Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
6^th of September 2026

Matthew 18:15-20

‘If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.’

I wonder if you find the instructions in today’s gospel reading as terrifying as I do. In today’s reading, Jesus demands that we treat all the other members of the church with the same honesty, commitment, and love we give our closest family and friends.

The whole of this chapter, Jesus’ entire fourth discourse in Matthew’s telling of the gospel, is about life in the church and the difficulties of church life. Understandably. The church is not a family held together by ties of blood or marriage. The church is not a friendship group held together by mutual affection and shared history. The church is not a social club held together by common interests or similar life situations. The church is the Body of Christ, and the only thing that holds us together is our relationship with Christ. As we know from the Scriptures, history, and our own experience, Christ calls weird and strange people, full of faults and failings, and sins that need to be forgiven. No wonder conflict occurs.

Today’s reading gives us a series of steps to take in the case of conflict. First, if another member of the church sins against us, we are told to go and talk it through with that person. We are to approach them directly and privately. This scares me. If I think someone has sinned against me, my first impulse is to avoid them. Going directly to that person and talking to them about it is much, much too confrontational. And I am sure I am not the only church member who tries to ignore conflict; Bill Loader suggests that Christians are particularly good at replacing honest open love with ‘being nice.’ But ‘being nice’ is not what life in the church is about.

We are not to be nice; nor are we to be nasty. The reading says that the fault is to be pointed out when the two people involved are alone. We are not to gossip about it. This is because the aim of this process is not to make the person sinned against feel good about themselves or to get it all out of their system. The aim of this process is reconciliation. Matthew writes: ‘If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.’ No one else ever needs to know what has happened. The person who sinned can reconsider their words or actions without losing face. Community is restored. This process is challenging and confronting, but potentially a way in which everyone involved can be part of Christ’s ministry of reconciliation.

If that first, private, conversation does not lead to reconciliation, Matthew tells us to then take one or two others along with us and talk again in their presence. The other people are there to keep an eye on the conversation; to report it accurately. Otherwise, the attempt at reconciliation might lead to a blow-up in which the people involved end up blaming each other for things never actually said. The other people might also bring some objectivity to the dispute. Maybe the first, private approach did not work because the two people involved were too emotional. Maybe other people need to become involved because the first person lacked some necessary expertise or did not listen enough. Whatever the reason, failing to be reconciled at the first attempt is no reason to stop trying.

Then, if even this does not work, the final stage is ‘to tell it all to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector.’ Ultimately, in the case of serious sin, when the person refuses to repent and be reconciled, the whole community can decide to exclude them. (This process is described in Uniting Church Regulations 5.2.1, which explains how a Church Council can ‘suspend the rights and privileges of the [badly behaving] member or adherent’ or ‘remove the name of the [badly behaving] member or adherent from the relevant roll.’)

The passage then moves on to some sayings of Jesus that are often removed from this context. ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.’ These sayings provide the theological rationale for the community’s decisions. When the church acts together, after thought and prayer and in love, God is behind their actions. The final verse of today’s reading, ‘where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them,’ needs to be read back into every step of the process. When one member goes to speak to another privately, Christ is there among them. When two or three members go together so that concerns can be stated clearly before witnesses, Christ is there among them. When the church makes the final decision to exclude a recalcitrant member, Christ is there among them. For that to be the case, at every stage of the process the decision to act must have been made based on prayer, and in the final stage, based on agreement. This passage does not give an excuse for members of the church to confront each other in anger or to cause hurt.

What does the statement that anyone who does not listen to the decision of the whole church is to be ‘as a Gentile and a tax-collector’ mean? Two things. It is a sentence of exclusion. Matthew’s community was made up of Jewish Christians, who would previously have lived lives separately from non-Jews and collaborators. But this gospel is named after the man whom Jesus called to follow him while Matthew sat at a tax booth. (Matthew 9:9) It ends with the great commandment to go and make disciples of all nations – to go, that is, to the Gentiles. Jesus was not prepared to abandon Gentiles and tax-collectors. So, if the church is to treat the people it excludes like Gentiles and tax collectors, it is to relate to them the way Jesus did: offer them acceptance and forgiveness; seek to win them again; draw them back into the community.

That is why today’s passage is bracketed by two stories of forgiveness. Just before today’s reading is the parable of the lost sheep, in which the shepherd leaves ninety-nine and goes in search of the one gone astray. (Matthew 18:10-14) Immediately after today’s reading is Peter’s question: ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’  and Jesus’ answer, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.’ (Matthew 18:21-22) The context of today’s passage about resolving disputes is forgiveness.

Because the question of forgiveness has been raised, it is important to make some caveats. This process of individually confronting someone who has sinned against us is not to be done if it is dangerous. It would have been profoundly wrong, for instance, to have expected the children abused by priests and their families to have individually and privately confronted the priests who abused them. The process this gospel passage describes relies on those sinned against and sinning being equals as members of the church community. It also assumes that the sin is not a crime.

In the same way, there are times when demanding immediate ‘seventy-seven^* times’ forgiveness is wrong. Psychologists who have worked with the survivors of child sexual abuse have found that ‘premature pressure to forgive sexual abusers not only hinders recovery and facilitates the repression of pain and anger, [it] also contributes to abuse in the community, as it promotes the minimisation or denial of the full extent of the harm and frees the abuser from true responsibility.’ On the other hand, the same psychologists have found that eventually being able to forgive an abuser might be protective. Forgiveness can ‘be proposed as a tool to help and heal the pain and suffering of victims of child sexual abuse, but great care must always be taken when offering it, avoiding transmitting to the victims any kind of moral obligation and maintaining a concept of forgiveness that respects justice and protects the victim.’

The process described in today’s reading is not meant for crimes like child sexual abuse. In one of his letters to the church in Corinth, Paul wrote that he hoped when he again visited them that he would not find ‘quarrelling, jealousy, anger, selfishness, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder’ in the community. (2 Corinthians 12:20) These are the sorts of sins that this process is addressing, and they are as common in the church as in any other community.

But the church is not exactly like any other community. The church is the Body of Christ. How we treat each other within the church is as important to God as how we as Christians love the world. In fact, how we behave as a community determines how we love the world. Saint Benedict described the church as a ‘school for souls.’ The church is where we learn how to live as God’s people. This means being willing to be honest and open with each other, rather than merely nice. It means, when another member of the church has related to us with quarrelling, jealousy, anger, selfishness, slander, gossip, conceit, or disorder, speaking directly to that person rather than complaining about it to others. This is terrifying, especially for people like me who hate and avoid conflict. This is why we need Christ’s presence to give us the courage to love each other. And, luckily for us, Christ has promised that ‘where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.’ Thanks be to God. Amen.