OBEDIENCE, RECONCILIATION, and CELEBRATION

 

 

1The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: 2This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. 3Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. 4If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. 5Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. 7They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 9Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. 10You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the LORD. 12For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. 13The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

14This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.

Exodus 12:1-14

Celebration

SWANSON, John August

Serigraph

1997

 

 

"All my life I have loved gatherings of people where the spirit of celebration and dancing thrives. When I was young, I went to dance troupe performances when they came to Los Angeles. The music and movements, the colors and costumes, drew me in. In time, I began to make sketches of what I saw...every dance that has given me joy. I took in dances from the Middle East, Russia, Mexico, Sweden, Africa, East Asia, India, and the sacred dances of the Native Americans... I tried to learn everything I could about them. I love the whole array of dance..." 

https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.cloversites.com/c4/c426c66a-3e96-4114-a2c2-5e43b22073e1/documents/2025-09-07_OnlineWorshipAid_23rdOrdinaryTime_Summer.pdf

 

 About the Artist:

 

 

 

 

 

If there is to be reconciliation,

first there must be truth.

~ Timothy B. Tyson

 

 

 

 

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.

~ Robert Frost

The Mending Wall

 

                                                               

 

 

 

Reina and Yushi Sakakibara’s three boys in Tokyo

Meishi, Kaito, and Shuto Sakakibara

Meishi Sakakibara

 

Shuto Sakakibara

 

Kaito Sakakibara

 

 

 

 

We need some training in humility and in seeing our fellow Christians’ (and others’) humanity.

Perhaps we might tape Romans 13:10 to our computer or wrap it around our cell phones:

“Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is fulfilling the law.”

But that may well be too advanced for us.

~ Jill Duffield

 

 

 

 

August 30, 2026 Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 18 (23) Year A 

Previous OPQs may be found at:    

http://www.dotjack.com/opq.ht

 

Two or Three

"If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector. Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."

Matthew 18:15-20

 

Agnus Day, by James Wetzstein

 

 

 

Verse 12:  “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, 

will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?

 Agnus Day appears with the permission of www.agnusday.org

 

 

 

The First Passover

By William Henry Margetson

 

Anointing the Feet of the Passover Lamb

AI generated?

It's hard to say definitively if this image was generated or modified by AI. However, digital analysis suggests it is an AI-generated illustration rather than the work of a specific human artist.

The image depicts a theological concept often discussed in modern sermons regarding the custom of a Middle Eastern shepherd or priest pouring oil over a Passover lamb. You can see several classic visual markers of AI generation characteristic of these types of illustrations: 

• Anatomical Glitches: The main lamb's front right leg transitions oddly at the hoof, and its rear leg placement feels structurally disconnected from the body.
• The Liquid Stream: The stream of oil pouring from the jar perfectly connects in mid-air to a static, floating bead without realistic splash physics.
• Background Inconsistencies: The sheep in the middle background blend awkwardly into each other and the surrounding terrain without distinct separation.

 

 

 

 

 

Song of the Builders

On a summer morning
I sat down
on a hillside
to think about God -

a worthy pastime.
Near me, I saw
a single cricket;
it was moving the grains of the hillside

this way and that way.
How great was its energy,
how humble its effort.
Let us hope

it will always be like this,
each of us going on
in our inexplicable ways
building the universe.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Why I Wake Early)

 

 

 

LECTIONARY

Exodus 12:1–14 

Psalm 149 

Romans 13:8–14 

Matthew 18:15–20

 

Summary

Jesus’ practices for reconciliation and discipline ought to be understood as pertaining to very serious matters of notorious sin where the health of the community is at stake, and it is not to be understood as a license for the church to resolve any conflict without the involvement of civil authorities when appropriate.

Still, membership in the community of faith is a matter of eternal significance, for “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (v. 18). Jesus is speaking about keeping earthly order within the heavenly community of faith. His process is one that avoids escalation, seeking to correct and reconcile without shaming or embarrassing the person in error, and seeking the offender’s repentance and return. The final measure of excommunication is to be taken only if the person persists in sinful behavior even against the will of the entire local community. Such a level of willful recalcitrance makes exclusion the only available step to remove the threat of a malign influence influencing others in the community to sin.

 

THE WORD:

Chapter 18 of Matthew’s Gospel is a collection of Jesus’ sayings on the practical challenges facing the Christian community, including status-seeking, scandal, division and the topic of today’s reading, conflict.

Today’s Gospel reading sounds more like regulations devised by an ecclesiastical committee than a discourse by Jesus (this chapter has been called the “church-order discourse” of Jesus). But the real point of Jesus’ exhortation is that we must never tolerate any breech of personal relationship between us and another member of the Christian community.  At each stage of the process – personal discussion, discussion before witnesses, discussion before the whole community – the goal is to win the erring Christian back to the community (the three-step process of reconciliation outlined by Jesus here corresponds to the procedure of the Qumran community).

Jesus’ exhortation closes with a promise of God's presence in the midst of every community, regardless of size, bound together by faith.

HOMILY POINTS:

Today’s Gospel outlines a process of reconciliation among divided members of a community.  Jesus calls his hearers to seek honesty and sincerity in all relationships, to put aside self-interest, anger and wounded pride, and take the first step in healing the rifts that destroy the sense of love that binds family and friends, church and community – the love of Christ is the "debt" that binds us to one another.

Jesus’ challenges us in today’s Gospel not to tolerate the dysfunction in our lives or allow our judgments and disappointments to isolate us from others, but to confront those problems, misunderstandings and issues that divide us, grieve us, embitter us.  

In the “rules” and “procedures” for bringing sinners back to the community he lays out in today’s Gospel, Jesus calls us to build communities that are inclusive, not exclusive: to bring the lost back, not out of pride or zealousness, but out of “the debt that binds us to love one another.  

Discipleship is the hard work of building community and the harder work of reconciliation — work that is grounded in love for the other, work what begins with respect and love for every human being, work that seeks God’s justice and peace above all.  

In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives his disciples the power and authority to “bind” and “loosen.”  Through the centuries, we’ve read this Gospel as Jesus’ entrusting the Church with the authority to “loosen” and “bind” sins.  But when we act with empathy and understanding, when we seek to restore and heal the broken relationship, when we put aside our own issues to help others cope with their hurt and despair, we exercise that power to forgive and reconcile.