Sunday Readings: Ezekiel 33.7-8; Romans 13.8-10; Matthew 18.15-20
“For wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” – Matthew 18.20
In Sunday’s gospel Matthew outlines what to do when one disciple harms another. Making a judgment or establishing what is true is both an individual and a collective search. Individually we look at consequences and outcomes as well as our own ideals and motivations. We draw on collective standards such as the ten commandments and the common good. We use minds to weigh what is true and consciences to weigh what is right.
The Hebrew word for truth refers to what stands firm like tent stakes. What holds your tent in place? We see from where we stand in the light of our experience. Life differs for the 1% and the 99%, for women and men, for people of different races and ethnic groups, for island people with rising sea levels and prairie farmers of the Midwest. Broader experience may widen our views. We depend on others to communicate their reality; others depend on us to take in their reality. We depend on communication to build understanding rather than make judgments on assumed stereotypes.
Matthew offers a process. Step one: The wronged person talks to the brother or sister one-on-one, talk it out directly. Step two counsels the wronged person to bring witnesses, for a face-to-face talk. This step draws on the law in Deuteronomy that requires two people to make an accusation. As a last step the person wronged brings the matter to the church community as a whole.
The gospel ends with a powerful reminder that the wrongs we forgive and the injustices we set right on earth stay that way as do the wrongs we leave to fester. Jesus gathers with us in prayer and our interactions with one another in his name, so harmony is possible.
Why do grudges last? What heals them?