September 3, 2026 - "The Word Among Us" - A Weekly Note from Pastor Michael

The Word Among Us 

A Weekly Note from Pastor Michael 

What We Bind Together 

Thursday, September 3, 2026 

The Federated Church of Chagrin Falls 

A word to those of you who have been reading ahead with me each week: 
I owe you an apology.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have not made it particularly easy to follow along. Last week, I even listed the wrong Gospel reading—the passage from the previous Sunday—and then introduced some ideas about “powers and principalities” that never quite made their way into the sermon. 

Thank you to those of you who noticed, and especially to those who noticed because you actually opened your Bible and read ahead. I want to do better by you. 

So before we go any further, here is where we are headed during September: 

• September 6 — Matthew 18:15–20 

    Jesus talks about conflict within the church, reconciliation, and the strange power of “binding and                loosing.” 

• September 13 — Matthew 18:21–35 

    Peter asks Jesus how many times he really has to forgive someone. 

• September 20 — Matthew 20:1–16 

    Jesus tells the story of laborers who work very different hours and somehow receive the same wage. 

• September 27 — Matthew 21:23–32 

    Jesus is challenged about his authority and tells a story about two children whose actions speak louder      than their words. 

There. Now those of you reading ahead have the map. 

And perhaps my detour last week wasn’t entirely wasted. 

A couple of weeks ago, when Peter confessed Jesus as the Christ, we encountered a word that appears surprisingly rarely in the Gospels: ekklesia—the church. I suggested that an ekklesia is not simply an audience gathered to listen. It is an assembly: people gathered to deliberate, decide, and act together. 

Jesus then gives this assembly an extraordinary responsibility: “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 

This Sunday, in Matthew 18, he says it again. Only this time, Jesus is talking about what happens when relationships become strained—when somebody gets hurt, when somebody sins against somebody else, when resentment begins to grow inside the body.

And suddenly “binding and loosing” becomes very concrete. Because communities are built out of thousands of seemingly insignificant choices. 

A card sent to someone who is grieving. A phone call to someone who is lonely. A meal delivered. A ride offered. A name remembered. An apology made. 

Each one seems small. But so does a careless word. A grievance rehearsed. A story repeated about someone who isn’t in the room. A wound allowed to become resentment.  

These things accumulate. We bind them together. And eventually they become something larger than any one of us. 

That is what I was reaching toward last week when I wrote about the “creatures we become” together. Churches, families, institutions, and communities can become capable of extraordinary compassion because people bind their lives together. They can also become capable of terrible harm. 

Jesus seems to understand that. So he gives the ekklesia practices for tending the body we are becoming. 

Go to one another. Tell the truth. Listen. Seek reconciliation. Bring others alongside when you need help… And remember that these ordinary choices have extraordinary weight. 

Perhaps that is what Jesus means when he says that what we bind on earth is bound in heaven. We spend a great deal of time wondering what God is going to do about the world. Jesus keeps turning the question around. What are we going to bind into the world together? 

Because wherever two or three gather in his name, Christ promises to be there among them. 

And perhaps that is how heaven begins to take flesh on earth. 

Read Before Sunday 

Matthew 18:15–20 

Questions for Reflection 

• What small acts of faithfulness have helped “bind” you to a community? 
• What happens to a community when hurt or resentment is left unattended? 
• If our life together is creating something larger than any one of us, what kind of body do we want to become? 
•  

I look forward to gathering with you around the Word this Sunday. 

Grace and Peace, 
Pastor Michael