Matthew 18:15–20

¹⁵ “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. ¹⁶ But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. ¹⁷ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. ¹⁸ Truly, 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. ¹⁹ Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. ²⁰ For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”[1]

It is simple to pull some general rules regarding those cases where we might need to rebuke our brother. It is important to understand the context of what is being said here, as Brant Pitre reminds us:

… it’s important to read this passage in light of the whole chapter. The whole chapter is a discourse of Jesus to his disciples. So he is speaking in particular to his students, to his disciples, to the men who have left their former lives behind and have become his followers, his students who travel with him every day to learn from him. He is speaking to the apostles in other words, and that’s clear if you look at the earlier verses in the Gospel of Matthew 18. So in Matthew 18:15, when Jesus says “if your brother sins against you,” he’s not talking about two siblings in a family. He’s talking about a brother within the community of his disciples. He is talking about conflicts between his followers, and in particular between the disciples themselves within the circle of the apostles. So whenever we read those words of his, what he’s describing then is a process of fraternal correction within the Church.[2]

You can see the ecclesial context here when you consider the wording “brother sins against you.” It is very specific about “against you” and not the broader of a brother sinning, but not against you personally. There is a sense where every sin is a sin against God and also a sin against the community. No sin is just in isolation, affecting only the person who missed the mark.

King David illustrates this here:

Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment. (Psalm 51:4)[3]

The Catechism broadens the point:

CCC §1868 Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them:
— by participating directly and voluntarily in them;
— by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them;
— by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so;
— by protecting evil-doers.[4]

In these three steps there is a lot that is unsaid regarding how you decide to rebuke your brother in the first place. Prayer must be involved first and the questions to consider. Are you in the right, considering the sin you are condemning? When you rebuke someone, it’s important to consider your relationship with them and how likely they are to accept your criticism. But, prudence does not mean saying nothing because it will be uncomfortable to you.

St. Thomas Aquinas, in his commentary on this passage, writes:

If thy brother shall offend against thee, go, etc.; “With them that hated peace I was peaceable” (Ps. 119, 7). Should you forgive first? No; but first you ought to go and rebuke him: hence, He does not command us to forgive just anyone, but the repentant. Likewise, He says, Rebuke, not ‘scold’ or ‘exasperate’: and show the offense briefly. If he acknowledges his offense, you ought to forgive him; hence, it is said, “Instruct such a one in the spirit of meekness” (Gal. 6, 1).
…
But does a man sin who omits to make this correction? Augustine says: “If you do not correct, you become worse by keeping silence, than he became by sinning.”
But although this is true, because all are bound to correct, someone might say that it is only fitting for prelates who are bound by their office, but it is fitting for others out of charity. Sometimes, the Lord permits the good to be punished with the wicked. Why? It is because they did not correct the wicked. Nevertheless, Augustine says that sometimes we ought to refrain from correcting, “if you fear that they will not be emended by this correction, but will be made worse.” Likewise, if you fear to correct lest it lead to a persecution of the Church, you do not sin if you do not correct. If, however, you abstain from correcting lest you be harmed in temporal goods, lest trouble come upon you, or some such thing, you sin; “Rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee” (Prov. 9, 8).[5]

The order these principles are laid out in, have much wisdom. John Bergsma writes how often we get this order wrong:

This principle applies to all life within the Church. When offended, however, our tendency is first to go and tell all our friends and anyone else who will listen about how so-and-so did something outrageous to us. This spreads the circle of the offense while making no progress toward reconciliation. It also starts a cycle of gossip and escalating exaggeration.[6]

Some might read the consequence when they will not listen “even to the Church” as rather harsh. One thing to remember is that in Matthew, this paragraph is placed right after the parable of the lost sheep. The context is always to bring somebody who has strayed home. A medicinal recipe to use when all other efforts have failed and to ultimately bring healing.

I like what Dr. Brant Pitre says here in his commentary as he expands on this idea:

So when Jesus says “tell it to the church” here, he is referring to the assembly of believers, and not just to the assembly of believers, but in particular to the assembly of authoritative leaders of those believers, because you can see here what he says is “if he refuses to listen even to the church,” then what’s the penalty? “Let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” What does that mean? Well effectively what it means is you treat him as cut off from the community of disciples.
In fact, as some scholars have pointed out, if you say treat the person like a Gentile or a tax collector, there is both a negative and a positive dimension. The negative dimension is that that person is excommunicated, they are cut off from the Church, they are cut off from the body of believers. The positive dimension though is how do you treat gentiles and tax collectors? How did Jesus and the apostles treat them? Well they evangelized them, they shared the good news with them. So it doesn’t mean that person necessarily is permanently cut off, what it means is that they need to be evangelized again. They need the gospel to be re-presented to them so that they can be called to repentance and then re-integrated into the community. That would be a second implication of his use of the language of gentile and tax collector in this particular context. So there is both excommunication but also evangelization implied by these two expressions that Jesus uses for an impenitent or unrepentant sinner within the Church.[7]

The Gospel passage talks about the future role of the disciples in the Church. The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible summarises this:

18:18 whatever you bind … loose: In 16:19, Peter was invested with Christ’s authority as the visible head of the Church. A derivative—but subordinate—authority is given also to the apostles as royal ministers in the kingdom. Jesus’ authority in this context is related to Church discipline; by extension, it is also a sacramental authority to forgive sins (cf. Jn 20:23; CCC 553 ,CCC 1444).[8]

From there, Jesus teaches them more regarding the communal nature of the Church and again how Jesus is there with us always in the Body of Christ.

Peter Kreeft writes about the efficacy of prayer:

There’s no catch to it. Jesus means exactly what he says. Take him at his word. He says: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matt. 7:7–8). He promises to answer all our prayers, to satisfy all the desires of our hearts. He doesn’t promise how or when he will answer, because his way and his timing are much better and wiser than ours. He sometimes has to answer our shallow desires with a no to answer our deeper desires with a yes. And he sometimes has to take time to give us good things, because life is more like a farm, which takes time to grow crops, than like a machine, which gives you instant results from pushing a button. But he promises to answer every prayer of every faithful heart. And he infallibly keeps his promises. Our part is to believe and to wait in faith. We say, “Seeing is believing,” but Jesus says, “Believing is seeing.” We say we won’t believe it in our souls until we see it with our eyes, but Jesus says that if we believe it in our souls we will eventually see it with our eyes, because every good desire will be fulfilled eventually, if not in this world then in the next. That’s what he promises: “Everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”[9]

We magnify prayer when we come to pray together in community, from a small to a larger group.

Sources

English Standard Version Catholic Edition (2019). Augustine Institute. ↩
Catholic Productions, Brant Pitre, 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time ↩
English Standard Version Catholic Edition (2019). Augustine Institute. ↩
Catholic Church. (2000). Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd Ed). United States Catholic Conference. ↩
Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew, Dolorosa Press ↩
The Word of the Lord: Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings for Year A, John Bergsma, 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time ↩
Catholic Productions, Brant Pitre, 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time ↩
Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament ↩
Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Cycle A,, 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time ↩

My Reflection on Sunday’s Gospel Matthew 18:15–20

Matthew 18:15–20

Sources

The Weekly Francis – Volume 476

The Weekly Francis – Volume 477

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