Wednesday of Week 19 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 18:15-20
Today’s part of the ‘Discourse on the Church’ shifts from the harm that we can do to others, to the harm that others can do to the community, and how the community and its members should respond. Clearly we are speaking here of some serious wrong which hurts the mission of the Church community.
The wrongdoer is to be tackled on three levels, and this reflects what has just gone before about bringing back the sheep which is lost. Reconciliation, not punishment, is the objective.
If the wrong directly affects one person, then that person or another should go along to the wrongdoer privately and try to help the individual change their ways. If this works, then that is the end of the matter. However, if the wrongdoer will not listen, then one or two others who are also aware of the wrongdoing should be brought along as corroboration. This is based on a passage from Deuteronomy:
A single witness shall not suffice to convict a person of any crime or wrongdoing in connection with any offense that may be committed. Only on the evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be sustained. (Deut 19:15)
If the wrongdoer remains obstinate in the face of this evidence, then the whole community is to be brought in. And if in the face of the whole community, there is still no sign of repentance, then the person is to be expelled and treated like a “gentile and a tax collector”, in other words, as a total outsider. The tax collectors were among the most despised people in the community. They were local people employed by Roman tax contractors to collect taxes for them. Because they worked for Rome and often demanded unreasonable payments (they had to make a profit!), they gained a bad reputation and were generally hated and considered traitors to their own people and their religion.
The word Matthew uses for ‘community’ here is ‘church’, ekklesia or, in Hebrew, qahal, which refers to the gathering of a Christian community. As mentioned earlier, this is only one of two places where this term is used in the Gospels (the other is Matt 16:18).
Jesus now goes further in saying that all such decisions by the community have God’s full endorsement:
…whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. [i.e. by God]
Jesus also tells them:
…if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.
This mandate seems to be given to the community as a whole and not just to specific individuals.
It would be worth our while going carefully through this text and seeing how it applies to our church situation today. To what extent do we feel responsible for the wrongdoings of our fellow-Christians? To what extent do we realise that our behaviour, both as individuals and groups, reflects on the overall witness that the Church is called to give as the Body of Christ? Do people clearly see the message of the Gospel from the way we live both individually and corporately?
While, on the one hand, we are told to be compassionate and non-judgmental, are we over-tolerant of people in the community who believe that anything they do is just their own business? Every Christian community has a solemn responsibility to give witness to the vision of life that Jesus gave to us. There have then to be standards of behaviour which bind all. Moments of weakness can be and should be treated with compassion, but deliberate and continued flouting of our central commitment to truth, love, justice and other foundational principles cannot be overlooked or allowed to undermine the central mission of the Christian community to be a sacrament of the Kingdom. It is not a question of image, but of our integrity.
What has all this to do with the way we use the sacrament of reconciliation, and what is the relationship of the sacrament to this passage? The passage is closely linked with what Jesus says about the problem of giving scandal, of being a stumbling block in people’s coming to Christ. At the same time, as tomorrow’s passage will indicate, the long-term aim—above all—is not punishment, but reconciliation and healing of divisions.
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Wednesday of Week 19 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Ezekiel 9:1-7; 10:18-22
Today’s reading is in two parts:
- Slaughter of idolaters (chap 9);
- God’s glory leaves the Temple (chap 10).
It is another apocalyptic-style account using very symbolic language in which God’s punishment comes on all those who have sinned.
As Ezekiel listens, there comes the thundering voice of God. He is calling on the “executioners of the city”, that is, those who are to inflict punishment on wrongdoers.
Immediately six men are seen coming from the gate on the north side of Jerusalem, each one armed with a deadly weapon, a war-club or a battle-axe. In their midst is another man, dressed in white and with a scribe’s ink horn in his belt. Clearly the latter is the one who keeps a record of people’s doings. These are the six guardian angels of the city, with the seventh dressed in linen. They correspond to the seven angels of the judgement in the Book of Revelation (8:2,6).
They stop in front of the bronze altar in the Temple. Now the glory of the Lord, traditionally understood as seated on the cherubim (in the Holy of Holies), moves towards the Temple threshold. God is leaving the Temple.
He gives instructions to the man in white. He is to put a mark on the foreheads of all those who deplore the idolatrous practices that are going on. These are the faithful remnant of God’s people. The mark was a taw, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which looks like an “x” (and so translated as “cross”). The rest were to be mercilessly struck down. (The text does not indicate that anyone was, in fact, found worthy to be marked with a taw, but it would indicate the remnant that was spared to return from exile.)
Ezekiel is the preeminent prophet of personal and individual retribution. The innocent inhabitants of Jerusalem are to be spared, while those guilty of idolatry are punished. With other prophets, the whole community, the innocent along with the guilty, may be punished.
The punishment begins right at the entrance to the Temple where God’s people are, and begins with the eldest and excludes none—old men, youths and maidens, women and children. The Temple is to become defiled with the corpses of people who are unclean. It does not matter because Yahweh is no longer there.
In the second part of the reading, Yahweh leaves his sanctuary. Riding as usual on the cherubim, he leaves the Temple by the east gate. The east gate was the main ceremonial entrance into the Temple and was also known as “gate of the house of the Lord”. It overlooked the Kidron Valley towards the Mount of Olives.
Now Yahweh has left Jerusalem and the Temple. The prophet says that:
The cherubim lifted up their wings and rose up from the earth in my sight as they went out with the wheels beside them. They stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the Lord, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.
For us Christians, God is never confined to one place. He is everywhere and we are urged to seek and find him in all things. We do not seek him in a temple. On the contrary, we are called to be his temple, the place where he is present. We can, however, expel him from our hearts and bring ruin on ourselves just as the people of Jerusalem did. The choice is ours.
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