Ajay's Catholic Commentary
Sunday GospelLiturgical Calendar
Sunday, September 6, 2026·Liturgical Year A

23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time"Go and Tell Him His Fault": Fraternal Correction and the Christ Present Among Two or Three

Gospel: Matthew 18:15-20

Before you read: Read this Sunday's full Mass readings at USCCB.org →

Key Themes7
Tap to expand
  • •"If your brother sins against you, go" — the injured party takes the first step; the Gospel assigns the initiative to the one with the grievance, not the offender
  • •"Between you and him alone" — the least public remedy first; the procedure is built to protect the reputation of the person being corrected
  • •"You have won over your brother" — the Greek kerdainō names the only acceptable goal: not vindication, not punishment, but the person regained
  • •"Take one or two others along" — Deuteronomy's rule of witnesses guards the accused against rumor and the community against a single hostile voice
  • •"Treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector" — spoken by the Lord who ate with tax collectors and called one of them to write this Gospel; even exclusion keeps a door
  • •"Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven" — the authority given to Peter last month is now entrusted to the assembly gathered in Christ's name
  • •"Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" — Christ takes the place Judaism gave the Shekhinah, and Matthew's Emmanuel promise reaches its center

Historical & Literary Context

The 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time opens Matthew's fourth great discourse, chapter 18 — the "community discourse," addressed not to crowds but to the disciples about how they are to live with one another. Its setting inside the chapter is decisive for its meaning. The discourse begins with a child set in the disciples' midst and a warning against causing "one of these little ones" to stumble (18:1-9); immediately before this Sunday's passage stands the parable of the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to search for the one that strayed, ending, "it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost" (18:12-14); immediately after it comes Peter's question about forgiving seven times and the parable of the unforgiving servant, which the lectionary reads next Sunday. Fraternal correction is framed on both sides by the search for the lost and by unlimited forgiveness. Anyone who lifts the procedure out of that frame and uses it as a disciplinary weapon has quoted Matthew against Matthew. The Greek verb in the first step, ἔλεγξον (elenxon, from ἐλέγχω), means to expose, convict, or bring to light — but in the Greek Old Testament and in wisdom literature it belongs to the vocabulary of loving instruction rather than prosecution ("reprove your neighbor," Leviticus 19:17, in a verse that continues "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" — precisely Paul's text in this Sunday's second reading). Its object is stated in the next clause: κερδαίνω (kerdainō), "you have won your brother." That is a commercial verb for gaining or profiting, and it names the only acceptable outcome. The goal is never to be proved right, to register a grievance, or to have the offender dealt with; it is to get the person back. The procedure escalates in three deliberate stages — alone, with one or two, then before the assembly — and the middle stage cites Deuteronomy 19:15, Israel's rule that no charge stands on a single witness. Notice how much the design protects: it protects the accused from rumor, from a single hostile testimony, and from public humiliation; and it protects the community from both cover-up and mob judgment. The whole architecture assumes that the least public solution is the best one. Two expressions in the final verses reward close attention. "Where two or three are gathered together in my name" would have startled Matthew's first hearers, because a rabbinic saying preserved in the Mishnah (Pirkei Avot 3:2) taught that where two sit together and occupy themselves with the words of Torah, the Shekhinah — the dwelling presence of God — rests between them. Jesus takes that saying and puts himself where the Shekhinah stands. And the verse is the middle panel of Matthew's greatest structural arch: the Gospel opens with Emmanuel, "God is with us" (1:23), closes with "I am with you always, until the end of the age" (28:20), and here, at the center, tells the Church where to find him in the meantime. The verb for "agree," συμφωνέω (symphōneō), gives us "symphony" — the harmony in question is not unanimity of opinion but the concord of hearts turned to the same Lord. On authorship and date, mainstream Catholic scholarship places Matthew around AD 80–90, in a community with enough structure to hold assemblies, adjudicate disputes, and exclude the unrepentant — the reason this passage, unique to Matthew, reads like a church order embedded in a Gospel. Daniel J. Harrington, SJ (The Gospel of Matthew, Sacra Pagina 1) observes that the procedure closely parallels the disciplinary rules of the Qumran community (1QS 5:24–6:1), which likewise required private admonition before witnesses before any communal action, evidence that Matthew's Church was adapting a recognizably Jewish practice of reproof. Pope Benedict XVI, commenting on this Gospel, called fraternal correction "one of the highest forms of charity" precisely because it costs the corrector something and aims entirely at the good of the other.

Commentary

Where This Passage Lives: Between the Lost Sheep and Seventy-Seven Times

No verse in Matthew is more often quoted out of its neighborhood. Read alone, "tell the church… treat him as a Gentile or a tax collector" sounds like a disciplinary code. Read where Matthew put it, it is something else entirely. On one side stands the shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep on the hillside to go after one stray, with the Father's declared will that "not one of these little ones be lost." On the other side stands Peter asking how many times he must forgive, and receiving the answer "seventy-seven times," followed by a parable about a servant who was forgiven a fortune and would not forgive a pittance. Fraternal correction, in Matthew's arrangement, is simply what the search for the lost sheep looks like when the sheep is a person who has wronged you. The frame is the interpretation. Every step of the procedure is an attempt to bring someone home, and the moment it becomes an instrument for getting rid of someone, it has been turned upside down.

"Go" — The Initiative Belongs to the One Who Was Wronged

The most demanding word in the passage is the first verb. You go. Human instinct in the face of an injury runs in two directions, and Jesus forbids both. The first is silence: swallow it, avoid the person, let the friendship quietly die. The second is publicity: tell someone else, build a case, let the offender learn through the grapevine that they have been discussed. Jesus rules out both by assigning the wronged party the duty of a private conversation. This is harder than either alternative, which is precisely why it is so rarely done. Pope Francis has named the alternative with unusual bluntness, returning again and again to gossip as the acid that dissolves parishes and communities — the habit of speaking about a person to everyone except the person. The Gospel's remedy is not more restraint in speech but a redirection of it: say it, and say it to their face, alone.

"Tell Him His Fault" — Reproof as an Act of Love, Not a Verdict

The verb ἐλέγχω can mean to convict in a legal sense, but its home in Israel's Scriptures is the wisdom tradition, where reproof is what a friend offers and a fool refuses: "Whoever heeds reproof gains understanding" (Proverbs 15:32); "reprove your neighbor" (Leviticus 19:17). That last verse is worth putting side by side with this Sunday's second reading, because it continues, in the very next line, "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" — the sentence Paul quotes as the fulfillment of the whole law. In the Torah, correction and love of neighbor are two halves of a single commandment. Augustine drew the conclusion in his Rule, written for the community he lived in: to see a brother's fault and say nothing is not gentleness but cruelty, since "you would be guilty if you allowed by silence what you could have corrected by speech." And in a sermon on this passage (Sermon 82) he confronts the excuse everyone reaches for — that it is not my business, that I might make it worse — with a question: would you stay silent if his house were on fire?

"You Have Won Over Your Brother" — The Only Success Condition

Jesus states the goal in a single word, and it disqualifies most of what passes for correction. Kerdainō means to gain, to make a profit, to come away with something you did not have before. The measure of a successful confrontation is therefore not that the truth was stated, not that the record was set straight, and not that the other person conceded — it is that you now have your brother back. This is the test to apply before the conversation, in the form of a question: what would count as winning here? If the honest answer is "he admits I was right," the conversation should probably wait. Chrysostom (Homilies on Matthew 60) notes that Jesus does not say "you have punished him" or "you have vindicated yourself," but "you have gained" — the language of a man who has recovered something precious that was nearly lost.

The Three Steps — A Procedure Designed to Protect

Look at what each escalation is for. Step one is private, which means the offender's reputation is intact and repentance costs no public humiliation. Step two brings one or two others, invoking Deuteronomy 19:15 — a rule that exists to protect the accused from a lone accuser — and the added witnesses serve as much to test the complaint as to press it; more than one Christian who took this step has discovered in the process that the fault was not what they thought. Step three, "tell the church," makes the matter the community's, and only after the first two have failed. The design assumes what modern institutions have painfully relearned: that both extremes are destructive — the cover-up that protects the wrongdoer at the victim's expense, and the public denunciation that skips every stage of due process. A necessary pastoral note: this procedure governs offenses between members of the community. Where a crime has been committed, above all against a child or a vulnerable person, the Church's own law and civil law require reporting to the proper authorities, and no verse of Scripture may be used to keep such a matter "between you and him alone."

"As a Gentile or a Tax Collector" — Read It in Matthew's Own Voice

The final step sounds like excommunication, and in a real sense it is: the Church may recognize that someone has placed himself outside its communion, and Lumen Gentium and the Code of Canon Law both treat such measures as medicinal, ordered to repentance rather than to punishment. But hear the phrase in the Gospel that contains it. Who in Matthew is treated as a tax collector? A man named Matthew, sitting at a customs post, whom Jesus called with one word and who is the traditional author of this Gospel (9:9). Who does Jesus eat with, to the scandal of the respectable, in the very next verse? Tax collectors and sinners. And who receives the Church's mission at the end of the book? "All nations" — the Gentiles. So even the last resort names a category that in this Gospel is precisely the category of people Jesus goes after. Exclusion here is not the closing of a case; it is the change of a strategy from correction to pursuit.

Binding, Loosing, and Prayer — The Authority of the Gathered Church

The promise given to Peter two Sundays ago is now given to the community: "whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven." Matthew's Church is being told that its judgments in these matters are ratified by God — an authority the Catechism connects to the power of the keys and to the ministry of reconciliation (CCC 553, 1444-1445), noting that the Church binds and looses above all in absolving sin. Then Jesus adds the promise about two agreeing in prayer. The juxtaposition is not accidental: the community that has just been given authority to judge is immediately turned toward prayer, as if to say that this power is safe only in the hands of people on their knees. Note also what the promise does not say. It is not a mechanism for extracting outcomes from God by assembling enough petitioners; the qualifier is "in my name," which means prayer that has been conformed to Christ's own will, as the Catechism explains of all prayer offered in his name (CCC 2613, 2745).

"There Am I in the Midst of Them" — The Center of Matthew's Arch

This is the sentence everyone remembers, and it deserves both its popularity and a correction. It is regularly quoted as consolation for a small turnout — twelve people at a weekday devotion, three at a parish meeting — and that use is not wrong, but it is thin. In context, the "two or three" are the witnesses of verse 16 and the two who agree in prayer in verse 19: this is the promise of Christ's presence in the most difficult, least attractive work the Church ever does, the work of trying to recover a member who has wronged another. The promise is that he is there — not only in the beautiful liturgy but in the awkward conversation. And it stands at the structural center of Matthew's Gospel, between the annunciation of Emmanuel, "God is with us" (1:23), and the last words of the risen Lord, "I am with you always, until the end of the age" (28:20). Judaism said the Shekhinah rests between two who study Torah; Jesus says: I am there. Benedict XVI, in his Angelus of September 4, 2011, drew the conclusion for the Church's ordinary life: fraternal correction is possible at all only because Christ is present in the encounter, making of two sinners a place where he dwells.

Ezekiel's Watchman and Paul's Debt — The Two Readings Converging

The first reading supplies the urgency and the second supplies the limit, and a homily needs both. Ezekiel is made a tsopheh, a watchman on the wall, and told that if he sees ruin approaching and stays silent, the blood is on his hands. That is a hard word for a culture that has made non-interference the highest courtesy: the Scriptures do not recognize a neutral silence about another person's destruction. But Ezekiel is also freed by the same oracle — if he speaks and is not heeded, he has done his duty. The watchman is responsible for the warning, not for the outcome, which is exactly the freedom a Christian needs before an unwelcome conversation. Then Paul draws the boundary: "Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another… love is the fulfillment of the law." Every commandment, he says, is summed up in loving the neighbor as oneself. Set beside the Gospel, this becomes the criterion by which to judge any act of correction: does it do good to this neighbor? Correction that is accurate and unloving fails Paul's test as surely as silence fails Ezekiel's.

A Note for the Homilist

Most congregations contain more people wounded by how a correction was delivered than by the absence of one, so preach the manner as carefully as the duty. Three practical points carry this Gospel: go directly, go privately, and go with the aim of getting the person back rather than getting even. Name gossip for what it is — the universally practiced alternative to verse 15 — and offer the parish a concrete substitute. Be honest that some conversations fail, and give the congregation Ezekiel's consolation: you are responsible for speaking, not for being heeded. And take care with the safeguarding qualification; say plainly that this Gospel is about offenses between believers and never a reason to handle a crime privately. Then bring it to the altar: in a few minutes the assembly will exchange a sign of peace before approaching Communion, and this Gospel is the reason the Church has always put reconciliation before the offering (cf. Matthew 5:23-24). The two or three among whom Christ stands are about to become the many who receive him.

Living the Gospel This Week

- For the homilist: Preach the manner as much as the duty — directly, privately, to win the person back — and name gossip as the alternative most people actually choose. Include the safeguarding qualification explicitly: this Gospel governs offenses between members of the community, never the private handling of a crime - For the conversation you have been avoiding: Name one person you have a real grievance against, and before doing anything else answer Jesus' question: what would count as winning here? If the honest answer is "being proved right," pray until it becomes "having them back" — and then go, alone, and speak - For breaking the gossip habit: This week, when you are about to discuss someone's fault with a third party, stop and ask whether you have said it to the person themselves. If you have not, either say it to them or say nothing. That single rule, kept for a week, will change a household or a parish office - For those who must correct and fear the outcome: Ezekiel was accountable for warning, not for being heeded. If you have a duty to speak — as a parent, a spouse, a friend, a pastor — speak it once, clearly and in love, and then hand the result to God rather than escalating the pressure - For those on the receiving end: Psalm 95's refrain is addressed to you: "If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts." Think of the last time someone told you an uncomfortable truth about yourself. Was any of it true? Consider going back to that person this week and telling them you have thought about what they said - For the Eucharist as fulfillment of the Gospel's promise: "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them" reaches its fullness at Mass, where Christ is present in the assembly, in the word, in the priest, and substantially in his Body and Blood (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium 7). Offer the sign of peace this Sunday to someone you are actually at odds with if they are present — and if they are not, resolve to make that peace before the week is out, as the Lord asks of anyone bringing a gift to the altar - For the parish and the family: Christ promised his presence to the small, unglamorous gathering. Pray with one other person this week — a spouse, a child, a friend, a neighbor — for a specific intention you agree on together, and take the promise of verse 19 at its word

Sources & Further Reading

  • New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE), Matthew 18:15-20; Ezekiel 33:7-9; Romans 13:8-10; Psalm 95:1-9 — United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011
  • Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 553 (binding and loosing, the power of the keys), §§ 1443–1445 (reconciliation with the Church and the ministry of binding and loosing), § 1469 (sin damages communion with the Church), §§ 2477–2479 (rash judgment, detraction, and calumny), §§ 2613, 2745 (prayer offered in Christ's name), § 1373 (Christ present when the Church prays and gathers)
  • Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church), §§ 8, 11 — the Church as a communion in which sin against the neighbor wounds the whole body, November 21, 1964
  • Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), § 7 — the modes of Christ's presence in the liturgical assembly, December 4, 1963
  • Code of Canon Law, cc. 1311–1312, 1341 — ecclesiastical penalties as medicinal, imposed only when other means of correction have failed, 1983
  • Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus address on Matthew 18:15-20, Castel Gandolfo, September 4, 2011 — fraternal correction as "one of the highest forms of charity"
  • Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti (Encyclical on Fraternity and Social Friendship), §§ 198–224 — the culture of encounter, kindness, and truthful dialogue in place of aggression and gossip, October 3, 2020
  • Pope Francis, Angelus address on Matthew 18:15-20, Saint Peter's Square, September 6, 2020 — going to the brother directly rather than speaking about him to others
  • Augustine, Sermon 82 on Matthew 18:15 (on the duty not to keep silent about a brother's fault), NPNF Series I, vol. 6, c. AD 400
  • Augustine, The Rule of Saint Augustine, chapter 4 — correction within the community, ordered to healing rather than shaming, c. AD 397
  • John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily 60 — on winning the brother and the stages of correction, NPNF Series I, vol. 10, c. AD 390
  • Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 33 ("On Fraternal Correction"), articles 1–8 — correction as an act of charity, and the order of private before public admonition, c. AD 1271
  • Daniel J. Harrington, SJ, The Gospel of Matthew, Sacra Pagina 1, Liturgical Press, 1991, pp. 265–270 (including the parallel with the Qumran Community Rule, 1QS 5:24–6:1)
  • W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, ICC, vol. 2, T&T Clark, 1991, pp. 780–805 (on Matthew 18:15-20)
  • Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 21–37, Anchor Bible vol. 22A, Doubleday, 1997, pp. 670–684 (on the watchman oracle of Ezekiel 33)
  • Joseph A. Fitzmyer, SJ, Romans, Anchor Bible vol. 33, Doubleday, 1993, pp. 676–681 (on love as the fulfillment of the law in Romans 13:8-10)

Found this helpful? Share it with your parish or priest:

Share:WhatsAppFacebook
← Back to Sunday Gospel