Matthew 18:15-20 (Year A, Proper 18)
The one where Jesus requires the sinned against to rebuke and reconcile
The gospel reading for (my birthday!) Sunday, September 10th is Matthew 18:15-20, and it answers the question, What do you do when your brother sins against you?
It helps to know
The sixfold structure. Matthew gives six clauses, introduced by the word ean, translated "if." When Bible scholars find short lines with the same beginning, they often hypothesize that they have been composed for memorized repetition in the audience community. Perhaps that's what this is.
This develops Matt. 16:13-20. I say that because it repeats the phrase, "whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (16:19) in a new context, the way a piece of music develops a theme. A few things to keep in mind:
The verbs are in the future perfective. I explained that here, justifying the translation, "whatever you [end up] bind[ing] on earth will [already] have been bound in heaven, and whatever you [end up] loos[ing] on earth will [already] have been loosed in heaven."
Loosing doesn't only mean forgiveness, but forgiveness is the focus of 18:15-35. The point of vv. 15-20 is how to forgive offenders within the Christian community in a way that symbolizes (realizes?) the verdicts of heaven. Picking up on this, Peter the Keymaster asks, in v. 21, "How many times should I forgive?" which Jesus answers in vv. 22-35.
Let's call Matt. 18:15-20, "How to Use Your Keys: A Manual."
The "love thy neighbor" reference. Matthew's words are close to Luke's. One difference is his inclusion of the term, elegchō ("rebuke") at 18:15, translated "tell him his fault" in the ESV. The same term is used in Lev. 19:17 (LXX), right before the "love your neighbor" verse: "You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with (elegchō) your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him."
Most readers forget that Leviticus is, among other things, a public treatise on spiritual formation. My paraphrase of 19:17, "If you don't tell your neighbor their sin, you'll keep it inside, and hate him, and maybe gossip about him, and either way it will fill you with sin." Both because I love Leviticus, and because there is a similar "community rule" worth examining, here is the passage in full. Notice a few things: the establishment of neighborhood ethics, the characterization of the court, and the legal protection of "love" and the "heart":
“You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.
“You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning. You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.
“You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the Lord.
“You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord."
Just as Leviticus teaches the newly-liberated Israelites how to live a pure, holy life in the land that accommodates the holy presence of God, so Matthew shows Jesus teaching his disciples how to live a pure, holy life in a land that accommodates his own holy presence.
The work of his new covenant royal priesthood, installed as scribes, and entrusted with the keys of the kingdom is to gather as a discrete, procedural counsel for justice-mercy and prayer: "If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven" (v. 19). And if his priesthood fulfill their vocation, they will be rewarded as stewards of his presence: "where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them" (v. 20).
The three-step "rebuke" (elegchō) tradition. Here it is in the Qumran Community's "Rule" (ca. ~100 BC), at 1QS 5:25-6:1. Notice the positive sense of "rebuke" and the three steps of confrontation: privacy, witnesses, and congregation. The passage forms a neat bridge between Lev. 19:17-18 and Matt. 18:15-20:
"Let no man address his companion with anger, or ill-temper, or obduracy, or with envy prompted by the spirit of wickedness. Let him not hate him [because of his uncircumcised] heart, but let him rebuke him on the very same day lest he incur guilt because of him. And furthermore, let no man accuse his companion before the Congregation without having first admonished him in the presence of witnesses."
See also the Damascus Document at 9:2-8, which comments on Lev. 19:17-18 to the same effect. Neither Leviticus, nor Qumran, nor Matthew's Jesus express any confidence that a person who has been sinned against has the ability to stuff it down and make the offense go away. The command to "rebuke" is not an aggressive one, but a (juris-)prudent one:
And every man of them who has entered into the Covenant who shall bring a charge against his neighbour which is not proved before witnesses, and beats him in his fierce wrath or speaks against him to his elders so as to insult him, is taking vengeance and bearing grudge; but it is written, "He will take vengeance of his adversaries and He is bearing grudge against His enemies." If he held his peace from day to day but in his fierce wrath he spoke against him... his sin is upon him because he did not fulfil the commandment of God who said to him, "Thou shalt surely rebuke thy neighbour and not suffer sin upon him."
Councils > Popes. No, no, that's not the point. (I know my Roman Catholic friend, Lawrence, reads these, and this is solely for his benefit.) But notice that the six ean clauses which constitute Matt. 18:15-20 are not a rule addressed to Peter (as Matt. 16:19 had been), but a rule addressed to the community. Sure, priests are installed with the authority to declare absolutions, but the royal priesthood of all believers is installed with the authority to tell a brother their fault, and to reconcile him by means of truth-telling and the extension of restorative, reconciliatory forgiveness.
Matthew 18:15-20
If (ean) your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.
If (ean) he listens to you, you have gained your brother.
But if (ean) 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.
If (ean) he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.
And if (ean) he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 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.
Again I say to you, if (ean) two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.
Lectionary Resonances
Ezekiel 33:1-11. Yahweh makes Ezekiel a "watchman" positioned between the "sword coming upon the land" and the "people of the land," to warn them when the sword is coming. If the people hear his trumpet, they've been warned, and if they fall by the sword, "that person is taken away in his iniquity" (v. 6). If the watchman doesn't sound the warning, there are two consequences: "that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand" (v. 8). The two shining-est lines are Yahweh's: "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked," and "Why will you die, O Israel?", (v. 11) implying that they have been amply warned by their prophet(s?), Ezekiel. Ezekiel, like Matthew (and Leviticus and Qumran), is rebuke-positive and repentance-positive.
Psalm 119:33-48. Just Sections Five-Six of the great Twenty-Two section acrostic Ode to the Law.
Romans 12:9-21. Another great paragraph exhorting the Christian community. You could take all of its short lines in the key of Matthew 18, for example this one: "Let love be genuine" (v. 9a). Yeah, by telling your brother when he sins against you. Another one: "Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good" (v. 9). Yeah, by gently rebuking them and then restoring them. We needn't limit the meaning of Rom. 12:9-21 to the concerns of Matt. 18:15-20, but to do too much more with them might be too much for one sermon. There is also the extended final word, "Do not avenge yourselves" (vv. 19-21). It adds more instructions, which may be read Eucharistically: "your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink" (v. 20).
How I might preach this
Definitely by charging the congregation with a sense of their vocation, after Jesus (whom we worship) and after Peter (who leads us), to love each other by rebuking one another. The watchman passage in Ezekiel 33:1-11 is a metaphor chosen by Yahweh, so that's a rich option. Many Christians will already be familiar with the three-tier order, but fewer of them will be familiar with the implicit rationale: No one in the Bible or Second Temple Judaism imagines that internalizing others' sins against you leads to anything other than you sinning yourself: through heart-hatred, gossip, vengeance in general, or outright violence.
No, you have to buck up the courage and rebuke your neighbor in order to love them.
The good news is that what you loose on earth (through forgiveness) and what you bind on earth (by calling it sin) has already been loosed or bound in heaven. This is how the kingdom of heaven works on earth because it's already how the kingdom of heaven has been working in heaven. I can't pull my mind away from these big words about forgiveness that append the Lord's Prayer: "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses" (6:14-15).
Oh, and be a brother: learn to take a rebuke.