Mercy’s Reach

A sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 18
Jazz Mass
September 6, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Ezekiel 33:7-11; Psalm 119:33-40; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20

For some reason unknown to all, the church was full on that Wednesday night. Visitors had suddenly decided to show up. My childhood pastor had come with a sermon he had prepared thinking no one would be there. It was a sermon about solving our differences the way Jesus tells us to. He may have been using the Scripture we heard a few moments ago. You see, the church was fighting. Most everyone was related at that little country church so we were always fighting–and there’s nothing like a family fight. But now my Pastor had this problem. The church was full of visitors, and he didn’t want to project an image of a congregation that was always in conflict. That’s not good for growth. And besides, the offending parties had skipped church that night. Of course they did. In the end, his sermon was short. 

Today’s gospel passage feels less than inspiring because of its focus on practicalities. It gives us a procedure for when we inevitably come to blows. Jesus says to talk it out. But that does not always work. If it doesn’t work, he says, bring a third party into the mix. Bring a witness or two. Try again. And if it doesn’t work, go to the church. The Greek word for church, ekklesia, means the gathering, or the assembly. Go to the whole body, Jesus says. Let’s have a family meeting. That’s what my pastor was trying to do that night. And only then, Jesus says, if that doesn’t work, go your separate ways. “Let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” 

It all seems straight forward enough. And it is good advice in a world where we don’t know what to do with conflict–a polarized world where we are afraid of conflict and where we have forgotten the art of working out our differences. Families don’t talk; old wounds stink and fester; we cut one another off. But that is not what living faithfully looks like. Living faithfully looks like trying for reconciliation, as far as it depends on us. Living faithfully looks like seeking to resolve differences, as far as it depends on us. In the words of St. Paul in Romans 12 (we heard these words last week), living faithfully looks like living peaceably with all, as far as it depends on us. That’s the community the church is called to be, one that does not fear disagreement, but one that leans into dispute and works it out. 

I hear it a lot: I want to go to a church that doesn’t fight. That’s like saying you want a marriage where you never fight. Or you want to raise kids and never fight. All of this is in the realm of the impossible. People fight. The question is not whether we will fight; it is whether we will fight faithfully. 

But there’s more going on in this passage. Beyond the practical, if we dig in, we find something else is happening. Jesus is not talking about small disagreements here. He is not discussing minor conflicts. Jesus is talking about the big stuff. We know that because he is quoting the law of Moses. When he says two or three witnesses, he is referencing court proceeding instructions in the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 17:6 says, “On the evidence of two or three witnesses the death sentence shall be executed; a person must not be put to death on the evidence of only one witness.” The two to three witnesses standard is reserved for the big things, the things you don’t come back from. 

We see this procedure enacted in another place, I Corinthians 5. Someone in their midst is having inappropriate relations with his father’s wife, that is to say, his mother. There must have been efforts to correct it, so much so that they wrote to St. Paul. St. Paul says to get the whole assembly together and excommunicate the couple. They are tearing the community apart. This is one of those big things, one of those things you don’t come back from. And so St. Paul follows Jesus’s standard: “Let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” But again, the punishment for this behavior in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 22, is death. 

Do you see what’s happening here? Death is being replaced by something more merciful. Removal from the community is painful, yes, but it is merciful. And what’s more, this merciful judgment is all about restoration, in the hope that the rift will be healed, even when we’re dealing with the big things, the things you don’t come back from. Jesus says, “Let such a one be to you as a Gentile and tax collector.” My friends, that’s good news: Gentiles and tax collectors are the very people Jesus came for. Restoration and healing are the goal. 

To be in the Christian community is to believe a simple thing–not an easy thing, but a simple one: No one is beyond the reach of Jesus. No one is beyond the reach of God’s mercy. No one is ever completely lost. No one runs out of second chances. New life, redemption, restoration, healing from even the deepest wounds–all of this is possible, for while we were yet sinners, Christ Jesus came for us. And our death, that death prescribed in Deuteronomy, he took upon himself as he was nailed to the cross. Our shame, our guilt, the bridge too far, that thing there’s no coming back from–it is finished. Hope and forgiveness are now possible. We are all now in mercy’s reach. No matter who they are, everyone is in mercy’s reach. 

Sister Helen Prejean’s ministry was visiting death row. One of the people she met there was Patrick Sonnier. He had done one of those things you don’t come back from, and he was condemned to die. The world had given up on him. I would have, too. But not Sister Helen. Jesus called her. So she went and had spiritual conversations with Patrick. She got to know him. She prayed with him. And he came to know Jesus. He came to know the love of God. He came to know that he could be forgiven. His final conversation with Sister Helen happened in the execution chamber. After he and Sister Helen had prayed, he looked at the father of one of his victims. “I ask God to forgive me for what I did,” he said. And he told Sister Helen that he loved her. “I love you, too,” she said. 

Even there, at the electric chair, on the other side of the bridge too far, after that thing there is no coming back from, when the world had made its judgment–even there, Christ was present. And I believe Patrick heard those words once spoken to another criminal: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” For no one is beyond mercy’s reach.