First Sunday of Fall Term Sermon
By the Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Ph.D ’13
Plummer Professor of Christian Morals in the Faculty of Divinity
Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church
(The following is a transcript of the service audio, Sept. 6, 2026)
Welcome back. Again, last Sunday was our first time together. This Sunday is our first Sunday of term, and it's good to have you all with us in this space or joining us from wherever you are. This space is a special space, as you know, and I'll talk a little bit more about that or about the kind of space I think it ought to be or that it should be.
The pulpit is a strange space too. A sermon's not a lecture, and a church is not a classroom; despite my frequent explanations of Greek grammar, that's not what this is for. And there's a certain kind of vulnerability that comes in the pulpit, not just because we walk up here and we're supposed to say something true about God, which is audacious for any of us to claim. But also because a church is not a community of knowledge the way a classroom is, or even a university is. A church is a community of love. And so we become vulnerable to each other up here. And I do that sometimes.
It's been a hard week in our house. On Wednesday, our dog, Suki, died suddenly. Some of you know Suki; those of you who have come to our house know Suki as a student who would visit our house on Thursday mornings. If you know Suki, she was not very old, and she was full of life and love, but she had a tumor in her little heart we didn't know about. And she died suddenly Wednesday morning when I was in Dublin giving some lectures. I know the life of one poodle terrier mix maybe doesn't count for much amid so much. I mean, you hear us talk about all the violence and tragedy and pain and suffering in our world, but we also know that our God is a God of small things, that God's big love appears in small places.
Suki was, if you ever rang the doorbell to our house, she was yippy. We never trained that out of her. But when she came through the door of our house, she loved everybody. She had a little heart, but big love. When she came through the door of our house, everybody was her best friend. And she was my best friend, and we're going to miss her. I'm not just saying that to say it. I have something else to say about it, but I want to talk to you about the gospel since that's actually my job.
Today's gospel is about big love and maybe even about big love in small places. Though at first read, first glance, if you listen to the gospel that was just read to us, it doesn't sound like a gospel about love. It actually sounds more like an HR manual. Jesus likes to speak in parables, but in this lesson, he's very practical, or at least he sounds very practical. He gives all the steps for adjudicating conflict. If someone wrongs you, go speak to them. If they won't listen to you, take one or two with you. If they still won't listen to you, take the whole church. And if the whole church won't listen to you, let that one be a Gentile and the tax collector. And oh, by the way, heaven itself will abide by your decree.
Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loose of heaven. As long as you follow the protocol and go through the necessary steps, heaven is on your side. Now this teaching, like I said, this management handbook doesn't come from nowhere. It's a response to a question. The disciples have just come to ask Jesus, "Hey, who do you think is the greatest?" Which is a weird question to ask Jesus.
But even that question doesn't come from nowhere. They are responding to something else that Jesus has said. And what Jesus has said is that he's on his way to Jerusalem, and in Jerusalem, he is going to suffer and die. Jesus tells his disciples this three times in the Gospel of Matthew. The first time we talked about what happened last week. He told the disciples he was going to suffer and die last week, and Peter said, "God forbid, this must never happen." And Jesus got very angry with him.
In chapter 20, Jesus is going to say the same thing again: that he's going to suffer and die. And afterward, his disciples, James and John, their mother's going to come to him and say to him, "Listen, when you become the king, make sure my kids are your first lieutenants." And Jesus gets mad about that too.
So this is the third time. It happens in between, but the third time Jesus says, "I'm going to suffer and die." And then the disciples ask the question, "Okay, fine, but who's the greatest? Tell us who the greatest among us is." Jesus keeps talking about the kingdom of heaven. He keeps talking about going to suffer and die as part of the way the kingdom of heaven will be brought to us. And they're real excited about this kingdom and they're really excited about all the power and glory and might that will accrue to them when he comes into his kingdom.
And implied in their sense of power and might is the authority to keep the keys, to decide who's in and who's out. And today's teaching is in response to that. It's not the immediate response. They say, "Who's the greatest?" And Jesus takes a little child from the crowd and says, "Whoever wants to be in the kingdom should be like this little child."
And then he tells them a parable about 100 sheep and one of them wanders off and the shepherd leaves the 99 behind and chases after the one. And then he tells them, gives them this teaching. "If someone wrongs you, go to them. If they don't listen, take somebody with you. If they don't listen, let the church know. If they don't listen, treat them as a Gentile or a tax collector."
Practically speaking, these are fine suggestions, even good suggestions. There's a sense of relentlessness, a persistence. This one belongs to us. We belong to them. We're going to do all we can to keep them in community, to continue fostering community. So practically speaking, I think this is generally good, but honestly, I don't think Jesus is speaking practically. As much as it sounds like an HR manual, I think this is the same kind of thing Jesus does throughout the Gospel of Matthew. He's speaking in parable. He's speaking in metaphor. He's speaking in hyperbole, in exaggeration. He's trying to get us in the wake of his disciples not understanding the power of love and instead wanting to lean into the power of exclusion and might, he is trying to get them to see and recognize the power of love.
And I say that because of the final line. If you do all these things, if you follow all these steps, let that one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. These are important categories, well-chosen categories for this teaching because they name two kinds of enemies to Jesus and his people. Tax collectors were members of his own people, but Rome had kind of co-opted them. They collected taxes on behalf of Rome. They had the full force of Roman military might behind them to collect those taxes. They could take however much; they could add whatever they wanted to the top of what they charged, and they did. They were seen as betrayers of the people.
And then Gentiles were all those who were lording over them, who controlled them. The Romans were Gentiles, the Greek speakers, the Greeks. These were the people who were causing them pain and suffering, the two categories of enemies, internal enemies and external enemies. If this person will not respond to all these different steps, then let that one be to you as a tax collector or a Gentile. Let this one be your enemy.
Jesus has something to say about enemies in the Gospel of Matthew and about how we should treat them. To put a finer point on it, in chapter nine, Jesus walks up to a booth where there sits a tax collector, and he says to the tax collector, "I want to go home and have dinner with you." And he does. He has dinner with all the sinners, and everyone judges him for eating with tax collectors and sinners, but he does it anyway. For the rest of the gospel, he's judged for eating with tax collectors and sinners, but he does it anyway.
And that tax collector becomes one of his disciples, and indeed this gospel is named after him. And so am I, Matthew. What about Gentiles? In chapter eight, Jesus meets a centurion, and he says this man has the greatest faith he's ever seen. After that, he goes into this land of gentiles among the Gadarenes. He says, and he sees a man who is living in a tomb full of open sores; he could not be more impure. And Jesus goes straight to him and heals him and sends him back to his friends.
In the 15th chapter, a Canaanite woman comes to Jesus, and he heals her daughter. And then from healing her daughter, he goes out into a crowd full of Gentiles. It's one of the last big miracles before the moment I described last week. He goes out into this crowd of Gentiles and heals all the Gentiles.
"Let this one," Jesus says, "be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector." Can you name two categories of people Jesus seems more concerned to care for than Gentiles or tax collectors? Is there anybody Jesus seems more eager to love than his enemies, even up to and including at the cross?
Jesus' disciples are obsessed with power, and they think that power means holding the keys to the kingdom. And they think holding the keys to the kingdom means deciding who you get to kick out and who you get to keep and who you get to keep out. Who do we keep out? Who do we kick out? This idea of power, of might, of glory maps directly onto our world today at the national level, of course.
If you look at our immigration practices, our incarceration practices, who is banished from our community, who is not allowed, who we must get rid of, who we can't let in. That is how power is exercised. And at the community level as well, in communities: who's welcome, who's not, who belongs, who doesn't. The history of racist redlining in this country is another example. So are the spaces where trans youth are welcome in our world today.
It's been part of the history of our Christian churches deciding who's good enough to be in here and who's not, who's welcome at this table and who's not. To be fair though, it sounds like it's what we're supposed to do. Jesus says, "Whatever you bind will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose will be loosed in heaven." Sure sounds like we're in charge of this and our decree is final.
I am going to say a word about Greek grammar now. I warned you a little bit, foreshadowed it. The translation we have here does not do justice to the subtlety of the Greek. I'll just say that. What here is translated as will be, whatever you bind will be bound in heaven. Literally in Greek, the literal Greek says, "Will be having been bound." I know that doesn't make sense. A more elegant English translation just would be whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, will have already been bound in heaven. Whatever you lose on earth will have already been loosed in heaven.
It's not saying heaven will follow your lead. It's saying heaven has already done it. Heaven has already bound you to one another. You are already bound to one another by God's love, so act like it. Heaven has already forgiven both you and your enemy. You have already been bound to your enemy by God's forgiveness, so act like it.
This lesson, this HR manual, is not about making us the judge of one another or of others. It's about reminding us that judgment has already been passed, and the decision is already final. All are already bound together through the love of God. All are already welcome. What would it mean for us Christians, what would it mean for this church to live by the bonds that Christ has already sealed for us? What would it mean to live and to love with the forgiveness Christ has already granted us? And what difference would it make if we did?
It is so easy to look at the world around us and see how broken it is, how broken the practices and policies of our nation are, how broken the world is to see people mourning and grieving after disaster, natural and historical and human made all over the world. It's so easy to be overwhelmed by all that the power of love can't do.
We're just one church, one small community of people, one group of people in a world that is so full of so much brokenness and so much harm, but God's love appears in small places. We have had glimpses of a love that open and generous as good and good, sometimes glimpses even in the littlest of hearts.
What would it mean really to walk in love as Christ has loved us? I don't know, but once we do, once we Christians do, we will have discovered at long last what it really means to be the church. What would it mean to love with hearts so open and so good, even if so small and broken? I don't know, but when we do, we will have gained the keys to the kingdom.