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.

This is a complicated passage, and like most things Jesus says, there are multiple meanings to the reading, that are applicable to multiple audiences. And they apply temporaly to both the people present in the immediate moment, and for everyone else, at all times in the future.

First I want to speak to His immediate audience. The passage starts with “Jesus said to his disciples.” This was the 12 apostles. These men are the ones that are to become the bishops and popes of our church, in the previous chapter we hear of Jesus naming Peter as His Pope, in this passage He is naming the 12 as His bishops. The leaders of His new church. He gives them the same authority to bind and loose that He gave Peter, and He tells them that when they join together (as a group), and make decisions regarding the church (aka faith and morals), then those decisions will not only be backed up by the authority of heaven, but that they will also be made real in this world.

This is an incredible promise, and if I was a bishop I would consider this gift to be the most consequential thing that I would have to do in my life. Alas, sadly, many bishops are completely unaware of this responsibility and often propose things that are completely antithetical to the faith. But they have to stand before jesus and account for their actions just like any of us, so they need our prayers as much as any of us do.

But getting back to the first part of this passage, the steps for dealing with a grievance. The steps are listed in this way to show us the process for handling these moments. Jesus has established His authority structure with the pope and bishops, now He is establishing the principle of subsidiarity. This is one of the most important teachings of Jesus and His church. It goes like this. The lowest level of authority has primary jurisdiction. For example the parents of a child have the right and authority to raise their children as they see fit, it is not the right of the Pope to tell a young family how to raise their children. The Pope’s responsibility is to decide grievances that fail to be resolved at every lower level of subsidiarity.

This is believed and held by most people to be true, among all levels of society and government. The freedom and happiness of a community, can often be measured by how much it respects this principle. But obviously there will be times when conflict arrises, and we need a system for handling those conflicts and where to go for reconciliation. All of the steps laid out here, come from old testament scripture. The 1st step starts with re-connection between the aggrieved parties, with the primary intent of reconciliation, not condemnation. The 2nd step requires two others to hear and assess the problem, hopefully these people would be friends of both parties and knowledgable of the grievance. The 3rd step is a rebuke from the church, a public assessment of the grievance by the church authorities, and a public condemnation of the sin. And finally, the 4th step is a withdrawal of recognition of membership in the church, this is also known as excommunication.

These steps are delineated not only for the parties in grievance, but also for the authorities in the church to know what they are to do and also to know what their responsibilities are when the grievances come up. We are not to go outside of the proper line of authority, and expect to be justified or reconciled if we take our grievance directly to the Pope. That is not how reconciliation works. When there is a grievance between two people, most of the time the person you are angry with either does not know, or does not care. In either case the best advice is to address the grievance, directly. If they dont care then you know that you have done your all you can, and you can then move on knowing that the issue is with that person and not your responsibility to fix anymore. If they dont know, they might be embarassed that this grievance was ever between you. Reconcilliation might happen right away and you have then regained your friend. But the process of reconciliation requires saying something.

Finally and I think most importantly, there is one last part of this reading that I think we all must understand. When Jesus says that if your brother refuses to listen then treat him like a gentile or a tax collector. This does not mean you expel them from your life. The gentiles and tax collectors were indeed, considered the lowest of kind of person among the jews. Reviled by all members of the jewish community. But Jesus was not saying that we should treat these people like trash. No, I believe that Jesus wants us to treat them like He treated them. He walked with them, talked with them, ate with them, and He helped them to see the error of their ways.

Jesus never gives up on anyone. He is the good sheppard and He is always calling His sheep back into His flock. And as we see in this passage, we must do the same, we are called to that same high standard. So if you have a grievance, start the process of healing right now. Don’t wait another day.

Oh lord, help me to reconcile with you, and any other people in this world with whom I have a grievance.