The kingdom of heaven is built on family relationships, for in the latter half of Matthew 18, the Father's ‘little ones’ are suddenly identified as ‘your brother’. And here we learn about our Father's attitude towards his sons and daughters when they sin, and about what our attitudes and actions towards them should be.

From the parable of the shepherd, we see first that our Father shows great concern for any ‘little ones’ who wander off. Each one is too valuable to lose. And, from Jesus' commentary on the parable, we see that the Father still considers these wandering ‘little ones’ to be his sons and daughters. Their angels remain in his presence, and he is ready to do anything to find them and try to restore them to his presence.

Secondly, Jesus expects us to have the same attitude towards the Father's ‘little ones’, our ‘brothers and sisters’. But his challenges and warnings indicate that we are more likely: to ‘despise’ wandering and erring ones, to give up easily on them when our efforts are not immediately successful, and to stop forgiving them after several repeated offences. So he gives directives to both individual disciples and the community (the church) on how to win back and restore a wandering one. Thus, going to the community is not about ‘ganging up’ on the sinner to publicly shame him or her into compliance. Rather it is about getting help to restore the wanderer. Broken relationships are in focus, not the threat of sin to the community. And Jesus himself promised to be present when any two or three in the community agree together to ask for his help in seeking the restoration of a brother or sister. It is only when many such efforts have been exhausted that the community must reluctantly stop treating the sinful ‘little one’ as a brother or sister.

But what did Jesus mean when he spoke of ‘binding and loosing’? In Matthew's account of Peter's confession of faith (16:17-19, Med.#84), Jesus used ‘binding’ in parallel with human blindness and the gates of Hades. For other people to receive revelation like Peter and make the same confession, the powers of human unbelief and Death need to be bound. Jesus then used ‘loosing’ in parallel with him building his church [Gr. ekklesia] as believers like Peter make use of the ‘keys (authority) of the kingdom’ that he has given them. In Matthew 18, the ‘binding and loosing’ also refers to the power of ‘the community’ [Gr. ekklesia] to help people. Yet this time it is not about helping people enter the kingdom community, but about helping people be restored to it after they have sinned. In this case, what needs to be bound is our sinful tendency to despise the sinner, and to tire of forgiving them. And it is our united prayers, our seeking of the wandering and fallen little ones and our forgiving them that help ‘loose’ fallen little ones back into the fellowship of the Father's family kingdom.

Forgiving the Father's ‘little ones’ is also the theme of the second parable. For the king represents the Father of the family kingdom, and the two servants represent two brothers in it. So I learn, thirdly, that my failure to forgive a sibling who has wronged me in some small way can not only blind me to the mercy I need (or needed) from God for my own more serious sins, but it can also lead to me abusing them, especially if I have greater status in the community. In the parable, the unforgiving servant is portrayed as someone with enough social status to get the other servant publicly condemned and imprisoned. Though the Father longs to show mercy to all his children, it is the sinful behavior of the unmerciful already-forgiven-senior disciples in the church that really incurs his anger.

Finally, I learn that more severe measures may be necessary to rescue and restore these more established ‘sinners’ to a healthy place in the Father's family, than with ‘little ones’ who fail or wander. Yet too often in our churches we get things backwards: showing long-suffering concern for the abusive ‘high status’ siblings while despising the wounded or newly arrived ‘little ones’. Thus, abused wives are often told by church leaders to ‘pay what they owe’ in their marriage vows—to confess their own shortcomings and just forgive the abusive husband. Or the new believer is told to just forgive the church elder with the sharp, bitter tongue.

As mature brothers and sisters, we must stand together to lovingly challenge such abusive behaviors. But we must also unite in prayer for them to gain a revelation of the Father, for in Jesus' parable they have a very limited view of themselves: as servants of a severe divine Master and not as sons and daughters of a loving Father. And if we are going to help them ‘cut’ the offending behaviors out of their lives before they seriously wound any more of the Father’s little ones, we may need to courageously limit their involvement in the church and require them to submit to a period of regular counseling and accountability.

It is not the Father's will that any of his children be lost—wandering little ones or abusive siblings. Do you see yourself, and your brothers and sisters, the way the Father does—as too valuable to lose?