Preface
In the Gospel of St. Matthew, chapter eighteen has a single message. It is about the way we should live in community as disciples of Jesus.
It would be easy for the average reader to miss this point about the church. Our experience of church today is dominated by organization, hierarchy and institutional presence with clear and dominant patterns of distinction and rank. Too often, we fail to see the gospel roots of the church as the loving community.
With a little guidance, the material in Matthew 18 explodes into an enticing and revealing challenge for all of us. The first part of the chapter deals with the “little ones” (Mt 18:1-14) and the second part concerns itself with reconciliation with the one who sins. Altogether, it is a profound description of a loving community. The focus is on the demands of membership in this new community. It highlights humble service to one another. It calls into question our ideas of social status and personal importance.
The deeper we enter into its message, like all of the gospel, the practical and challenging insights blossom as a guide to our journey in the footsteps of Jesus. Jesus’ teaching of living in community addresses the perennial issues of power, conflict, scandal and pastoral concern. Sinful patterns, especially clericalism and sexism, have persisted throughout the history of the church.
I will offer three short and separate reflections on the significance for us of this teaching about the community of love that is our calling as followers of Christ.
The first of the reflections treats the necessity of a humble attitude as the basis of harmony and service in the community. This demands a special concern for the “little ones” and the marginalized.
The second addresses how to respond to sinful and divisive behavior that threatens the community. This leads into the final reflection on the absolute necessity of mutual forgiveness and reconciliation.
I
The disciples ask who will be greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus cuts to the core by saying that one man needs to be like a child to enter the kingdom. This addresses the disciples’ concern for rank, prestige, privilege and power. Jesus’ identification of the child as the measure of the kingdom is a call to humility. It is an appeal to acceptance of one’s total dependence on God. It is a frontal attack on the constant tendency of human nature to create positions of power and prestige that separate and divide. To be child-like in the kingdom is to rid oneself of the expectation of privilege and priority.
In Jesus’ teachings, the church is called to be a witness by being a loving community. In this chapter, there are practically no signs and expressions we have come to identify with the church. In our experience we see groups with power and prestige. We see popes and pastors. There are institutions galore such as parishes, schools, hospitals, religious orders. There are organizations like the Knights of Columbus, countless different charities and social media and so on. Jesus’ message drills down to the basics: a call to humility and service as the life-force of the loving community.
Whether it is in the church or the family or a school faculty or a street gang, there is always a pathological pull to power, dominance and division in any group. There is a constant thrust to the development of groups of the “ins” and groups of the “outs’’. Jesus attacks this expression of sin by the call to the compelling dynamism of humility as the basis of the true community of love.
It would be easy for the average reader to miss this point about the church. Our experience of church today is dominated by organization, hierarchy and institutional presence with clear and dominant patterns of distinction and rank. Too often, we fail to see the gospel roots of the church as the loving community.
With a little guidance, the material in Matthew 18 explodes into an enticing and revealing challenge for all of us. The first part of the chapter deals with the “little ones” (Mt 18:1-14) and the second part concerns itself with reconciliation with the one who sins. Altogether, it is a profound description of a loving community. The focus is on the demands of membership in this new community. It highlights humble service to one another. It calls into question our ideas of social status and personal importance.
The deeper we enter into its message, like all of the gospel, the practical and challenging insights blossom as a guide to our journey in the footsteps of Jesus. Jesus’ teaching of living in community addresses the perennial issues of power, conflict, scandal and pastoral concern. Sinful patterns, especially clericalism and sexism, have persisted throughout the history of the church.
I will offer three short and separate reflections on the significance for us of this teaching about the community of love that is our calling as followers of Christ.
The first of the reflections treats the necessity of a humble attitude as the basis of harmony and service in the community. This demands a special concern for the “little ones” and the marginalized.
The second addresses how to respond to sinful and divisive behavior that threatens the community. This leads into the final reflection on the absolute necessity of mutual forgiveness and reconciliation.
I
The Little Ones: Mt 18: 1-4
The disciples ask who will be greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus cuts to the core by saying that one man needs to be like a child to enter the kingdom. This addresses the disciples’ concern for rank, prestige, privilege and power. Jesus’ identification of the child as the measure of the kingdom is a call to humility. It is an appeal to acceptance of one’s total dependence on God. It is a frontal attack on the constant tendency of human nature to create positions of power and prestige that separate and divide. To be child-like in the kingdom is to rid oneself of the expectation of privilege and priority.
In Jesus’ teachings, the church is called to be a witness by being a loving community. In this chapter, there are practically no signs and expressions we have come to identify with the church. In our experience we see groups with power and prestige. We see popes and pastors. There are institutions galore such as parishes, schools, hospitals, religious orders. There are organizations like the Knights of Columbus, countless different charities and social media and so on. Jesus’ message drills down to the basics: a call to humility and service as the life-force of the loving community.
Whether it is in the church or the family or a school faculty or a street gang, there is always a pathological pull to power, dominance and division in any group. There is a constant thrust to the development of groups of the “ins” and groups of the “outs’’. Jesus attacks this expression of sin by the call to the compelling dynamism of humility as the basis of the true community of love.
