Binding and loosing   Matthew 18 : 15 – 20 / Romans 12 : 9 - 21

This is the second Sunday in the Season of Creation and when I first looked at the readings for today, I was rather puzzled as to how they might relate to such a theme.

Seems to me they are both heavily weighted on how to maintain good relationships, on giving support and encouragement to one another, and in fact going beyond what anyone might expect, by doing good to those who have maligned and mistreated us.
Paul is quite strong on following the teaching of Jesus with regard to how we are to deal with those we might regard as enemies. “Turn the other cheek” Jesus said.

I still remember seeing Ernest borgnine in a 50’s movie playing a Christian in a group on their way to the arena, when a guard, for the fun of it, punches Borgnine on the left cheek and taunts him to turn the other. The emotional struggle in Borgnine’s face as he slowly and grimly turned the other cheek so awed the guard that he couldn’t carry out his intention. He just turned away.

But while in the first century, enemies could well be your neighbours, in the 23^rd century I guess most of us might be hard placed to identify an actual person we would regard as an ‘enemy’.  It’s usually a word between armies.

Sure, there may be people we might seriously dislike, even judge harshly on the basis of their actions, but “enemies’? In fact, the very word ‘enemy’ might tend to distract us, to blunt impact of what Paul is really on about.

By far the greatest emphasis comes in the first line “let love be genuine”
That love involves ‘mutual affection’, ‘patience in affliction’, ‘hospitality’, responding with compassion to the situation of those around us. As far as you are able, live peaceably with everyone.

Although he was an expert in Torah, Paul here, is reflecting the essence of Jesus’ teaching on the relationship of Love to Law.
Professor G. B. Caird in his masterly final work ‘The Theology of the New Testament’, after a detailed analysis of Jesus’ attitude to Torah, puts it this way.

“Jesus teaching about the law may now be summarised in five propositions:
(1) there are lighter and weightier matters to the law
(2) One needs to penetrate behind the law’s letter to its original divine intention
(3) One needs to penetrate behind action to character
(4) those who love have fulfilled the law
(5) it's possible to take this view of the law because the Kingdom of God has arrived”

It takes him eight closely argued pages to analyse Jesus’ teaching on the Law and come that summary.  “Those who loe have fulfilled the law”
Those whose actions spring from the sort of love Paul is describing will have fulfilled the divine intention of the law whether they are aware of it, or not.

And Matthew gives a very well-known practical example of the way in which Jesus would have his followers seek to repair a breach in loving relationships.

If you are the offended one, the onus is on you to privately seek to sort it out, one to one.
If that doesn’t resolve the issue, try again with one or two others along for support, and perhaps to be sure you are seeing things from a balanced perspective.
If that doesn’t work, then have the matter dealt with by the church – the actual word in the Greek means an assembly – not at all like the General Assembly of the PCANZ coming up in a couple of weeks, but rather a small group of believers, or a house church – the same word was also used of a synagogue.

Then it seems, if the offender won’t respond to the assembly, we are to wash our hands of them – treat them as a gentile or a tax-collector. Really? Isn’t that the very attitude of the Pharisees, who earned Jesus’ strongest criticism?

It is clear that if things have got to that stage, the damage has been done, and the relationship is broken, so a separation is inevitable. But not a washing of the hands like Pilate – rather a following of Jesus own example in the way he again and again sought to build a relationship of trust and understanding with those considered outsiders by the insiders – a starting again - from the beginning.

Then we come to that strange statement “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

As I’ve shared before, it appears that discussion of the Law in the synagogue, and even on the street corners, and in the cafes, was fundamental to Judaism in Jesus day.  And as Rabbis went about the task of instructing their disciples in the finer elements of the Law, each would have their own ideas about how best to understand the text. Each Rabbi would have their particular set of interpretations of what was involved in putting the Law into practice, the ones they preferred, and others which they rejected. These, they expected the disciples to learn as they developed their ability to interpret the meaning of the Law.  They had technical terms for this endless process of making valid interpretations of what was the correct way to obey the Law. They called it ‘binding’ and ‘loosing’. To bind a particular practice was to reject it, while to loose a practice was to allow it. And when a Rabbi was confident that it was time to give to his disciples the authority to bind and loose, it was called giving them ‘the keys of the kingdom’.

So, Jesus is here warning his disciples that when they are agreed on what should be bound, they had a duty of care, as that interpretation would not only hold for their small gathering, but would have much wider implications.
Not unlike that popular saying: “Be careful what you wish for”.

While I pondered on all this, I couldn’t really see how it had much to do with the care of creation until a couple of days ago I was prompted by a Franciscan friend to listen to a Podcast reflecting on this passage with the Creation theme in mind.

It was called ‘Binding and Loosing’ and was recorded earlier this week – a conversation between three practicing pastors from different denominations.

Now, although reflecting on the same passage from Matthew that we heard this morning, their interpretation of binding and loosing was not the 1^st century technical meaning I’ve just described but rather the way these words are more commonly understood.

However, they began by noting that most people when reading this text put themselves in the position of the one who is wronged – seldom if ever seeing themselves in the role of the wrong-doer.

As they applied the text to the challenges we face in climate change, they could clearly see that between nature and humanity, we are the ones being called to account.

It was back in the late 19^th century when scientist first began to suspect that there might be a greenhouse effect from human emissions that could change the climate and impact the earth.  But few listened.

In the 196o’s the evidence for the warming effect of carbon dioxide became increasingly convincing. We hugged trees, but governments did little.

Along with the voice of science, those of protesters like Gretta Thunberg and David Attenborough each in their way began to arouse public awareness. See how it fits the text? Earth the victim, these the two or three witnesses.
But there were still those who denied climate change.

Now the earth is screaming at us, and her voice is clearly heard.

The podcasters ask, what are the practices we are loth to give up which still bind the earth in this ever-growing cataclysm?
They challenge the church, even little assemblies like ours, to be creative in our response; to do all we can to help loose the bonds which continue to hold the earth, and to support the growing efforts to heal her.

And if I should succumb to the view that there is little we can do, I’m reminded of the story of little boy and the starfish.

That night there had been a storm which littered the beach with starfish, and in the morning a little boy was picking them up, one at a time and throwing them back into the sea. A man passing by said “look at all these starfish, your little efforts won’t make any difference”.
Picking up another starfish the little boy replied “I bet it made a difference to that one.”

How will we respond to the challenge before us?