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The Gospel That Demands You Speak Up

The Gospel That Demands You Speak Up

Last updated on: September 8, 2026 at 8:39 am by Mauricio Pérez

The Gospel That Demands You Speak Up 2026-09-08T08:39:02-07:00 Mauricio Pérez

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Jesus instructs a man to correct his brother when he errs

Jesus instructs a man to correct his brother when he errs | AI generated illustration

On the 23rd Sunday of the Ordinary Time in the liturgical year A (focused on Mt), we listen in Mass the pericope of “A Brother who Sins” —very simple and direct, but it is still worth doing its exegesis to understand it better.

Let’s begin by reading the Gospel, followed by an exegetical analysis and a prayer to conclude. I hope that you too, when you read the Holy Bible, in your moments of reflection, study and prayer, do an exercise like this too. Reading the Scripture in a more structured and methodical way will always be more fruitful than simply opening it at random and reading the first verse that appears as if it were a fortune cookie. In my opinion, that is the worst way to read the Holy Bible. And there are many people who do it.

By the way, someone wrote to correct me. He said, “You don’t say ‘Holy Bible’, you say Sacred Scripture.” I don’t know where he got such an idea. The word of God is holy and is contained in the Bible. So, the Bible is holy. Therefore, saying the Holy Bible or the Sacred Scripture makes no difference. Sometimes there are people a little picky and that’s why I want to make the clarification.

Anyway, I told you that reading the Holy Bible as if it were fortune cookies, simply at random, reading the verse that appears, is very risky. Sometimes verses like this do not say anything substantial and it is also very possible that reading such a random verse leads you to take it out of context completely and leads you to give it an interpretation that does not really correspond to the message that God wanted to convey. Hence, what should be done is precisely to follow a process in which the text can be located in its context and, from there, begin to analyze its structure and from the structure to be able to discern what the message is.

Let’s begin in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

The Gospel Reading

Jesus said to his disciples: “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.

Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

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. (Mt 18:15-20)

The Context

The first thing we have to do is place the text in its context. The pericope of “A brother who sins” appears in Mt 18. Its immediate context is formed by the previous pericope and the one that follows. In the previous one, Jesus tells us about the lost sheep, and in the one that follows, we find the parable of the merciless servant.

Together, all these pericopes belong to what is known as the Discourse to the Community. This is the broad context of our Gospel reading, and it is the fourth great discourse of Jesus that Matthew records in his Gospel by grouping together different teachings that Jesus left.

This discourse to the community is actually specifically addressed to the leaders of the community, not to the whole community in general, but to its leaders. And that will be important in a particular verse we will review in a moment.

This fourth great discourse, known as the Discourse to the Community, is made up of five pericopes:

The greatest in the Kingdom
Temptations to sin
The parable of the lost sheep
A brother who sins (this Sunday’s reading)
The parable of the unforgiving servant

The Actors

The next step is to identify the actors that intervene in the pericopes.

Jesus. But we simply see Jesus speaking, because it is a discourse. So, being strict, there is only one actor, the one who is pronouncing this discourse.

Implicitly, there is the community, or specifically, there are the community leaders to whom Jesus is speaking.

Fraternal Correction: An Obligation, Not Just An Option

Let’s review the pericope verse by verse. The issue is clear: fraternal correction. Jesus said to his disciples: “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.”

This issue of fraternal correction is very important for the Christian community, because it is one of the works of mercy that Jesus taught: to correct the one who errs. And it is not only a work of mercy —and it is important to be clear about this—, because the usual most comfortable tendency when we see that someone is making a mistake, especially when we see that someone is living in sin, is to look the other way, pretend that nothing happens and ignore the obligation we have to correct our brother who errs.

This act of mercy is also an obligation. It is an obligation for Christians that even emanates from the prophetic ministry with which we were anointed when we were baptized. When one is baptized, in addition to receiving the waters of baptism, the priest anoints us as priests, prophets and kings. And then, as prophets, we have a double ministry: on the one hand, to announce the kingdom of God, but also to denounce sin. When a brother of ours lives in sin, we have, by that prophetic ministry, the obligation to correct him, which is also an act of mercy, because in his correction we can just go through his salvation or his condemnation in case of persisting in sin. So we can’t break up.

The First Reading: Ezekiel And Correction

This task of correcting the one who errs is so mandatory that, in the first reading – remember that the subject of the first reading in the Holy Mass is always the same subject of the gospel -, we find ourselves precisely with the obligation of this fraternal correction. We read it from the book of the prophet Ezekiel:

You, son of man, I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel; when you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me. If I tell the wicked, “O wicked one, you shall surely die, “and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked from his way, the wicked shall die for his guilt, but I will hold you responsible for his death. But if you warn the wicked, trying to turn him from his way, and he refuses to turn from his way, he shall die for his guilt, but you shall save yourself (Ez 33:7-9).

There we clearly see the obligation to correct the one who errs. If we correct the one who makes a mess and he doesn’t change, it will be his fault, but one will be safe. But if one does not correct it and condemns oneself, one is also co-responsible. It is a serious question of correcting the one who errs.

The 3 Instances of the Correction Process

Let’s see then how Jesus proposes that we do this. He divides this correction process into three instances.

First instance: on a personal level. That’s why he says: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.”

Second instance: two or three witnesses. What happens if he doesn’t listen to you? Then Jesus says: “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.” Here Jesus is already taking him to a legal ground, because that prescription of the two or three witnesses comes from the book of Deuteronomy. There it was established in the law that there could be no complaint against a person without the presence of two or three witnesses; one could not simply file a complaint at a legal level one to one.

Third instance: the community. “If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church.” So, the third instance is the entire community, that is, the Church.

That’s the process to correct a person: first in private. And that is very important: there has to be discretion; there has to be intimacy; it is a work of mercy, so the one who errs cannot be publicly exhibited. First of all, you have to do it privately, personally. If he persists, then we must bring two others, who serve as witnesses of the gospel, to be able to tell him: “Yes, what you do is not right; what you do will lead you to move away from God; this is the path you have to follow.” And the third step, if he refuses to pay attention to them, is to say it to the community, to the whole Church.

It is increasing, and that is how serious it is that someone lives in the sin that takes him away from God. You have to make the effort one; if one alone can’t, then you have to bring two others; if those two or three can’t either, then you have to bring the community to explain, to make you see your mistake.

Sometimes people don’t listen to themselves. Let’s think about this at home: many times we need someone else from outside to come and say the same thing to our children, or sometimes to our partner, so that they listen and pay attention. Sometimes it is enough for someone else to say the same thing for the person to understand.

That is why Jesus is developing this process of correction so that, sooner or later, the person who lives in sin, who lives far from God, can return. If it’s not for your personal words, let it be for those of someone else who tells him the same thing you already told him, and by dint of listening to him two or three more times he will be able to understand that this is so. And if not, we have to involve the community. And involving the community will not only mean that the priest talks to him, but also that the community prays for his conversion.

It’s not just about talking to him and advising him; it’s about really changing, and if necessary, you have to involve the community so that he not only corrects him verbally, but prays for him so that he manages to become.

“Treat Him As A Gentile Or A Tax Collector”

Jesus concludes: “If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.” Jesus is saying: if he flatly refuses to listen to everyone—including the community, including the Church—then consider him outside. It’s a way of saying that he is, in a certain sense, excommunicated, that he has placed himself outside this community. He has already made his choice; if he listened to absolutely no one —not to you, not to the two or three witnesses, not to the whole Church— he is the one excluding himself.

The pagans were those who did not belong to God’s people. The publicans (tax collectors) were those who, belonging to the people of God, contracted with the Roman Empire – which was the oppressor – to collect taxes from the people of God and give that money to the oppressor. So that the pagans and the publicans were truly despised. Jesus, on some occasions in the gospel, comes to compare them with prostitutes, precisely because, understanding the relationship of the people of God with God as a marital relationship, someone who betrays the people of God to sell himself to the highest bidder —in this case the foreign oppressive government of the Romans— is comparable to a prostitute.

Even so, Jesus was after them, and one of them is precisely the author of today’s Gospel: Matthew (Levi). He had been a publican himself. He collected taxes for the Roman Empire for a living. Jesus went and called him; he followed the Master and even ended up writing this gospel that we are reading on this occasion.

This is what Jesus says: certainly you can see that when someone persists in his attitude contrary to the will of God, and you go and tell him, and as he does not listen to you you bring others more, and as he does not listen to them you ask the priest to talk to him, and he does not pay attention to the priest, and you teach him what the Church says, what the catechism says, what the Bible says, what the gospel says, what the Pope says, and even so he refuses, because he himself excludes himself, but you have already fulfilled all your correction function if you have taken the case to all these instances: at the personal level, at the level of two or three witnesses, and finally at the community level, at the Church level.

The Power to Tie and Untie

After this, Jesus says: “Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” You will remember these words from the Gospel in Mass two Sundays earlier, when Jesus spoke to Peter and changed his name from Simon, son of Jonah, to Peter, because he would be the stone on which Jesus would build his Church. On that occasion, Jesus gave Peter this same power to tie and untie on earth, so that what he tied or untied on earth would be tied or untied in heaven.

Jesus is now giving these community leaders this same power. In this case, the apostles receive the same power Peter received to tie and untie. But there is a substantial difference between these apostles and Peter: Jesus only gives them the power to tie and untie, but does not grant them the keys to the Kingdom, as he did with Peter, whom he named the steward of the heavenly Kingdom.

By giving Peter the keys, Jesus makes him the butler of the heavenly Kingdom. And the steward, understanding his function in the history of the people of God, was not only the one who had the keys to open and close the doors, but was the second governor after the person of most authority, the one who had the next degree in hierarchy, both politically and spiritually. You have to understand this to understand the Petrine ministry, the papacy.

Finally, Jesus does not grant those keys to all the other apostles —to all the other leaders of the community; to them he simply gives that power to tie and untie on earth, which implies allowing or forbidding. To tie is to forbid, to untie is to allow: what you allow on earth will be allowed in heaven; what you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven.

With this ends this first pericope, that of fraternal correction, and we move on to the second: the force of community prayer, which is simply a verse. As you can see, there are pericopes that are really very brief.

The Power of Community Prayer

“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.”

In this case, Jesus clearly speaks of community prayer. Invite these community leaders to pray like this, in community. This does not contradict what Jesus had taught you before, when he taught you to pray and said: “You, when you pray, lock yourselves in your room and there, alone in secret, talk to your Father.” In this case, Jesus extends the task of prayer, the task of dialogue with God, to the community.

“If two of you come together on earth to ask for something, my Father who is in heaven will grant it to you, for where there are two or three gathered in my name, I will be present in their midst.” This is how Jesus makes it clear that he is the Emmanuel, the God with us. Jesus is the head of a church that is made up of a community; that community, that Church, is the mystical body of Jesus. The Church is the body; Jesus is the head. So if the Church prays in community, prays as Church, Jesus, who is the head, is present with her.

Many times, when someone goes through a very pressing need, very serious, the logical tendency is to pray for him or pray for oneself if it is one who goes through this situation. And of course, there must be moments of prayer alone with God, but it is also important to gather in community to pray for someone in need. Jesus promised it: where there are two or three gathered in his name, he will be present in their midst. And not only will Jesus be present, but the consequence of making that prayer in community, where Jesus is present, is that —He assures you— the Father who is in heaven will grant you what you ask for.

Conclusion

Here you have my exegesis of this Sunday’s gospel. A very simple gospel to understand, although I think it was worth analyzing the structure to understand the three steps, the three instances, in which Jesus wants the process of fraternal correction to be carried out.

Understanding this also in the light of the first reading of the prophet Ezekiel, we realize that fraternal correction is not only an act of mercy, but also a serious obligation, because his salvation may or not depend on correcting that person. Not understanding each other is not good for the other person, nor is it good for us either.

This reminds me of that phrase attributed to St. Augustine: “Make a soul be saved and you will have saved yours.” I would add, based on what God said through Ezekiel: “Let a soul be condemned and you will have condemned yours.”

Prayer

Let’s conclude with a moment of prayer:

Change me, Lord, because you alone are holy and good.
Enlighten me, Lord, because you are the true light.
Embrace me, Lord, because you are true love.
Forgive me, Lord, because you are forgiveness.
Seer me, Lord, because you seek my good.
Drive me, Lord, because you don’t want me to lose.
Wait for me, Lord, because you are patient.
Speak to me, Lord, because your word is sweet.
Feed me, Lord, for your bread is nourishing.
Look for me, Lord, because sometimes I’m lost.

Amen.

May the Lord grant you and me the grace to correct those close to us when we know they are walking astray, and for us to be open to listening when someone points out our mistakes to us.

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