1.- Saint Mathews´ chapter eighteenth is a catechesis over the community relationship problems: protagonists, scandals, sins, personal offences, communion ruptures. Anyone could say: is it possible that all this take place in a community?. Jesus is more realist. He takes it into account and he invites to adopt the adequate response in each case. Here too, the purpose is not only to accomplish the Decalogue but also to live the novelty of the Gospel.
2.- The law and the prophets defend the truth and the justice in the human relationship. In the Old Testament the prohibition of the lie is mainly referred to the false testimony in the processes. Thus says the Decalogue’s commandment: Do not give false testimony against your neighbour (Dt 5,20). But the defence of the truth and of the justice overruns the particularly grave frame of the judicial processes to reach the ordinary life: Yahweh hates the lips of liars (Pro 12,22).
3.- The Gospel assumes and exceeds the Decalogue. So, you not only will not give false testimony against your neighbour, but you also will apologize and forgive. This progress had been slowly prepared. It is said in the Sirach: Forgive the mistakes of your neighbour and you may ask that your sins be forgiven. If a man bears resentment against another, how can he ask God for healing? If he has no compassion on others, how can he pray for forgiveness for his sins? (Sir 28, 2-4). It is a personal offence. The book of the Wisdom invites us to take Lord’s mercy like a model so that, when we judge others we remember his kindness, and, when we are judged, we count on his mercy.
4.- Saint Mathew’s evangel, written about the year 80, is addressed to the Christians coming from the Judaism, who depart from the Jewish official doctrine and they open themselves to the gentiles. The Old Testament is not betrayed but, on the contrary, it is raised to its plenitude. In chapter 18, the scribe who became disciple of God’s kingdom (Mt 13,52), confronts the relationship problems existing in the community and how to overcome them.
5.- First place, the leadership, the pretension of being superior to the others, the discussion about who is the greatest (Mk 9,34;Lk9, 46;Mt20, 20-28). Jesus called a child, placed him in the middle and said: I assure you that unless you change and become like little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven. Whoever makes himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven, and whoever receives such a child in my name receives me (Mt 18,3-5). A child is presented to the disciples like a model. They must change: to become little, to renounce to have pretensions over God’s kingdom, to stay away of anything meaning ambition and envy, to accept with simplicity what God gives them, to be like children allowing their father’s hand to guide them, to have a service attitude: Whoever wants to be first must make himself the slave of all (Mt20, 27). Humbleness before God and before the brethren creates community. The protagonist destroys it. To become a child, to become little, is the same that to become disciple.
6.- A very grave problem is the scandal of the children. To scandalize means to oblige to fall, to be falling occasion for somebody. The scandal is a trap in the way. The disciples cannot be a falling stone for others: If anyone should cause one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble and gall, it would be better for him to be thrown into the depths of the sea with a great millstone around his neck (Mt 18, 6). The scandal of the little ones is something so grave that there is necessary to implant drastic measures to avoid it: If your hand or foot drags you into sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life without a hand or a foot than to be thrown into eternal fire with your two hands and two feet. And if your eye drags you into sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to be thrown into the fire of hell with your two eyes (Mt 18,8-10).
7.- To avoid neglecting the little ones is a problem: See that you do not despise any of these little ones (Mt 18, 10). The disciples must accept themselves one another. Like Saint Paul says to the romans: Welcome, then, one another, as Christ welcomed you for the glory of God (Rom 15,7). That who still is weak in faith must be welcomed in a special way (Rom 14,1).
8.- A special problem is the event of the lost sheep, a disciple who falls in the wrong way: If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them strays, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills to go and look for the stray one? (Mt 18,12). Out of the community, the disciple is a victim of the error surrounding him. Before the sin of one of his members, the fraternal correction is applied. If your brother has sinned against you, go and speak to him alone, and if he listens to you, you have gained your brother. If he does not listen to you, take with you two or three others so that the evidence of two or three witnesses may decide the case. If he still refuses to listen to them, inform the assembled church about him. But if he does not listen toe the church, then regard him like a pagan or a publican. (Mt18, 15-17). An important, grave situation is, of course, the case
9.- In the fraternal correction, a first caution must be followed: do not agitate the whole community. The correction must be done first alone. If this first correction fails, it must be repeated before one or two: so that the whole business is finished by the word of two or three witnesses (see Dt 19,15). If this second correction also fails, the case should go to the community. If he does not listen to the community, then he will be for you like a pagan or a publican: he falls out of the communion. The community decision over the communion or excommunication of one of its members is acknowledged by God too: whatever you bind on earth, Heaven will keep bound; and whatever you unbind on earth, Heaven will keep unbound. (Mt 18,18). The decision carried out in prayer may count on the presence of the Lord, since where two or three are gathered in my Name, I am there with them (Mt 18,20).
10.- Peter is worried with the personal offence and asks: Lord, how many times should I forgive the offences of my brother? Seven times?. Jesus answered: No, not seven times, but seven times seven (Mt 18,21,22). The situation seems to be referring to an old passage over the vengeance in which it is said: “Cain will be avenged seven times, but Lamec will be seventy seven” (Gn 4,24). Jesus answer to Peter is contusive: the disciple must forgive always the personal offence. To survive, the community needs the pardon continuously. This appears in the Christian prayer in one or other way: we need to forgive and to be forgiven.
11.- The implacable debtor parable stresses the need for forgiveness (Mt 18,23-25). In the parable, everything is enormous and out of orbit, like it happens in the human conflicts. The Kingdom of Heaven is similar to a king who wanted to settle the accounts of his servants. One of them owed him an enormous amount: ten thousand talents. The talent, the biggest monetary unit of the roman empire, was worth more than one thousand dollars. Thus, the debt rose to more than ten million dollars. Well, the man cannot pay and then a penal procedure is initiated against him and his family. Before the order is accomplished, the debtor calls for piety of his lord: Be patient with me, I will pay you everything. Moved to compassion, that man’s lord condoned the debt. But here is now the contrast: that man went out and met with a fellow that owed him one hundred denariae, a small amount very much lower than the condoned debt. The man sized his fellow by the neck and told him: Pay what you owe. The fellow fell to his knees and told him: Be patient with me, and I will pay you everything. But he did not consent, and he put him on jail until the debt would be paid.
12.- The other fellows, seeing what had happened, become desolated and went to tell it to his lord, who called that man without entrails and told him: Miserable! All that debt that I condoned you, because you implored me, should you not also have compassion with your fellow, like I had it with you?. And the lord, irritated, delivered him to the court, until he paid all he owed. It is to say, the lord also allows running the free course of justice for him: So will my heavenly Father do with you unless each of you sincerely forgives his brothers. The parable says that God, although he is in disposition to forgive the gravest fault, he conditions it to the reconciliation spirit of the man with his brother. If we do not forgive, we can be left out of the community.
* Dialog: Which are the relationship problems that take place in the group or in the community