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Back when the internet was young and AOL was plugging people into it seemingly en masse, I vividly remember being warned by parents, teachers and anyone with a brain that I should never ever use my real name online. The reason was simple: Once someone knows your name, they likely will find other things about you and have access to you. That knowledge of how to address and reach you became a power to impact your life, and thus the care and safeguards. We’ve come a long way from that world, and yet there’s still a part of that advice that resonates even as we live online. Hence the seeming scandal of Jesus’ words at the end of our Gospel today: “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.”

Really? It’s that easy to call on the Lord our God? The ’90s internet-safety mind reels. Shouldn’t he at least have a waitlist or some sort of triage? “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, you can then make an appointment and get on my calendar,” for instance. And yet, Jesus makes himself alarmingly, intimately available to those gathered in his name.

We’re on family terms with Jesus. After all, we bear his image and likeness, and by grace are adopted into the family of God. Moreover, God has given us his name that we might call him. By virtue of our baptism and when we receive the Eucharist, Christ dwells powerfully in our midst. All this supports what we’ve heard: When we who have been so blessed gather in his name, God generously bestows his presence in the community as well.

This announcement of radical intimacy and community also provides an interpretive key to the instructions on conflict resolution that immediately precede it. We are exhorted and required by Christ to resolve conflicts in an alarmingly personal way: By actually talking to the person and treating them as if they were a human being in which Christ dwells.

Why address someone who has wronged us in person first? Because both we and they bear Christ within us. Why then, if necessary, with one or two others? Because Christ is present in that small community as well. Then, if ultimately necessary, get the whole church, the body of Christ involved. These instructions require a great deal of faith and trust in God’s providence and presence. Yet as Christians, we are precisely a people of faith and trust in that same presence and providence.

When we follow Our Lord’s advice, we find ourselves living out two very Catholic concepts: The first is subsidiary — a term meaning that problems should be solved by the competent authority closest to that issue before escalating. Bigger groups or authorities should never solve something that a smaller or closer one can solve equally as well. This is a bedrock social teaching of our faith and a necessary tonic for our time. (Both the advice on conflict resolution being personal and the principle of subsidiarity.)

The second is gradual working from one concept of justice to another. In Hebrew, there is a distinction drawn between “riv” and “mishpat.” A riv is generally a more personal complaint between one person to another. Mishpat generally involves a court with a judge and legal decrees. Riv is personal. Mishpat is colder, more abstract.

Here, the Lord shows a preference for beginning with a riv in successive circles before landing in the final mishpat of the church’s judgment. Interesting enough, in the book of Job, containing one of the longest biblical dialogues between God and a man and specifically about resolving injustice and the problem of evil, we find it entirely filled with riv dialogue, and only once or twice arguably mishpat. Job gives God a riv and then God gives Job one right back. They’re arguing as family with love in the background, not as corporations waging war in court. Even in the Old Testament, God prefers personal intimacy, mercy over judgment.

The news is good for us: We bear God’s image and he is present in us in many ways, even inner conflicts. We know where to find him and how to get him to show up. All we have to do is gather in his name.