St. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, reminds us that God’s commands help us know what it means to love.  All of the commandments are summed up as love, and love expresses itself through observing the commandments: everything that God asks of us: what he asks us to do, what he asks us to avoid: all these things are expressions of God’s love for us, and they’re his guidebook for how we can love others most fruitfully.  And one of the commandments of the Lord, one of the greatest commandments, is to love our neighbor as ourself.  And today’s gospel reading is an outstanding example of exactly what that means in practice, how we are to love our neighbor, in particular today how to love our neighbor at that moment when he is hardest to love.  How do we love our neighbor when we are in conflict with him. 

This is a profoundly practical and applicable passage of scripture, in which our Lord provides us with his authorized tactic for dealing with human conflict.  And it is so, so relevant, and insightful.  It’s also a call to personal responsibility.  So often, we want someone else to do our dirty work, to relieve us of the unpleasant task of confronting someone.  But Our Lord tells us today, you don’t get to do that.  If you have a problem with somebody, the first thing you must always do (assuming of course that it’s not something criminal or something like that): the first step is always: talk to the person directly yourself.  That’s so important for so many reasons.  It gives the chance to calm down and formulate your actual concern: maybe it’s not as big a deal as you originally thought.  And if you’re going to risk disturbing someone’s inner peace with some kind of criticism, it better be important and legitimate enough, that you’re willing to suffer a little yourself, by having this hard conversation.  And you’re the one directly affected, so it makes sense.  “Hey man, what you said to me the other day really hurt my feelings” is a lot more powerful and potentially transformative thing to hear than “somebody told me you were mean to them.”  Also this is a good protection against gossip and the sin of detraction, which is when you go around broadcasting other people’s faults when you don’t need to.  Always start one-on-one. 

But of course sometimes this doesn’t work.  So step 2 is to try again, with the person directly, but this time bringing along a couple of other interested parties to show that you’re not alone in this, that you’re not overreacting, and so that, honestly, you have some cover if things escalate any further.  And that will often work: when someone sees that it’s not just a conflict of personalities; other people see this too; maybe there is something in my life that I need to work on or correct.  But even that won’t always work, and that’s when the Lord suggests getting the church involved, or whatever the appropriate “authority” might be, given the subject matter.  And if that doesn’t work, that’s when you get to throw in the towel: that’s when you know you’ve done everything you can.  This strategy works with problems in the church, problems at work, problems in the family, problems among friends, basically every possible context.  So next time you’ve got some kind of personal problem: just remember “Matthew 18.”  And if you can’t remember, just email me and I’ll remind you where to find this extremely helpful Human Resources guidebook. 

And, this matters.  It truly does.  Christ says, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  Your decisions, your commitment to working through your problems in a way that respects everyone’s human dignity, that doesn’t condemn but gives space for conversion, your legitimate love that prompts the concern that you have, your courage in being willing to have the hard conversation and not pass it off to someone else: these things matter.  They have eternal consequences.  “What’s bound on earth is bound in heaven, and what’s loosed on earth is loosed in heaven.”  What you refuse to let go of here on earth, won’t be let go in heaven.  But what you do resolve here, the harmony that you do foster among the people in your life here on earth: that harmony will carry through as part of the eternal bliss of heaven.  It’s worth it.  Even if it’s hard, it’s worth it.  We rely on the wisdom of God, both in general and in the beautiful specifics such as this.  We allow his wisdom to transform our minds to think more like Christ, and to live our lives in the power and wisdom of God, who is our justice and our peace.