Matthew 18:15-20 Commentary

These are tricky times, full of cancel culture, rejection of woke culture, scandals and “rehabs” leading to readmittances—well at least for some. In times like these, how do we make sure we’re living the spirit of this passage rather than the literal letter of the procedure Jesus describes here?

Looking at the textual clues around this section, we see a clear emphasis on grace. Jesus speaks of conflict in the community right after the parable of the lost sheep: God leaves the 99 to restore to the safety of the community the one who lost its way. And right after hearing about the community’s calling to bind and loose things on earth and heaven through how they handle conflict among themselves, Peter asks how many times they should forgive. Basically, Jesus answers, “Always” and then tells a parable about the danger of being unforgiving when they have already received so much mercy themselves. In other words, all of the signs in the surrounding texts show Jesus’s desire for the community to be open to one another in love and fellowship because he is at work to bring people to restoration.

But that restoration is not a forgetting—for either party, wronged or the one being confronted. “Confront” is not the word used in the text, but most of us will recognize it as the feeling. Most of us do not enjoy the process of bringing the harm out into the open, not when we’ve been hurt and not when we’re told that we’re the one who has done the hurting.

But God our creator knows that this process of talking and bringing into the light the things that need to be addressed is for our good, a healthy and necessary process of healing. But it isn’t always healthy for us; sometimes the way we talk about it binds us to the harm rather than looses us from it.

When we don’t work tell the truth about the harms we’ve experienced, the harms being done in our communities, we become slaves to the secrets, stuck in the cycle of wrongdoing. When someone is guilty of what they are accused of doing can’t let go of their defensiveness—can’t tell the truth to themselves or others—they too are bound to the wrongdoing, trapped.

And this is not what our freedom-working God wants. He finds the lost, he forgives sins, he empowers a new way of life, and he knows that we are really bad at this so he tells us to do it together. Jesus lays this out through layers of accountability: one-on-one, a small group, the whole community. But he makes it even bolder in the final verses of the section saying that when two agree on earth, they can trust their prayers to be answered by the Father in heaven because Jesus is among them—if they are gathered in Jesus’s name.

I used to think of those words as a comfort, but now, in times like these, I think of them as a warning. Full disclosure, I’ve been working with Revelation 2-3 recently and its image of the Son of Man walking among the seven churches giving praises, warnings, and promises comes to mind with Jesus’s words here. Being together “in the name of Jesus” means having his character, from forgiveness to holiness. It means binding what Christ would bind and loosing what Christ would loose. This is the spirit of the message, which sometimes will follow the letter of the process Jesus outlines here. Sometimes it will be modified as we stand up for those who cannot stand up safely for themselves, as we challenge people who cling to power and a façade of self-deceit or who purposefully harm for personal gain. Sometimes it will look like being rejected and choosing to respond with boundaries rather than vengeance.

And perhaps most of all, Jesus’s words guide us with this one central action: what would we say if we remembered that Jesus was there, in the room, with us, as we tried to tell the truth? What would we do if we remembered that Jesus was there as we confronted hard things? What love, support, steady presence does he stand ready to provide if we remember that he is there with us?

Textual Points

Anna Case-Winters points to the Jewish roots for what Jesus commends to the community of faith, citing Leviticus 19.17 and Deuteronomy 19.15 for practices Jesus describes.

Depending on where the Spirit has drawn your attention this week, it may pique your wondering to notice that, according to some scholars, the most reliable manuscripts for this text don’t have the phrase “against you” in them, likely indicating its later addition to the text. That would make Peter’s question in verse 21 an escalation in personalization; he asks, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive?”

Illustration Idea

As we continue to recognize that we are body and soul, there has been a shift towards understanding that true spiritual maturity, or wisdom, includes emotional health. This includes being able to say what is so for ourselves, to not get defensive but curious, and to be able to have hard conversations where we are confronted with difficult things. This isn’t something that is just true in the church world, but has been the focus of leadership and business management (see for example, Crucial Conversations). Our ability to talk with and listen to one another really does matter.