September 7^th 2014.  TWENTY THIRD SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Gospel: Matthew 18:15-20

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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GOSPEL Matthew 18:15-20

Jesus said to his disciples:

‘If your brother does something wrong, go and have it out with him alone, between your two selves.

If he listens to you, you have won back your brother.

If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you:

the evidence of two or three witnesses is required to sustain any charge.

But if he refuses to listen to these,

report it to the community;

and if he refuses to listen to the community,

treat him like a pagan or a tax collector.

‘I tell you solemnly, whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.

‘I tell you solemnly once again, if two of you on earth agree to ask anything at all, it will be granted to you by my Father in heaven.

For where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them.’

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . The Gospel passage gives us various strategies for correcting a wayward brother or sister. We are firstly to talk to them in private. If this doesn’t work, speak to them in public. If this fails, the wayward person is to become for us like the pagan or publican. Does this mean that we ostracize them or cast them out from the community? No! The ultimate goal of all of this process is to gain back a lost brother or sister, not to cast them out! In Matthew’s Gospel, the pagan and the publican are the very ones who are to be loved unconditionally. The Sermon on the Mount tells us to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us. Do we think that Jesus died for everyone except the pagan and publican? Jesus asks us to try firstly to win back the wayward person through dialogue. If this fails, then we are to be silent and love the person unconditionally. Sometimes we proceed in the opposite manner! We demand that the wayward person conform completely to our rules and regulations before allowing them into “communion” with us. Salvation, communion are made conditional on conformation to rules and rubrics. Love is given conditionally when certain formulae are met. But rubrics do not save anyone! It is love that saves. Regulations must be in the service of the spirit that seeks communion. How often people in our church do things that seem objectively good but these things are done in a spirit that goes against communion! God sees the love with which we do things. The material fact of our actions is of secondary importance. What Christ yearns for above all is that his Church should be a beacon of love and communion for the world.

Ezekiel is asked to speak forthrightly, but this is with a view to bringing people to salvation

In the first reading the Lord appoints Ezekiel as a sentry to the house of Israel. This means that if the Lord asks Ezekiel to say something, then that thing must be said. If a wicked man faces death, then Ezekiel must tell the wicked man that he is going to die. This gives the wicked man the chance to convert. If he refuses to convert, then that is his own problem. But if Ezekiel remains silent, then the fault lies with Ezekiel.

Rules and rubrics will not bring the wayward person to salvation, and the priority of this passage is to bring the wayward to salvation

This passage gives us a good key for reading the celebrated account in Matthew’s Gospel on fraternal correction. “If your brother does something wrong, go and have it out with him alone, between your two selves. If he listens to you, you have won back your brother.” This is the theme to the passage – the effort of winning back a brother or sister. We are not told to unleash on our brother all of our reserves of ecclesial acidity, an element that is very common in our sacristies. There is often a tendency to point out rules and regulations; to state that things must be done in a certain way. But precision and exactness have no real role to play in the business of reconciliation. Norms and rubrics do not provide salvation for anyone and they have no value unless they are in the service of the spirit of gaining back a brother or sister.

All of the strategies in the Gospel are strategies for winning back a wayward brother or sister. This Gospel gives us no justification for ostracizing those who do wrong

Why should we go to speak to a brother who has done wrong? In order to bring him to justice? In order to make him understand? In order to correct him? No, we speak to him so that he will be brought back to life. A brother or a sister is something that I cannot lose without great loss to myself. And the Gospel gives us a series of strategies for winning them back. First we must speak to them alone, then in the presence of other people. If they still will not listen then they must become for me like the pagan and the publican. Does this mean that they are to be ostracized by the community? No! In the Gospel of Matthew the pagan and the publican are the very ones that we are to give our lives for! The Sermon on the Mount tells us to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us. If the various strategies of speaking to the wayward brother or sister fail, then at that point we are asked to love them, full-stop! This text cannot be used to justify the doctrine of excommunication. Various passages from St Paul speak clearly of the practice of excommunication, which is a sacrosanct procedure aimed ultimately at bringing the brother to his senses and winning him back. The parable of the lost sheep tells us that the wayward person must always be sought out. The point is that there are various ways of seeking him out. There is the road of dialogue and then there is the road of loving him simply for who he is. The business of changing the heart of another is the most difficult of all things to obtain. In the end, communion is the goal that we must yearn for. We must built a church that is one only, not a series of separated perfectionisms. The church is not a communion of individual parts that are unable to dialogue with each other. Often we foment and perpetuate divisions by taking positions that seem reasonable and correct in themselves. It is easy to divide and fragment but it is an almighty task to build and to heal.

If the wayward person refuses to come to his senses, then we must simply love him unconditionally

When Jesus says that the wayward person is to become for us like the pagan and the publican, then he means that we are to give our lives for him. Do we think that the Lord died for everyone with the exception of the pagan and the publican? This is the Gospel of Matthew in which the very publican is called by Jesus to follow him! The pagan and the publican are the ones that must be loved for what they are in themselves.

God looks at the love with which we perform our actions, not the material fact of the actions themselves

This Sunday we are asked to consider all of our fraternal relationships in the light of one priority: communion. If we are not in communion with our brothers and sisters then everything else is of trivial significance. The fixations I have about the material changes that are needed for reconciliation are often best left aside. It is better to work from the little thread of communion that still exists between us. We are still brothers and sisters of the same Church and children of the same Father. It is much easier to feed the poor than to be reconciled with a brother or sister! It is easier to do great acts of charity than to overcome our pride and accept the offences of others! Sometimes people in our church do things that are objectively good but they do them with a spirit that goes against communion. God sees these things very clearly. What God looks for is the love with which we perform our actions, not the material fact of the actions themselves. That the Lord will grant us this Sunday to attain the thing that is of the greatest importance: union between all of us. This is what Christ yearned for most of all, that his Church would be a beacon of unity for the whole world.