Sunday’s gospel is part of Jesus’ discourse on how he wants his disciples to live together. These sayings which Matthew collects in chapter 18 anticipate life in the community of disciples after Jesus’ death and resurrection and reflect practices in the early church.
Only Matthew uses the word church to refer to the Christian community. The word, ekklesia in Greek, appears twice—first when Jesus tells Peter, “Upon this rock I will build my church,” referring to Peter’s faith and second when Jesus challenges the community to reach out to its sinners in Sunday’s gospel. The word means the assembly or gathering, the members of the Christian community.
“Talk it through” is the nub of Jesus’ advice on what to do when one disciple wrongs another. In Matthew’s gospel Jesus outlines a process that draws on a law from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy. The law requires two or three witnesses in order for a person to make an accusation (19.15). The witnesses protect an individual from the accusations of a malicious enemy or from a leader who wants to get rid of an opponent. The gospel process builds on this law. It requires speaking directly and honestly and listening attentively.
In step one the wronged person talks to the brother or sister when they are alone. Face-to-face, one-on-one dialogue is the ideal way to understand one another.
If this first step doesn’t work, the gospel process tells the wronged person to bring witnesses along for a second face-to-face talk. If they are ignored, the matter should be brought to the church community as a whole.
The aim of the process is not to settle a dispute but to win over an offending community member. The process adds more and more voices to persuade him or her to change the behavior and seek reconciliation.
Even the final step when a wrongdoer ignores the church aims at conversion rather than punishment. “Treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector,” Jesus says. But he himself reached out to Gentiles and tax collectors rather than avoid them.
- What value do you put on face-to-face conversation for clearing up a wrong or supposed wrong?
- What has worked for you to stop the spread of accusations on social media?
- How do political memes online affect you? What is one you remember and value?
Immediately before Sunday’s gospel Jesus asks, “If a shepherd has 100 sheep and one has gone astray, does the shepherd not leave the ninety-nine and search for the one?” Jesus stands with the shepherd on the mercy side. He urges the church to search for strays, reach out to the excluded, and reconcile with wrongdoers.
But there is no mistaking that the church community has authority to act with regard to wrongdoing. What the community does lasts. “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven,” Jesus declares. In other words, the community can impose and lift obligations, exclude or readmit members, with confidence that it is acting in accordance with God’s will.
More than that, Jesus insists his followers can count on the power of praying and gathering together. When two or three seek counsel in prayer or when two or three gather in his name, they act as church. They will find Jesus in their midst in decision making.
- Why do grudges last? What heals them?
- How has prayer in small groups helped you or others reconcile wrongs?
Jesus’ advice urges us to win over wrongdoers whenever two or three of his disciples gather. If they fail to stop their harmful activity, we can oblige them to go away. We don’t have to tolerate abusive individuals or allow them to carry on their harmful activities in our midst.
It also seems reasonable to assume that this process pertains to groups and organizations or institutions that are doing wrong as well as to individuals. In short, Sunday’s gospel is really an instruction about individual and community action to correct wrongdoing and injustice.
How much festering resentment and ill will can we avoid if we speak directly with people or organizations who wrong us—not to chide or scold but to let them know how we feel and how we are affected by what they are doing? How often might such frank conversation surprise both us and the offenders by leading to greater mutual understanding, apologies, and forgiveness?
Above all, we must never forget that the power to exclude a brother or sister, a group, or an organization is not the power to condemn or avenge. Judgment and vengeance belong to God alone. The binding or loosing Jesus empowers us to do is not for punishing but for healing. We are not inquisitors or vigilantes. One-upping hateful political messages can turn us into haters.
Jesus’ disciples have a duty and authority to act against wrongdoing and injustice. We need not wait for “powers that be” to make life on this earth better. We can join our voices to pray for change and we can act carefully for justice, with guidance from Jesus himself who is in our midst.
- What wrongs or conflicts does Jesus’ instruction urge you to act upon?
In restorative justice circles victims and offenders speak face to face. Mary Lou Menikheim describes a successful conference:
The other facilitator and I had difficulty scheduling a first meeting with the victim of damage a group of youths caused at a construction site of her company. Our requests to meet in the late afternoon irritated her until I explained that we were both volunteers and had other full time jobs outside the court system.
Her attitude changed from hostile to accommodating. When we met with the young offender, the sole accountable youth who had created significant damage in the model home at the construction site, he apologized and took responsibility for his and the other boys’ damage.
The construction company owner was taken by the youth’s accountability and his story of struggle with drugs and the death from overdose of his close friend. Significant healing and understanding ensued.
The company owner offered the youth a job under the guidance of the company’s foreman, thus giving the youth an opportunity to earn money to pay for the damage in the model home.
Through the Restorative Justice process, one young man was turned away from a court record and life of delinquency by the one-to-one conversation with the person harmed. The victim was made whole and the community gained a positive contributing member.
- What small bit of hostility can you remove from the world?