Jesus said to his disciples: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refused to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, amen, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by the heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18.15-20)
At first glance, the passage from Matthew’s gospel that we have on this Twenty-Third Sunday seems to contradict a good part of Jesus’ own mission and ministry that sought to bring back the lost sheep and to sit at table with the sinner. Rather than having an attitude of “judge not lest you be judged” and “turn the other cheek,” it would have us confront those who have sinned against us.
So what are we to make of this strange passage that would have us treat sinners the same as we would tax collectors and Gentiles, people who are far outside the inner circle? On the surface, it seems to counsel distance from others, not closeness to them, urge removal of others from our midst, not welcoming others to our table. If we feel confused and dumbfounded, it is with good cause.
Although it is going to take some work to convince us that there actually is a positive message in this text, I promise you we’ll find it. The place to start in getting a fuller picture of what is going on here is to step back and to see what precedes these words of Jesus and and what follows them. As a general rule, it is the best guide to helping us find our way through the weeds. We need to see the entire context. Otherwise, we are going to get lost in the particulars.
So, it is important to see that the parable of the lost sheep immediately comes before this passage. It is a familiar story that Jesus tells and one that warms our heart, especially if we’ve ever found ourselves lost and on the wrong road. Jesus says, “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray?” He concludes with a message of mercy, stating, “it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.” Those are comforting words for sure.
And what follows the passage about a brother sinning against us, refusing to take responsibility, resulting in our removing them from our midst? It begins with Peter’s question to Jesus, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus’ response to Peter is an eye-opener, not only to poor Peter, but also to us. He says, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.” That high of a number means we quit counting.
Then Jesus tells the story of the unforgiving servant, the man who incurred a debt with the king and receives mercy from him, only to turn around and refuse to forgive a much smaller debt owed him by a fellow servant. Upon hearing of the bad behavior of the first servant, the king summoned the man and had him punished until he could pay back the whole debt. Jesus ends the parable with a warning, “So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.”
As we can see, both parables end in the same way. In both instances, we find forgiveness as the central characteristic of the heavenly Father, whether he is the Good Shepherd who searches out the lost sheep or the king who forgives the great debt owed to him. The lesson from each parable also is the same. We are to save what is lost and to forgive the wrongs done to us.
With these two bookends, one at the start and one at the end of our passage today, we can take a fresh look. The first thing we can be sure of is that Jesus is not going to say one thing, change his mind, and go back to his first thought. That’s not the way his mind works and it’s not the way the gospel is laid out. Instead, there is continuity in Jesus’ words and there is a common thread that runs consistently through the gospel.
To help us get to that consistency, we need to highlight three words in the text. They are the keys that unlock the message. The first word is brother. “If your brother sins against you.” The second is assembly. “If he refuses to listen to them, tell the assembly,” which is the literal translation of church. And the third word is together. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.”
If we put these three words in sequence–brother, assembly, together–we have the essence of the passage, much like squeezing the juice from an orange into the pitcher and leaving the pulp on the cabinet top. Even at a glance, we see that the words belong in the same family. Each one is relational, expressing closeness, communion, cohesion.
That is what Jesus is calling us to seek with others and that is what his heavenly Father wants from his children. He wants us to behave like brothers, to form a family or assembly, and to strive for togetherness. In other words, we have at the heart of this passage the same message that the parable of the lost sheep puts before us and the same message that the parable of the unforgiving servant teaches us.
As children of God, we are as close as brothers and sisters. As imitators of his love, we build bridges of love with one another. And with him as our head, we find ways to mend bridges and to stay together. The opposite, then, would be contrary to the will of the heavenly Father. And what is the polar opposite? Separation. Polarity. Alienation.
That is always the core truth in Jesus’ teaching and the guiding principle underlying his mission. To bring back the lost. To break down the walls that divide. To build community. Everything he said and everything he did had these goals as the foundational tenets. And their opposites were the things he urged his followers to avoid, including segregation, judgmentalism, and mercilessness.
So, the passage put before us today is a repetition in another way of these same building blocks. Jesus envisions a community where everyone is seen as a brother, where differences are resolved, and where people can gather together in harmony and in mutual respect. Such a community has no place for divisiveness, hostility, and unforgiveness.
The negative overtones that we find in the passage are directed at those who are intent on breaking the bonds, on promoting disunity instead of unity, and on viewing others as enemies, not as brothers. Their actions are destructive, not constructive to the fellowship or assembly. Their aim is splintering, not uniting. And their motive is self-interest, not the interest of others.
Always seeking out those who have wandered astray, Jesus offers a three-step way to bring back the one who is lost. So, even this has to be seen through a positive lens. The steps intend restoration, allowing the one who has caused dissention and division to be brought back into the fold. Again, Jesus’ mission is always towards doing the will of God, and the will of the heavenly Father is to bring all his children home at night.
So, why then the directive to treat the wayward soul as we would treat a Gentile or a tax collector? Again, the answer is in clear sight. We only need to look at the words that are used to describe this person. He is one who refuses to listen. Each of the reparative steps towards restoration ismet with a refusal to listen. It is that refusal that results in the banishment.
I like to think of it in similar terms to what we find in the parable of the Prodigal Son. When Jesus tells that parable in Luke’s gospel, we find someone who has stepped away from the family. Then steps further away through squandering his inheritance. He still doesn’t listen to the voice of reason. Instead, he takes steps deeper into the darkness, choosing to live a life of dissipation.
At that point, when he finally hits rock bottom, he–in the words of Jesus–comes to his senses. I like the phrase. It describes well the path to redemption. It means after refusing to listen on multiple occasions, one reaches the point that he or she at last comes to their senses. I think that is the same hope that this three-step process wants to achieve for the errant soul.
Finding himself far removed from the community, his self-will and refusal to listen causing his alienation from the assembly, the person hopefully comes to his senses and turns around, finding his way back in the same way as the Prodigal Son did. And, upon his return, the person who has walked away from the assembly will find himself welcomed back, embraced as a brother, and sat down at table with his family once more.
When that happens, when two or three are gathered together in his name, Jesus is in the midst of them because there is again harmony between brothers, bridges are rebuilt, and all is forgiven, allowing the assembly to shine with the light of Jesus’ love and mercy. It is when all the chairs at the table are filled that Jesus sits down with the community of believers.
Years ago, the writer Barbara Ascher wrote a book about the loss of her brother Bobby who had died of AIDS at the age of thirty-one. She called the book, “Landscape Without Gravity: A Memoir of Grief.” The book tells of her grief–described as a landscape without gravity–and the peculiar pain that only arises when one sibling loses another.
Well into the book, she writes these poignant words: “Experiments indicate that the cues of kinship among tadpoles are more complex and numerous than had been previously believed. Experiments indicate that even as far down the chain of life as the lowly tadpole there is bonding between siblings. Bonding against all odds. Tadpoles raised in isolation after hatching, when released into a pool of other tadpoles, swim to their siblings. Even weeks later, according to an article in the Science section of the Times, even if raised with unrelated tadpoles from the beginning.”
She continues, “So, I have no answer when strangers learning of my brother’s death ask, ‘Were you close?’ I am tempted, having recently learned about tadpoles, to answer, ‘Not in later years, but I’d swim to him in an instant.’ I think of those tadpoles and wonder if rather than having been released to their siblings they had been kept apart, would they swim aimlessly, energized by yearning?”
She writes, “Were you close? Not in later years, but he’s gone and so is a part of myself. Lately I’ve seen him in me, especially after long days of frustration. If I catch a glimpse of my face in a mirror I see his sad, blue eyes in my own. Throughout his life no matter how raucous he became, how loud his laughter, how merry his tale, his eyes remained mournful, as though part of a different face, a different person. The act went on without them.” She concludes, “I’d know him in a crowded pool even if we’d been separated since birth. By our eyes we would know each other.”
We would have to say that few could have written so beautifully of a brother who drifted away. And I would also say that if we want to understand what Jesus is saying to us today in Matthew’s gospel, then all we have to do is read Ascher’s words slowly, allowing them to seep deep into our soul. Her words echo the same words that Jesus used–a brother, a fractured family, a yearning for togetherness.
–Jeremy Myers
