09/08/2026
Deacon Tom Lovett’s homily from the weekend of September 5/6:
Homily on Correction of a Brother or Sister in Christ
6 September 2026
For 45 years as a teacher and coach, I have become an expert at correction. I teach English, and correction has become so much a part of what I do that one of my students recently gave me a coffee cup that says, “I am silently correcting your grammar.” And I don’t have a problem with that; when I have the authority and the responsibility of helping students and/or athletes make correct their performance, character, or behavior, I have found ways to do so effectively and empathetically.
However, I have always struggled with the passage in Matthew’s Gospel in which Jesus instructs His followers on how to correct “a brother who has sinned against you”. Here we are talking about a different kind of relationship, someone equal to us and close to us, someone we love. I have had a hard time pointing out faults in those I love, as I don’t want to risk hurting the relationship. I’d rather just suck it up, “bear wrongs patiently”, “turn the other cheek”, forgive and forget. And the part about bringing other people into the situation seems like ganging up on someone. Like I said, I have struggled with all of this.
However, whenever I am confronted with a challenging word from Jesus, I have learned to ask a set of questions, remembering that He is pure love, divine wisdom, and unfailing goodness. So I ask, why would a loving, wise, and good Savior tells us to do this? What does this show us about the heart and mind of Jesus, the heart and mind He calls us to have? How is this good, loving, and wise?
The context gives us a clue. This passage (Matthew 18:15-20) comes after Jesus has said that the Father is like the shepherd who leaves the flock of 99 to seek out the one sheep who has gone astray and that is not the Father’s will that any of these little ones be lost. In other words, this passage is a continuation of the theme of God’s persistent, patient, and compassionate efforts to bring every single person into His kingdom—to save every soul. In this passage then, Jesus is showing us how the Christian community is one of the ways through which God saves those who stray and through which He shows His merciful love. He is telling us to love one another enough to point out and prevent serious sin and to patiently, persistently, and compassionately seek reconciliation with each other.
The process Jesus gives us is easy to abuse if we don’t understand this motive and the spirit in which Jesus gives us these steps toward reconciliation. Each step deserves careful consideration.
First, the process is personal. It begins one-on-one, privately, before anything is known publicly. We are to approach the one who has sinned against us lovingly and humbly, with the goal of healing our relationship and preventing a sinful act from becoming a hardened habit. It is also important to realize that Jesus is talking about serious sin—not an annoyance or a bothersome behavior or slight. It is serious enough to result in excommunication if the brother or sister is not brought to repentance. Think 10 Commandments (e.g. slanderous gossip, infidelity or sexual harassment, theft) and the Sermon on the Mount (e.g. cruel words spoken in anger, impure looks or actions). Finally, this fault is known to us but not others; we have been given the opportunity to help a brother and sister be reconciled to God and to us without anyone else knowing. God has placed us in this situation to be a channel of His grace and mercy.
It is critical to consider our motives. The goal is reconciliation, not retribution. The approach is one of gentleness, not justification. And we must be ready and willing to forgive should our brother or sister repent. It is after this passage that Jesus tells Peter that he must be ready and willing forgive—not seven times, but 70 times seven times.
However, if this private stage does not bring about repentance, Jesus says to bring in one or two others. Notice there is no timeline and no talk of this stage being “one-and-done”. Also notice that the one or two others will also be followers of Jesus who love the brother or sister and us. Their role is to make sure that our perspective is right and reasonable, that we have all the facts right, and to help mediate the reconciliation. Again, there is no timeline and no mention that this intervention happens only once.
Only when that stage has failed to move the brother or sister to repentance does Jesus say to tell the church. In a modern parish, this stage would involve the pastor, seeking wisdom to help reconcile this brother or sister to God and to the community. However, if the heart has been hardened against accountability and reconciliation, Jesus says to exclude them from the community—not to hate them or treat them badly, just to recognize that they have chosen to act outside of the values and beliefs of the community—seriously rupturing the bonds of love without repenting. Even this act, as harsh as it seems, is an act to highlight the seriousness of the situation and perhaps stir the conscience of the unrepentance brother and sister.
The bottom line, then, is that Jesus wants His church to be one, holy, and loving. He wants us to always approach each other in humility and love, to never give up on reconciliation, to never give in to gossip or bitterness or judgment. He wants us to use every resource we have to be reconciled and to prevent sin from spreading or hardening in our community.
At the end of this Gospel passage, Jesus gives us one more resource in this effort to build His church, to make us one in love so that the world will know that He is the One sent by the Father to save all people: He encourages us to pray. He says, “Wherever two or three agree upon anything about which to pray, it will be granted by my Father in heaven” and “Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
Let us then gather to pray together: for the grace to be strong, loving, and wise in seeking reconciliation and correction; for the grace to love each other enough to seek reconciliation and forgive sins against us; for the grace to be wise enough to know when and how to be reconciled; for the grace to be strong enough to become the holy and loving community He calls us to be.
