Christ the Teacher: The Kingdom’s Life
Christ as Teacher in His Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5) laid out the Message of His Kingdom, while Mt. 10 saw His discourse to His Kingdom’s Leaders. His Sermon on the Parables expounded that Kingdom’s Lessons (Mt. 13). The fourth of five “Great Discourses” in Matthew’s Gospel (Mt. 18) addresses that Kingdom’s Life.
Christ at Caesarea Philippi told His disciples that He is the Messiah and that He is going to Jerusalem to begin His reign as the Messiah-King (Mt. 16). Peter features in this as Our Lord proclaimed Peter the foundation-stone of His Church after Peter professed Christ the Son of God.
Christ singled Peter out further from the other disciples after that instance in Mt. 17. He selected Peter with James and John to witness His Transfiguration while the other disciples unsuccessfully tried to exorcise a demon from an epileptic boy. Christ paid the Temple Tax for Himself and Peter alone, miraculously drawn from a caught fish, not for the other disciples.
All that preferential treatment led the disciples to ask Our Lord who the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven was. Would Peter be Our Lord’s first man in the monarchy Christ would soon establish? Their Pharisaical expression of concern over potential status in what they thought would be autonomy from Roman occupation carries a biting irony as what Our Lord refers to by beginning His Reign is His humiliating, redemptive death.
Christ responds to their self-serving interest by expounding, with three illustrations, what life in His Kingdom would be like. Childlike dependence, a shepherd’s honest compassion, and regal forgiveness are characteristics of disciples’ life in His Eternal Kingdom, lived in whatever political or social situation.
Childlike Dependence (18:1-9)
At that hour, the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And Jesus called a little child to him, set him in their midst, and said, “Amen I say to you, unless you turn and become like little children, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whoever, therefore, humbles himself as this little child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
His first illustration is a living example, while the next two will be verbal ones. When asked who the most enviable person in His Kingdom would be, Our Lord points out the least enviable person to the questioners. Children have low social status and are subject to other people, they are dependent upon others. Yet, our Lord changes the question’s framework to say that not only are they the greatest, but that emulating them is necessary to enter Heaven.
An Old Testament example makes Our Lord’s meaning clearer. God forbade Aaron entrance into the Heavenly figure of the Jewish Promised Land and consigned him to an earlier death. That happened to Aaron because of his sins, of which God specifically mentions Meriba where Aaron along with Moses did not trust God to bring water out of a rock to alleviate His People’s thirst in the desert (Nm. 20:24). Jesus echoes the temporal consequence of exclusion from the Promised Land because of Aaron’s lack of faithful trust here when He imposes the much more severe consequence of exclusion from Heaven for failure in childlike trust in God.
The more we love God, the more we minimize our own excellence. Conversely, the more opposite of a child we are in undue pride, the more we have an inordinate self-opinion, lack of necessary trust in God.1 What pride prevents, and childlike trust enables, is a fundamental Christian attitude, dependence. Without dependence on God, we cannot live in His Kingdom.
“A Catholic is someone who affirms his total, complete, continual dependence on God: whence his humility, his adoration, his profound reverence toward God, and his gratitude to God.”2 Childlike dependence is a consequence of closeness to God. The more aware we are of Him, the more we reverence Him, and the more aware we are of our relative value to Him. Childlike humility is necessary because, without it, pride dictates behavior, and then living in reference to God as King is impossible. Unless we are like those trusting, dependent children, we cannot enter the Kingdom.
“And whoever receives one such little child for my sake, receives me. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.
“Woe to the world because of scandals! For it must needs be that scandals come, but woe to the man through whom scandal does come! And if thy hand or thy foot is an occasion of sin to thee, cut it off and cast it from thee! It is better for thee to enter life maimed or lame, than, having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire. And if thy eye is an occasion of sin to thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee! It is better for thee to enter life with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into hellfire.”
If growing in childlike dependence is a priority, impeding it is a serious matter. It is serious enough that leading Christlike dependent children into sin causes grave consequences, having a millstone hung around the offender’s neck and being drowned in the sea.
The millstone, mola asinaria, was a large grain-grinding stone in a rotary mill that was so heavy it needed to be pulled by a donkey. In contrast, the mola of Mt. 24:41 describing two people grinding at the millstone at the time of judgment was small enough to be turned by hand. Our Lord specifically says mola asinaria here, as its weight would carry an offender to the depths of the sea,3 a place of no return. The possessed pigs from Our Lord’s exorcism in Mt. 8:32 dwell there, as at the demons’ request Christ allowed them to jump into those watery depths.
Scandal from the Greek scandalon carries the sense of a stumbling-block that causes a fall.4 To be a spiritual stumbling-block to a fellow citizen of Christ’s Kingdom is such a serious thing that it necessitates severe punishment to which death is preferable.5 No matter how painful, what leads to it must be amputated. Preserving childlike dependence is a necessary good, and so avoiding being a sinful influence is a grave obligation.
A Shepherd’s Honest Compassion (18:10-20)
From consideration of the fundamental childlike dependence in a Kingdom’s citizen, Our Lord illustrates a consequent attitude of honest compassion by the metaphor of a shepherd and his lost sheep.
“See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you, their angels in heaven always behold the face of my Father in heaven. For the Son of Man came to save what was lost. What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them strays, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the mountains, and go in search of the one that has strayed? And if he happens to find it, amen I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray. Even so, it is not the will of your Father in heaven that a single one of these little ones should perish.”
If we take “childlike” in the broader context of “Christlike,” the passage carries a universal application. The Archangel Raphael told Tobias that he interceded for Tobias and his family when they faithfully did good to others (Tob. 12:12-15). Raphael, an angel standing before God, cares for men. He, great in the Kingdom of Heaven, takes active concern for suffering humanity.
In doing so, Raphael imitates God (Ez. 34:11-16), who indicated that he would go to the lengths to save souls that a shepherd would in order to save a sheep, a prized financial asset. God foretold in that passage that a Davidic shepherd would come who would care for them with that same concern. “And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David: he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God: and my servant David the prince in the midst of them: I the Lord have spoken it.”
God’s particular compassion toward a strayed sheep, leaving the rest, is not surprising. He pursues the contrite on dangerous mountain paths to guide them back and leaves the ninety-nine self-reliant,6 because He gains more joy from someone who recognizes their sin like the Publican than he who thinks himself just like the Pharisee (Lk. 18:9-14).
A general values more a contrite soldier who turns from flight and fights as opposed to one who complacently never runs from battle but never risks himself, since the returning soldier tends to fight more bravely.7 A good general, our Lord values the repentant sinner more than the complacent member of His flock.
“But if thy brother sin against thee, go and show him his fault, between thee and him alone. If he listens to thee, thou hast won thy brother.”
Our Lord tells them their compassion should be honest, showing a brother his fault. Elencho appears in the Greek, bringing his sin home to him in an impactful way. That comes when that correction comes from true charity, love of God and neighbor.
Jm. 5:20, “Let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” Though fraternal correction may be an uncomfortable thing, it carries rich rewards. St. James mirrors the language of Prov. 10:12, “Hatred stirreth up strifes: but charity covereth all sins.” Solomon contrasts selfishness and love, expressed in our current passage by compassionate honesty. The former destroys relationships and the latter rebuilds them.
We cannot ignore others’ sins but show their evil to them when we can, not to wound but to help amendment. If rebuke comes from wounded self-love, it is worthless. If true correction comes from true concern to help someone struggling, it is incredibly valuable.8
Regal Forgiveness (18: 21-35)
“I say to you further, that if two of you shall agree on earth about anything at all for which they ask, it shall be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together for my sake, there am I in the midst of them.” Then Peter came up to him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to thee seven times, but seventy times seven.”
Peter enters the narrative wishing to uphold his perceived heightened status. He generously suggests forgiving an offender seven times. Rabbinical teaching posits forgiving three times, following the Prophet Amos, himself a shepherd sent by God to rebuke kings. “Thus, saith the Lord: For three crimes of Damascus, and for four, I will not convert it.”9 Peter suggests doubling that number and adding a seventh time for good measure!
Our Lord, in response, references unlimited evil to illustrate unlimited forgiveness. Lamech, Cain’s descendant and the world’s first polygamist, boasted of killing someone for wounding him in Gen. 4:24, invoking vengeance “seventy-sevenfold,” taken as an illustration of the arrogant escalation of violence. Here Christ says that forgiveness should be “seventy times seven,” meaning as unlimited as Lamech’s evil.
Lamech is the inversion of Christlike unlimited capacity to forgive. Our Lord’s teaching is foreshadowed by David regally forgiving his enemy Saul in 1 Kings 26:23, “The Lord will render to everyone according to his justice and his fidelity, and he hath delivered thee this day into my hand, and I would not put forth my hand against the Lord’s anointed.”
“This is why the kingdom of heaven is likened to a king who desired to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun the settlement, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And as he had no means of paying, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. But the servant fell down and besought him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will pay thee all!’ And moved with compassion, the master of that servant released him, and forgave him the debt.”
Our Lord places a parabole next to His point to bring the lesson home.10 The servant here owed his master ten thousand talents, one talent being worth six thousand denarii. A denarius was a day’s wage, so ten thousand talents would be the equivalent of 200,000 years’ wages, a number indicating the infinite.
That number magnifies the problem of the servant’s debt and illustrates the master’s mercy. Our Lord wants to bring home how much we are indebted to God and how merciful God is to forgive us.
“But as that servant went out, he met one of his fellow-servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and he laid hold of him and throttled him, saying, ‘Pay what thou owest.’ His fellow-servant therefore fell down and began to entreat him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will pay thee all.’ But he would not; but went away and cast him into prison until he should pay what was due.”
A hundred denarii, a third of a year’s wages, is a reasonable debt to pay off, unlike the unforgiving servant’s ten thousand talents. The unforgiving servant shows what he truly is by refusing to have patience. His master pardoned him for an unforgivable debt, and he responded by refusing to have patience with a fellow servant who asked for more time to pay off a forgivable one.
We are unforgiving servants. We make the pretense of humility, falling down, begging for God to free us from our debts. In return for His forgiveness, God demands regal forgiveness of us with fellow servants, and we refuse. God has given us great things, and we give little.11
“His fellow-servants therefore, seeing what had happened, were very saddened, and they went and informed their master of what had taken place. Then his master called him, and said to him, ‘Wicked servant! I forgave thee all the debt because thou didst entreat me. Shouldst not thou also have had pity on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee?’ And his master, being angry, handed him over to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. So also, my heavenly Father will do to you, if you do not each forgive your brothers from your heart.”
The servant’s master makes a point in his punishment. He will be in prison until he can pay off 200,000 years’ wages, never. That punishment is just, as taking people as bondservants for unpaid debt was a customary practice. The Prophet Eliseus miraculously multiplied a widow’s oil supply in 4 Kings 4:1 so that she could sell it and prevent a similar punishment, a creditor enslaving her sons. God’s punishments for refusing to practice regal forgiveness will also be just.
Our servant here talking to his master the second time has no pleas to make. He cannot respond to the sentence as at someone’s just judgment no excuses are possible; they were not for that servant, and they won’t be for us when we stand in front of Almighty God.12
Childlike Dependence, Honest Compassion, Regal Forgiveness
Our Lord teaches us how we are to live life in His Kingdom. Childlike dependence makes us friends of the King, honest compassion with our fellow citizens. Regal forgiveness enables participation in the King’s own mind, and neglect to do so merits just punishment.
Endnotes
1 Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew (Dolorosa Press 2012), p. 605.
2 Archbishop Lefebvre, Retreat for the Sisters of the Society, Saint-Michel-en-Brenne, Quasimodo 1986, 2nd Conference).
3 Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew, p. 605.
4 Aquinas, Catena Aurea (London: John Henry Parker, 1842 [Albany, NY: Preserving Christian Publications, 2020 reprint]), vol. 1, part 2, p. 627, citing Rabanus Maurus, Commentaria in Matthaeum.
5 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II–II, q. 43, a. 2.
6 Aquinas, Catena Aurea, p. 631, citing Bede, Homiliae Evangelii.
7 Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew, p. 614.
8 Aquinas, Catena Aurea, p. 632, citing Augustine, Sermo 82.1.
9 Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 86b–87a (London: Soncino Press, 1938), citing Amos 1:3.
10 Aquinas, Catena Aurea, p. 642, citing Jerome, Commentariorum in Matthaeum Libri IV.
11 Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew, p. 627.
12 Aquinas, Catena Aurea, p. 646, citing Remigius, Expositio in Matthaeum.
TITLE IMAGE: Christ Blessing Little Children, Charles Lock Eastlake (1793–1865).
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