Am I My Brother's Keeper?

 

23^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ez 33:7-9
Rm 13:8-10
Mt 18:15-20

The scriptures today are pretty clear: you are accountable for your neighbor’s actions. If your neighbor is sinning, it is your responsibility to talk to him about it, educate him if he is ignorant of his sin, and call him to repentance and conversion. He may accept what you say and change, or he may reject you outright, but if you don’t you try you will be held accountable for the consequences of his actions.

Wow. I don’t want to do that. I don’t know how to do that. Am I my brother’s keeper? Who am I to judge?

This flies right in the face of common wisdom today. You live your truth and I’ll live mine, and people can do whatever they like as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. But Ezekial and Jesus are saying that we are all interconnected and responsible for each other. We are all called to help each other work out our salvation. No man is an island, and we aren’t saved individually but in community. We are one body, the Body of Christ, and are all called to work together in that type of intimate unity. The business of discipleship is the salvation of souls. A Christian admonition is meant to guide someone who has lost their way back onto the path to heaven.

But if that’s the case, and the actions of each individual affect the entire body, then it’s also in my best interests personally to help the body be free of sin. Your sin has consequences not just for you but for me as well. There are no private sins, no victimless crimes. My sin affects you, and yours affect me. St. Paul says that the wages of sin is death. Suffering and death are not the result of God’s actions but ours. We all experience suffering and death, even if we are in a state of grace. Jesus suffered and died, even though he was completely without sin.

Sin builds upon sin so that ultimately the individual’s sin affects the whole of humanity. There are sins that you did not commit that affect your life profoundly. There is individual sin and there are corporate or societal sins. All the great isms of history. Racism, sexism, Nazism. You may not be racist or sexist or a Nazi, but those collective sins affect you whether you committed them yourself or not.

So it makes perfect sense that if we are all affected by the sins of others, we are also responsible for trying to correct and forgive those sins. The scriptures are also pretty clear on how we are to do that. And it is all based around love and humility. We correct one another because we have a profound concern for each other’s welfare, not just our immediate wellbeing and happiness but our eternal happiness as well.

If you were here last week you heard Fr. Gray preach on the idea of rebuking those in error. As you recall, last week’s gospel had Jesus rebuking St. Peter. Get behind me Satan. That was pretty harsh, and Jesus didn’t mince any words. Fr. Gray spoke of how difficult it is for us to experience correction, to accept the rebuke. It is always uncomfortable to have our faults pointed out to us, especially if we are called to change our ideas or behavior.

This week we hear the flip side of that when we are called to correct others. That is also a very uncomfortable thing to do. Most of us do not like confrontation and avoid doing anything that may cause people to not like us. But when we do rebuke, we so often do it poorly, and actually drive people further away from us. So many people these days rebuke based upon a difference of opinion or political ideology. We see it every day in the cancel culture. It’s ironic that the more we talk about tolerance the less tolerant we become of people who don’t share our own beliefs. That type of rebuke or lashing out or downright meanness is not based on love, but on hatred.

But I think most times we rebuke someone without really thinking about it. We just react in the moment, and it’s counterproductive. We are often harsh and condemning when we react in a situation, and that is not the way to win someone over to the gospel. It’s all in your approach. It’s all about your intent.

Ezekial talks about sin in general today, while Jesus refers to how to treat the person who sins against you. In both instances, the first thing you do is pray for the person or persons or institution that is acting sinfully, especially if they are persecuting you. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. No lasting spiritual behavior change happens without prayer, lots of prayer.

Next, make no assumptions, even if you know the situation and person intimately, even if they tell you what they are doing. Do not make assumptions based upon your limited knowledge, because you will never know the whole story. Always start from the assumption of a person’s ignorance versus malice. Even if you know the person is living a potentially compromising lifestyle you really have no idea if they first know and believe it to be sinful or even if they are acting sinfully in their situation. That is where we can become judgmental. Do not make assumptions on individuals based upon their age, sex, political affiliation, race, religion, or sexual orientation. Your role is to gently and lovingly be open to hearing what they have to say and then present the truth to them as taught by Christ and his Church. Our job is to know, to inform, and influence, not judge and condemn. We are called to be prudent, which means to act with the proper people in the proper time and place, with the proper message.

Of course, this assumes you actually know the truth, and are not acting upon your personal belief, biases, or what you have always thought to be true. Check it out and get your facts straight. When someone posts something on social media that contradicts the truths of the faith, especially if they profess to be Catholic, don’t attack them or ridicule them. Don’t make it personal. Instead, post an applicable teaching from an authoritative Catholic source. Call them to conversion. Inform, influence, and persuade. Let the Holy Spirit do the rest.

If someone does something wrong that you are personally aware of, you have a responsibility to talk to them about it. Sometimes people are unaware that they have hurt you or that what they did was wrong. There’s a difference between thinking something is a sin and knowing it is a sin and doing it anyway. I think we have raised entire generations that have no awareness that some things they think are natural and good are actually wrong. It is our responsibility to inform them of reality, as we have been taught by Jesus and his church. And, as Jesus tells us today, not just the responsibility but the authority to do so.

But what if they don’t listen, or outright reject our message? Jesus says we are to bring in backup. Take a couple of witnesses with us and try again. In Jewish law, all it took to establish a case was to have the collaborating testimony of two or three witnesses. Take Jesus with you. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst them.”

If even that fails, take it to the church.  Every sin especially affects the church, the Body of Christ. Jesus clearly states here that the church has both the responsibility and the authority to judge questions of faith and morals. When he told his apostles, “Whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth is loosed in heaven” he gave them the authority to judge actions and establish laws that apply here on earth that are backed by the authority of God himself. So, the Church must be involved.

Finally, Jesus proclaims judgment on the unrepentant sinner. Treat them as you would treat a gentile or tax collector. And we know how the Jews treated those folks. They had no contact with gentiles and they ostracized and abused tax collectors. That seems pretty harsh and doesn’t really paint a picture of a merciful Jesus.

But it’s not judgmental to give someone a chance to repent. Several chances, in fact. And how did Jesus treat tax collectors? He ate with them. One of them was actually an apostle. The door was always open, but Jesus never pulled any punches with sinners. He always called them to repentance and always forgave and welcomed them back into relationship with him when they did.

That’s what people do when they love each other. Jesus wasn’t laying out a legalistic process for judging sinners. He is telling us to be persistent and gentle in calling people back into relationship. And most of all, he is telling us to try, at least try. I think that many of us don’t even take that first step when someone hurts us. We don’t have the courage to tell the person how we feel and reach out to them. We keep quiet when we see injustice and oppression in society. We don’t think we can make a difference. Most of us just let it go and write it off. Or we just steep in our bitterness and resentment.

We must always treat sinners with compassion because we are all sinners who want and need compassion ourselves. Loving our neighbor as ourselves means we treat them as we want to be treated, and nobody wants to feel condemned and outcast. We correct our children all the time when they do something wrong. We also punish them when necessary. We do that out of love for them because we do not want them to suffer any long term harmful consequences. That is not being judgmental, that is being responsible parents.

We are our brother’s keeper. We are all responsible for one another. Remember that admonishing the sinner is one of the spiritual works of mercy, along with instructing the ignorant, counseling the doubtful, and bearing patiently those who wrong us.

We are all just beggars looking to be fed. And so we must be there for one another. Just as we provide for the physical needs of people we must also look out for one another’s spiritual needs. We do it out of love. We do it because we want to be loved. The most loving thing you can do for someone is help them get to heaven, to be with the God who created them. To correct someone who sins is to show them the ultimate compassion.

It is to lead them to the thing that will bring them the greatest happiness.

Happiness does not come from doing whatever we want to do. Happiness comes from living as we were created to live, according to the commandments of the Lord. Those commandments are not just a set of arbitrary or oppressive rules. God set them up for us to guide us to him. Jesus said that we are his friends if we keep his commandments. He then gave us the responsibility and authority to help one another keep them.

That’s not being judgmental. Only God will judge us. One day each and every one of us will stand before the Lord, alone, and there will be judgment. That is the moment when we will feel the effects of the gentle corrections we had received during our lives here on Earth. How we reacted to those corrections will make all the difference. At that moment we will also experience the joyful consequences of how we responded to those times we were called to be loving to our neighbor. And that includes when we were called to show mercy to the sinner.

For we will be shown mercy to the extent that we show mercy.

Life Finds a Way

 

16^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle A

 

Here we are in mid-summer, and since we’re in the Cycle A readings from the Gospel of Matthew, that means parables, lots of parables. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but since most of Jesus’ parables are around agricultural themes, summer is the perfect time for them since everything has been planted and is growing nicely around us. Last week we heard the parable of the sower planting the seeds. This week we see the seeds growing up leading to the harvest. And all is not good in the garden.

 

It’s funny that I was just quoting this parable to Nancy the other day, which I sometimes do, and which annoys her to no end. We have this young tree in our yard that we bought and planted a couple years ago, and it didn’t survive this last winter. It was obviously dead, and we were planning to dig it up and put something else in its place. But suddenly a small shoot sprang up at the base of the trunk that looked like it was from the tree itself. Then another and a third started growing, and it was coming from the root ball of the tree, even though the rest of the tree seemed dead.

 

Nancy asked if we should cut down the dead tree to allow the shoots to grow better, and I said I didn’t know if that would help the shoots or kill them also, and well, that’s when I quoted this parable, not knowing that it would be the readings for today. That’s when the eyes started to roll. Like in the parable, we decided to continue to water and fertilize it and let the entire thing grow together and perhaps in the fall it would become more apparent what to do. And you know, those little shoots have been growing like crazy. In just a few weeks they are already half the height of the tree itself!  It seems that what was apparently dead had hidden life within it, just beneath the surface, and given the chance has burst forth with great vigor. Remember that quote from Jurassic Park, “Life finds a way”?

 

This parable addresses a basic understanding of who we Christians see ourselves to be and how we are to engage with the world. How are the wheat and the weeds to live together, when they seem to be always struggling for life? Christians have always lived a dual life. We have been given such a strong hope in eternal life, in the good news of Jesus Christ. We know that we are not destined just for this world alone, that we are to live in the world but be not of it. We are people of life, but the reality of life is that wheat and weeds are all planted here together.

 

There are so many weeds in the world that try to choke out our life. Our inherent defense mechanisms often make us want to either attack them or withdraw to a safe place, to defend what we have and separate ourselves from the pain and the hurt. We should do neither if we are to be true tenders of the garden. We are called to engage the world and truly transform it through the love of Christ, just as he did. We must affect change from within, one human heart at a time.

 

I guess it was a thing back in Jesus’ day for someone to sow tares amongst an enemy’s wheat crop, and that it was really hard to tell them apart. That’s what made it so dangerous. It’s that way in life sometimes, too. It’s often hard to tell the wheat from the weeds. Sometimes what we think are weeds are actually wheat, and vice versa. It’s funny that we are the ones who usually identify with the wheat in this parable. We’re not the weeds. We’re the good folks who need to be protected, and I think we are for the most part. But maybe we play it too safe sometimes. We usually focus on the danger of the weeds choking out the wheat but what if the opposite happens? If we leave them to grow together perhaps the wheat will influence and change the weeds into wheat. There’s always hope that things will change. No one’s state is fixed forever in this life. We all can make choices for God up until the very end.

 

That small mustard seed of faith and that measure of yeast starts off in each individual long before it can affect anyone else. We need to take the time and effort to nurture our own fragile faith before we can ever influence others. We are ultimately responsible for our own salvation, but we are also called to be faithful stewards of the kingdom here on earth. Just as we pray for the grace and strength to persevere ourselves, we are called to go and make disciples of all nations. We are to till the field, nurture what seed has been planted, and never give up on anyone, including ourselves.

 

Remember the parable of the sower last week? The sower isn’t picky about where he throws the seed. He just spreads it everywhere and it falls where it may. Some falls on rocky or hard ground that rejects it and some falls on good soil where it has a chance to take root and grow. The outcome is not up to the sower, but with the ground. The seed is planted in everyone, and the measure of whether it grows into wheat or weed is the fruit it bears. We are the deciders of that. The seed is the Word of God, which is unchanging and the same for everyone. How we choose to respond to that word, how we choose to nurture it, tend it, spread it and cause it to grow and change us and the world is how we will be measured ourselves. No one is created a weed. We choose to be one or the other.

 

It can be hard to remain focused on our salvation. Sometimes the seed is dormant, like in the winter, and it’s hard for us to have hope. Sometimes we feel like my tree, dead on the outside, but deep down the root is still there, just waiting for the spring to come to burst forth. And oftentimes we just need a caring, kind person to gently tend us, even prune us, so that we can grow into our potential and bear fruit.

And we are called to nurture others just as we need nurturing ourselves.

 

Just as there is a sower there is also a reaper. God expects a return on his investment. We hear that all the time in Jesus’ parables. Jesus always offers hope but he also warns of the consequences of our decisions and actions. Wheat is wheat and weeds are weeds, and the two in the end cannot both be in the barn, because wheat is life and weeds choke that life. But it’s not our job to judge between them ourselves. Remember that it may not be apparent which is wheat and which is weed until the end. Our job is not to sow but to tend both the wheat and the weeds together.

 

Wait and see. You never know what might spring up. There’s always hope for a weed. Don’t rush to condemn, root out and destroy. Patiently tend to the field and let God sort it out in the end.

 

 

The Courage of Your Convictions

 

12^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle A

I find these readings today to be especially disturbing and challenging. It has a call to action that is very uncomfortable for me, because it is causing me to dig deep into what I believe and what I am being called to profess and defend. Whoever denies me before others I will deny before my Heavenly Father. How horrifying if that were the case.

As I’ve been following Justin Hibbard’s podcast, Why Catholic, which, by the way, I highly recommend, where he so clearly and articulately explains why he became a Catholic and also various Church teachings and beliefs, I have tried to discern for myself why I remain a Catholic. I mean, it’s not easy. I guess what it’s all boiled down to, it is here that I find the truth, and the answers to the most fundamental questions humanity faces. Who am I, why am I here, what is my purpose in life, how am I to live best with other people, and what is my future? I assume we all face those questions from time to time in our lives. At least I hope we do. I think it’s really important to find the truth, to know the truth, and to live the truth. Wouldn’t that be the definition of living my true self? Nobody wants to be living a lie. The truth is that God-shaped hole in ourselves that can be filled with nothing else.

But is there such a thing as truth? We hear people say all the time today that they want to live “their truth”, which supposes that truth is subjective, changeable, fluid. What does that mean? Can there be more than one truth? Is truth unchanging or is it just a matter of what you believe it to be? There is the saying that perception is reality, and that how we see things through the lens of our experience is how they really are, but that’s really just interpretation, not necessarily the truth. And when it comes to Jesus, does he change because our perceptions and experience of him may be different? Is he a different Lord to you than he is to me, just because we believe him to be different? That might be true if he is just a man, but not if he is God. God never changes, and neither do his commandments.

 If two people hold diametrically opposed beliefs on the truth of something, either one is right and the other is wrong, or they are both wrong. They can’t both be true.

Some things are what they are. Isn’t truth reality, and reality truth?  Your belief about them does not change their reality. If it can then we are standing on shifting sand, and we are living in confusion and fear. Relativism like that leads to chaos and upheaval and ultimately violence.

What is truth? That is what Pontius Pilate asked Jesus at his trial. It was in response to Jesus’ claim that he had come into the world to testify to the truth. And if I am a Catholic because I am seeking the truth, then I must be a disciple of Jesus whose purpose and mission was to testify to the truth. The supreme truth we profess is that Jesus is the Son of God, that he died for our sins and has opened heaven to us. The supreme truth we believe is our hope in eternal life. Jesus did not say he is a way, a truth, and a life. He did not say it was his way, or his truth, or his life. He said he is the way, the truth, and the life. There is no gray area there. He didn’t say we are to live our own truth, but his truth. And if I claim to have my own truth, isn’t that setting myself up as God? Either he is truth or he is a liar. If there is one God, and that God is truth, then there is one truth. And that is why I must follow him. That truth is the most powerful truth in all of history, and the most wonderful thing for all of humanity, and we are called as disciples to not only shout that from the rooftops but to defend it to the death, if necessary.

 It seems like Christianity, and particularly Catholicism, is under heavier attack these days in Western civilization than any other time in my lifetime. It is not just an undercurrent of bias and bigotry, it is now out in the open, brazen, and widespread. There have been waves of persecution throughout the ages, but this time it feels different. It is prevalent in the common wisdom, and has now become common practice in places and amongst large groups. It seems that truth itself is purposely under attack.

 Have you noticed anything like that? Maybe you have experienced that yourself in your interactions with people you work with, on social media, in your family? What are we as Catholics to do in response, especially in the public square? If we are living in a post-Christian, almost pagan society, it’s sort of like returning to the earliest days of the Church, and so Jesus’ message to his disciples is especially meaningful to us today.

How are we to react and respond, and defend the gospel these days? Sometimes the good that was done in secret comes to light, but not often. I think one of the problems we have as a church is that the good we do is often not brought to light. The darkness so easily obscures the light. Evil seems so overpowering. How do we build up the image of the Church in our own community? The good news of the gospel is that eventually the good will come to light, justice and peace will prevail. There is always hope.

Whoever denies me before others I will deny before my heavenly Father. We know the story of St. Peter, who denied Jesus three times. His denial was that he didn’t even know Jesus. He didn’t denounce Jesus or join in on the shouts for his condemnation that day during the trial. He simply denied that he even knew him. But the other apostles also denied Jesus by running away.

I can fully understand and relate to the apostles predicament. It is easy to be a disciple when you are in the presence daily of Jesus, witnessing his miracles, hearing his teaching, and basking in the light of his love. But when confronted by opposition, especially with mob violence, it is much harder to have the courage of your convictions. I think for us today it is easy to hold our beliefs to ourselves, to not rock the boat, to not be confrontational when we see our faith and our Lord being attacked.

How do we deny we know Jesus? I guess the first question should be, do we really know Jesus? Do we truly have a relationship with him through prayer? Do we get to know him through scripture? Do we fully participate in the holy sacrifice of the Mass and receive him worthily, body, soul and divinity, in the eucharist each and every week. Have we recognized his deep presence in our everyday lives, or is he on the periphery? We can’t defend what we do not know.

And then I guess we need to not be part of the problem. How often do we ourselves join in the chorus of criticism of the Church and not shout the goodness and joy of the gospel from the rooftops? Or, even worse, we are so apathetic and unaware that we don’t notice or even care? Is our denial the belief that there is not even anything to defend?

We also deny Jesus when we say nothing when he is blasphemed and belittled and attacked by society, by the mob. We deny Jesus when we allow his name to be dragged through the mud of popular opinion. Our Lord said we would suffer persecution for his sake, and that we are to take joy in that. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of slander against you because of me. And we have and we do.

But we are also called to defend our Lord. We can turn the other cheek personally ourselves and not return like for like, but we are not to deny our Lord. We can take our blows silently as he did, but we are not to say we do not even know him. The name of the Lord is sacred. Hallowed be your name, we pray. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, we are commanded. The same St. Peter who denied Jesus’ name wrote that there is no other name by which we are saved. If we do not defend that name, we in effect are denying Jesus to others. Take it personally. Defend your Lord as you would defend your children if they were being bullied.

And the best way to defend our Lord and confront our enemies is to pray for them. It has been great to see how some of our leaders and large groups of laity have responded to recent attacks. Through peaceful protests and prayer. Jesus said to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Some people think that is too passive and ineffective, and it is truly powerful. Jesus even prayed on the cross for forgiveness for those who were crucifying him. So keep praying, keep persevering in doing good and living your life as a true disciple. Don’t give up on the truth. Know it, understand it, and proclaim it from the rooftops.

It takes courage to defend what we believe. It is often a lonely path we take, and like Jeremiah the attacks can be overwhelming. Jesus tells his disciples today, “Fear Not”; have courage in the face of the opposition they will encounter when the preach and live the gospel. I tell my RCIA classes that when they make the decision to become Catholic and live as disciples, they are taking a risk. But it has really become real for me seeing what Justin Hibbard has been experiencing as he courageously states his beliefs in the public square. He has taken some hard hits from some of his closest friends and has actually lost some who could not understand nor accept his conversion.

Why are you Catholic? What do you believe to be the truth? How important is that truth to you, to your family, to your community, to the world, and to what ends will you go to defend it? It will take the courage of your convictions, and you may lose a lot, but you have so much more to gain. The flip side of Jesus’ admonition to us today is that if we defend him to the world he will also defend us to his Heavenly Father. It’s a two-way street.

But then, I am amazed that Jesus would acknowledge me at all. How wonderful an advocate I have in Jesus. I am so valued that he will stand up before the throne of the Father and plead my case. Why wouldn’t I be one of his messengers here on earth? I know that I am an imperfect disciple. I know that I fail spectacularly in living the gospel. I also know who is on my side.