [passage] is not an injunction to abandon a man; it is a challenge to win him with the love that can touch even the hardest heart. It is not a statement that some men are hopeless; it is a statement that Jesus Christ has found no man hopeless – and neither must we” (Barclay, Matthew Vol. 2, p. 189).

Imagine what life would be like if that were really the case. Imagine if rather than looking forward to figuring out the steps to get rid of someone, we were instead excited about the possibility of reconciling. For those who have previously been at odds with one another and now are truly reconciled, the bond between them would be stronger. Imagine Christ among two or three who have reconciled their differences. Imagine the power of Christ that exists in those who know that the love of Christ can heal all wounds and can bridge the gap between the most vicious of enemies.

Imagine what it would look like with those who have truly reconciled, and who come together in twos or threes, and who pray wholeheartedly for God’s will to be done on earth, just as it is in heaven. When we have learned to love like Christ – when we have taken on the mantle of sacrifice for the good of the Church and out of thankfulness for what Christ has done for us – then we are an unstoppable force. A force of love that can change the hopeless into the hopeful. A force of love that will see darkness turn to light, and will see God’s kingdom come, here on earth. It will not just be two or three who are gathered – it will be a multitude. And Christ will be among us all.

Be the unstoppable force.

Don’t lose, just for the sake of winning.

[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on September 6, 2026.]