Church Discipline: Seeking the Lost through Church Discipline Matthew 18:15-20
By Ronald J. Allen
One of the hazards of studying the Bible is that you sometimes discover things that erode some of your cherished, if naive, beliefs. Just before the passage from Matthew for today, we hear the parable of the lost sheep. Comparisons between human beings and sheep are not altogether flattering. But when I feel lost, I love to think of God on the search for me.
But a little Bible study reminds me to read
Matthew 18 in its historical context. This chapter is an operating manual for first century church leaders. From that point of view, Matthew's version of the parable of the lost sheep is directed to congregational leaders: one of their jobs is to seek members who are in danger of being lost,
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Actually, the word Matthew uses is not "lost" but "astray." The Greek is planao, from which we get our word "planet," wanderer. In the first century it frequently referred to people who wander from God's ways into idolatry, injustice, violence. When people stray, they hurt themselves and their communities.
So Matthew admonishes Christian leaders to seek people who wander.
How do we seek those who stray? Matthew answers that question with a three step procedure. (1) When someone sins, go by yourself to them and point out their fault. (2) If they don't listen, take two or three people with you. (3) If they turn away, bring it to the church, and if they still refuse, "Let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector." This procedure is adapted from standard practices in Judaism for dealing with persons in a community who violate the community's norms and expectations.
When I first read this passage I thought, "Uh huh. Yeah. Right." Most of our congregations have been nurtured on the principle of unconditional acceptance. We value plurality and difference and respect for the other. Who has the right to say what is in or out? The tachometer on my hermeneutic of suspicion pops its needle. What kind of person so much wants to control community life that they devise a procedure that takes only three verses to put people on the street?
Yet one of the highest values in Judaism (and one that is carried into early Christianity) is life in community that embodies God's love and will for justice. Every relationship and situation within the community is to mediate love. Every relationship and situation is to embody justice -- that is, a community of mutuality and support and abundance for all.
This life in community is not for its own sake. As God said to Abraham and Sarah, "I will bless you [so that] in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (
Genesis 12:1-3). Later God says to Israel, "You are a light to the nations" (
Isaiah 42:6). The quality of community life in the church is supposed to be a model for the way in which God's love and justice make it possible for all people to live together.