September 6, 2026, at Saint William and Saint Peter Churches in Naples, FL
Ezekiel 33: 7-9 + Psalm 95 + Romans 13: 8-10 + Matthew 18: 15-20
We are living through an age historians may call the age of blame or maybe the age of the victim. If anything happens that we don’t like, it is someone else’s fault, and we become the victim. The instruction given by Matthew today is to victims. His instruction is for the victim to take the initiative. Remember how it started: “If your brother sins against you.” There is no room in the teaching of Jesus or in the conduct of Christian life for sitting around, licking wounds, and crying: “Poor me.”
None of us can avoid being victims, but we can avoid the victim mentality and all the whining and complaining that goes with it. What is necessary is respect for the offender which is why the matter is first handled privately. There is no need to tell everyone how terrible that offender is, to shame them before everyone else. What Matthew goes on to suggest is that if the matter is not resolved privately, perhaps one or two others might help. At this point, it very possible that those others may see things a little differently than the victim. Sometimes it does take two to quarrel or to fight. There is always the possibility that the victim did or said something causing the offender to react. Notice that what seems to be required of everyone is the willingness and ability to listen.
When everything fails, there comes that suggestion from Matthew that those who refuse to listen should be treated as a Gentile or a tax collector which sounds at first like a suggestion to avoid or to shut out the other. However, we might want to remember that Jesus spent most of his time among the Gentiles. He visited them often, cared for them, and cured them. He ate in their homes and called one tax collector to be his disciple. So that suggestion does not propose a complete break or the final end of a relationship. Those words about binding or loosening are serious, and they should be heard as a warning not as a power to be used. This passage closes with the best suggestion of all, that we pray together. It raises the hope that old wounds can be healed, that offenses can be forgiven, and that victims and offenders may find themselves together with Jesus in the midst of them.