Matthew 18:15 - 20
Sometimes we miss things when we look at the gospel reading in isolation. The reading today is taken from a section of Matthew’s gospel which scholars think is about dealing with conflict among the believers. Before today’s reading, there was the story of the lost sheep, in which the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine to find the one, and rather than punishing it, he brings it back and celebrates the fact. So Matthew is telling us that the first thing to think about when someone strays is that we be gentle, that we go out of our way to bring the wandering sheep back home, that we rejoice when our efforts are successful. What a contrast with how things seem to work today, when the first response to disagreement is to cancel the other person.
Sin, of course, for the writer of this gospel, meant something obvious, something that threatened the unity of the community. Our faith community, the Church, has clear teachings, and when a member violates those teachings publicly, the unity and even the existence of the community is threatened. I meet a lot of elderly former Catholics in the nursing homes. Many dropped out because of the priest scandals twenty years ago. And today we are seeing our church in America shrink, possibly because we aren’t concerned about sin anymore.
Then we reach today’s reading. Jesus puts aside the parables and gives some simple instructions as to how to deal with disagreement, or as it says here, “if your brother sins against you…” Now we have to pause here because there are translations that say, “If your brother sins”. I think we need to hold both statements together. Maybe Jesus is saying “if your brother sins in your opinion” because what you see or hear about your brother’s actions causes you to form a judgment that he is sinning. So you can see, you may be wrong about whether he sins or not; if you are right, your brother may not know he is sinning, that happens a lot these days because our church is very quiet about what constitutes sin; or your brother may recognize that what he is doing is wrong and he does it anyway. I think that’s why the first step in Jesus’ method is to confer with your brother privately. Maybe misunderstandings will be straightened out this way. Maybe your brother will learn something from you -or vice versa. Maybe your efforts will have no effect.
If your brother persists in his behavior, the next step is to consult a few other people who agree that what is going on is a sin, and go to him together. Maybe peer pressure will change his behavior. I’ve certainly witnessed that many times, not just with respect to sin, but other kinds of objectionable behavior. We human beings are herd animals and we like the approval of our fellow man. And if I think what I am doing is all right, and several people that I respect tell me differently, I may just come around to their point of view.
Finally, in the case of sin, the next step is to have the assembly correct the sinner. This, by the way, is the job of the pastor, or the bishop, or sometimes the pope, all of whom by nature of the sacrament they have received have some role in ruling over the faithful. Ruling, of course, means in this case speaking for the church as a whole. Again, a real problem today, since the voices of our teachers don't always come through clearly.
And when the church speaks and the sinner doesn’t change, we treat them like a gentile -- which means, excommunication. Of course if this process is to have any chance of success, it must be reserved as a last resort.
As we proceed onward in this gospel Jesus tells us two more things. We, the church, can bind and loose. In Jesus’ time and indeed among modern Orthodox Jews and conservative muslims, and among some Christian sects like Mennonites and Mormons and a few others, this power is exercised by those in authority. People violating the code of conduct are considered out of the group, and some penance is required to return. The early Christians did the same thing. We even know of situations in the Middle Ages where kings were excommunicated and did public penance in order to have the excommunication lifted.
Finally Jesus assures us that he will be with us in the matter of church discipline -- “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am”.
Now if we were to read on in Matthew, we would meet the unforgiving servant, who has been forgiven by his master of a huge sum of money, and turns around and refuses to forgive a fellow servant who owed him a small amount. Jesus reminds us in this discourse to never lose sight of the fact that we are the recipients of great mercy and must extend mercy to our fellow man, even those who offend us.
So in summary, there is a parable about how we are to regard someone who strays from the community -- like a lost sheep -- our responsibility is to try to rescue this one. How do we do it, according to a gradual increase in gentle pressure, and if nothing works, expel him -- because if we tolerate sin in our midst, we endanger the community. We are still suffering as a church from the tolerance of sin by our bishops among our clergy. If only someone had listened to Jesus. Finally, Jesus reminds us that in terms of internal discipline of church members, mercy must be foremost.
And this isn’t just a message for church leaders. It’s for each one of us. If our friends and neighbors knew that we had a sense of right and wrong and weren’t afraid to speak up when someone we cared about was sinning, maybe our church would be better off.
