Gospel of this Mass: Matthew 18 “Jesus said to his disciples: 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.”
While this Matthew 18:20 verse is often used today as a comforting thought for small prayer groups or church attendance, as like to gather in a holy duo or trio for prayer, bible study, or adoration—the chapter of this gospel is rather addressing a much broader goal of all the church members to be agreed in faith, praying, living for the Father’s will, and assembling together under Christ Jesus. Matthew has a big picture in mind, even as he starts small with seeing two or three in agreement in the Church.
That two or three can be a couple in holy unity, or a couple with a child–that’s a good beginning. So before we talk of the big picture, let’s celebrate the holy unions of two or three. Last Friday I went to a Catholic high school football game, and there I was pleased to meet a couple of whom I married thirty years ago. They were excited to meet me, and report to me how they were still married, with loving and supporting one another in Christ, and now raising a teenager in the Church, who goes to that Catholic high school. I had counseled them in a pretty serious marriage prep program for them in the 1990’s, and they said they are living as a nice Catholic family right now—and while I hadn’t seen them since 2002—it was nice for us to run into one another.
Yet in returning to Matthew 18’s text, this scriptural story is more about the greater Church, and us sticking together through trials and temptations and falls, as to keep living as brothers and sisters in Christ.
The text we read today was about church discipline, conflict resolution, and seeking reconciliation within a community. Why? Because it takes such things as “Church” to keep us together. We need definitions and disciplines of the faith—to stay true to Jesus’ teachings and all that He founded for us as His Church. We need an appointed authority by Jesus to help us abide in the One Faith. We need to always be in conflict resolution, too, via honest, good communication. We also need mercy and reconciliation going on in the Body of Christ, to help us not to divide in our selfishness. Today’s Scripture lesson talks of three stages of helping a person to be reconciled to the truth and to be a true member of Christ’ Body. We are Christ’ body, the Church. These three– church discipline, our conflict resolution, and our being a reconciled community—are the foundation place for the body of believers to belong under Christ the Head.
Matthew 18’s message, just like that of John 17’s gospel, or of St. Paul’s 1st Corinthians 12 epistle, has an apostle stressing that unity is real important, even starting with two or three in the Church. But from all the smaller circles of conciliation and unity, we are then to build to one greater unity: the Catholic Church. It takes church discipline, conflict resolution, and seeking reconciliation within a community for us to be a truest Church.
When you and I gather into this church, and look at one another, we hope we are seeing people striving to live the full gospel of Jesus Christ and in an honest practice of The Faith. We hope that acts of repentance and mercy and support is helping you much.
Here’s the message: the Catholic Church starts with Jesus’ authority and then of His passing it to His apostles for baptizing, teaching and gathering the people as one. That’s a gospel of Matthew theme. For the Catholic believer, then, the Lordship of Jesus Christ is to be lived in each believer, which can then give each person a co-responsibility for others in the body of believers. That is the “love your neighbor as your-self” teaching of Christ Jesus, that’s you heard in our epistle today.
What might that co-responsibility be to your brothers and sisters in the Fold? To all act as one. To follow Christ and His revealed truth. To love others as yourself. To unite into the Way of Jesus.
This takes work, and that’s why the Catholic faith is so challenging. People look for substitutes for it, or to wiggle to be a compromised member. And it’s relatable as human beings, that we may want to dodge the part of discipline, or want to ignore the part of being reconciled or getting back right with others—or not be wanting to hear that we need reproof or need repentance.
Yet people who want an authentic honest Church see that we need to repent of our sins along the way or assist others to be free of sin’s reign. We want to gather in honest unity. We want to gather as one, as to love one another into a meaningful practice of Christian faith. Matthew’s view of Jesus is of His unity mission.
The early Church expected each believer to have an accountability to one another and to their apostles or priests. An example of the early Church in Ireland confessions demonstrates that: Confessions were held in public right before the Mass—you were to confess publicly and aloud your mortal sins to the body of believers and to the priest—and whether the priest, representing the community—would absolve you and give you a due penance—or if you were to be treated as “an outsider,” as you heard mentioned by Jesus in this Matthew 18 lesson. If a person persisted in being in mortal sin, then they could not be in Communion nor receive the Eucharist until they were back in grace. That practice started back to Jesus’ teaching in this gospel.
We seek to be one united “Church” (body) who are taking orders from Jesus. “He is the Head of the Body, the Church,” so would St. Paul agrees in Colossians 1:18. As we know was said in Matthew 16, Jesus gave keys to the apostles, and imparted ministerially His authority—as reinforced in today’s Matthew 18 verses of their loosening or binding powers in Holy Orders.
Besides the priestly work of Jesus in Holy Orders, He also has much more work to do through honest and good Catholic believers who want to hold each other to an account of Catholic faith. Thus, the process is taken that we heard today. Steps 1 and 2 were about the reconciliation process starting with people communicating on living the standard of following Jesus Christ.
In all of this, we hear and know what Jesus wants, and it’s His calling for unity for us to indeed be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic people. I will ask you in a minute to profess your creedal commitment to that.
Yet I add the commentary on life of how we live in a time when others want instead their individualism, their choice about interpreting truth or responsibility, or their way of ease instead of the harder work of loving others as yourself or in living in the Lord’s honest truth. Selfishness is their cop out.
In Matthew 18, Jesus is teaching something for His Church to do when He is seated with the Father. We are to live in unity in His Name, following His teachings, acting in His love, and abiding in His Spirit. Jesus is seeking His Church to “work out their faith in fear and trembling,” as Philippians 2:12 says, so as not to have lazy Christians who presume God will look past our disunity or divisiveness or separation from one another. Rather, God wants us to see these inroads to peaceful and truthful togetherness.
As Fr. Virginus was preaching to the parish last weekend, note how Jesus is bidding you to this honest and good life of faith.
Listen to Jesus say in Matthew 18:20 that “when you agree on earth…as founded in prayer…(and are) seeking together the Father’s will…(and are) gathered together in My Name, 1-2-3, then you are indeed living in one body that is uniting under Me. .
This is how St. Matthew saw how the early Church should be operating, and its model continues up to today. God Bless You.