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 refuses 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 my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
Gospel Trivia:
At first glance, this seems to run counter to Jesus admonition not to judge another. In Matthew 7:3, Jesus admonishes to not notice the splinter in a brother's eye while not seeing the log in one's eye.
Thus, the key message of the passage is NOT the methodology of correcting a member of the community, but the charity and patience that should accompany the attempt to correct. It does not preach a method of increasing severity, but of stretching one's patience to make sure that a member of the community continues to be a "brother" and is not excluded.
There is no such thing as a private sin. Every sin is a sin because it hurts the community. (Adultery is not a sexual sin, but a sin against the community because it breaks the family which is the basic unit of the community).
Jesus of course recognized that no one is perfect and all will sin. In those occasions, the action of the other members of the community should be like the shepherd who searched patiently for the lost sheep.
Reference:
- Nil Guillemette, SJ, A Kingdom for All (Makati: St. Paul's Publications), pp. 229-231.
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