Our family’s recent road trip—3400 miles to New Hampshire and back—included some fun stops centered around things we all enjoy—namely books and donuts. Our first stop was in Grand Marais—where World’s Best Donuts is right down the street from Drury Lane Books. As I checked out at the bookstore, the clerk eyed the novel I was purchasing, I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger. They paused amid the routine details of the transaction to say, “This is an incredible book. I’ve read it three times!” “Wow,” I replied, “Do you always re-read books?” “Nope,” they answered, “just this one.” Now that I’ve read the book, I understand. I’ve been musing about why it’s the sort of book that I want to pick up again and again.

The story is set all around Lake Superior in a near-future time. Political, economic, and infrastructure systems have collapsed. The so-called “astronaut” class rules the country from the coasts, subduing ordinary people with mind-control drugs and enslaving them in work programs. Illiteracy is more and more common, and books are rare. The changing climate brings wild storms, weird fish, and sunken bodies rising to the surface of the warming lake. Life is dangerous and desperate. The decisions of young people who take “Willow,” an assisted suicide drug, are often celebrated; it is said that they are brave souls who go in search of better. The title of the book expresses the stance of Rainy, the narrator, which is to refuse to abandon life on earth. Rainy says: “With Willow infiltrating the landscape and its stories coming thick and fast— these explorers getting younger and more innocent— I felt desperate to reach through time. I wanted to find these kids in a moment of calm. To take their lapels gently in my hands and say, ‘Better is right here.’ […] Better is here. Stay and make it better.”

For me, Enger’s story illuminates how we live with courage and purpose in these times of collapse. The book portrays how amid failures, betrayals and tragedies, some people choose to stay in relationship. They love and support one another in ordinary ways that, under the circumstances, become heroic. Today’s Gospel text has a similar function. These verses remind us that community is always a difficult and risky undertaking. Even for the members of the church—who have chosen to enter into an intimate family, held together by sibling-like bonds, tension, conflict and injury is inevitable. We can, and will, harm each other. Jesus’ followers will fail, again and again, to live up to his teachings that reject abusive hierarchies and call for humility. Imbalances of power and dynamics of oppression are just as present in the church as they are in the rest of society.

The entirety of Matthew chapter 18 provides important context for today’s particular verses. It begins with a scene that is an anchor for the whole discussion about community. The disciples asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And Jesus called a child and put the little one among them, saying, “Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” (Matthew 18:4–5) What follows is a dramatic saying that reinforces the way Jesus sought to reverse cultural practices of prestige and power: “If anyone of you causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.” (18:6) And then, finally, Jesus retold the parable of the shepherd who leaves the flock of ninety-nine sheep to search for the one that has gone astray.

This context should guide how we interpret today’s teaching. It re-grounds us in Jesus’ overarching concern for building community that centers the needs and gifts of the little ones, that honors and cares for the marginalized parts of each of us. We must take care to interpret the process Jesus provides for working through conflict and harm in a way that honors the well-being of the most vulnerable. The passage makes it clear that it’s best to confront harm directly, person to person, that avoidance is not a faithful or helpful response. And yet if we are to create safe and brave space for everyone involved, then we must take cultural styles and power dynamics into account. Always, and above all, we must aim to really listen to each other in ways that can foster understanding, healing, and reconciliation.

Witnesses are crucial because they support everyone involved. And yet it’s a matter of careful discernment who are the best people to serve in this capacity and what should their role be? I find it interesting that the process leaves room for its own failure. Sometimes we simply can’t resolve things. Sometimes the harm continues to sting. At least for now. Jesus offers guidance about how to treat people with whom we can’t yet reconcile. “Let such a one be to you as a gentile and a tax collector.” Jesus, of course, welcomed such outsiders and ate with them. He commanded his followers to “love your enemies”. So if someone is hurting us, we do not have license to hate, or return the hurt, or seek revenge. What we can do is set a boundary, “loose” them from our lives. They need no longer be family, closely tied to us in an intimate way.

In Enger’s novel, Rainy travels all around Lake Superior in a small sailboat. The journey is full of tragedy, grief and terror, and it is also full of love and beauty, joy and hope. Rainy finds that the towns around the lake have very different characters and ways of coping amid anarchy. Some towns have simply been destroyed or abandoned. Others are full of hate and violent persecution, people betraying, hunting and trafficking each other. On the other hand there are places like “Jolie”—whose name means “pretty” or “merry”. In Jolie, there’s a kind waitress who, seeing that the ravenous Rainy can only afford to order toast and coffee, surprises him with a generous serving of peanut butter on the side. There’s an elderly doctor and his wife who treat his injury for free and take him into their house. And there’s a welder who is planning a benefit concert for her dying friend. Learning that Rainy is a musician, she fixes a broken part of his boat asking, in exchange, that he play bass in the band just for that one night. In Jolie, Rainy feels hope for the young girl, Sol, who, fleeing a life of abuse and neglect, stowed away on his boat. “I couldn’t help thinking Sol might find at least the beginnings of a future there, among adults who were not insane, with plenty of food, under a roof of tranquility.”

It’s remarkable to me that even as Jesus’ teaching points out the inevitability of pain and harm within the church, he does not argue that life in community is futile. Instead, today’s passage offers a powerful affirmation that it’s possible to do the hard work of creating a culture in which we value truth-telling, in which tend to accountability and repair, and in which healing and reconciliation can happen. And that is true because we are never alone. For where two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name, he is there among us. Invoking the name of Jesus is more than a formality. It means we seek to be more like him. We allow the wisdom and strength of his life and teachings to shape us and guide us. We let the hope of his resurrection fill us. And through him, we draw deeply from to the well of love and life, joy and hope, that we call God. Amen.