Whenever I feel offended, I think I need to justify myself and punish or correct the other person. I am the center of the process. I am the important person in the equation because I have been offended. Most people, even those who call themselves Christians, tend to deal with personal offenses through the Old Testament adage of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Other people just swallow their anger, thinking they are being holy. That usually lasts until they reach a breaking point and explode, not just to the offender but to everyone else around them.
Jesus charts a different path to common forgiveness. The heart of the process is sin and the other. The text speaks of the other’s sin against you. It doesn’t say if I have offended or insulted you, although that is what each of us feels. Also note the text says: If he listens to you, you have saved your brother. The importance is to remove the other from sin, not to justify our own anger or our sense of self-righteousness.
For Jesus, this whole new path of correction and forgiveness is connected with the local community of faith and with prayer. Individual offenses affect the local community, whose main form of witness to Christ’s resurrection is communal sharing, forgiveness, generosity and love.
Image: http://mjdasma.blogspot.com/2020/09/reflection-for-sunday-september-6.html