I don’t like personal conflict.
I try to avoid it as much as possible.
Probably most Americans do. I’m
not sure what it’s like in other cultures, although I’ve heard of others where
open social confrontation is more common.
This Sunday’s readings deal with situations in which Christians have a
duty to confront one another. They don’t
make for comfortable reading in a culture that puts a high value on keeping the
peace and minding one’s own business.
1. The First Reading is the great “Watchman” passage from the prophet
Ezekiel:
Reading 1 Ez 33:7-9
Thus says the LORD:
You, son of man, I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel;
when you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me.
If I tell the wicked, "O wicked one, you shall surely die, "
and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked from his way,
the wicked shall die for his guilt,
but I will hold you responsible for his death.
But if you warn the wicked,
trying to turn him from his way,
and he refuses to turn from his way,
he shall die for his guilt,
but you shall save yourself.
You, son of man, I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel;
when you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me.
If I tell the wicked, "O wicked one, you shall surely die, "
and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked from his way,
the wicked shall die for his guilt,
but I will hold you responsible for his death.
But if you warn the wicked,
trying to turn him from his way,
and he refuses to turn from his way,
he shall die for his guilt,
but you shall save yourself.
Now Ezekiel was a prophet and
a priest, entrusted by virtue of his office with teaching the People of God the
ways of the Lord and the distinction between virtue and vice, holiness and sin.
The moral sense of this
Reading applies in the first place to those who are in an analogous situation
to Ezekiel in the Church, namely, the members of the hierarchy: pope, bishops,
priests. One of the roles of the
hierarchy is to warn the Church and the world of wickedness that leads to our
death. Mortal sin would certainly fit
that category.
It is the responsibility of
the bishop and the priests who assist him clearly to warn the Church—and the
world, too, if it is listening—of sins which lead to death. I can understand why this is not done more
than it is—it is a very uncomfortable thing for a parish priest to speak
clearly and openly about sins which are widespread and popular in the
culture. The parish priest, like all of
us, would prefer to be liked by everyone.
It’s awkward to stand at the back of Church and shake hands with a whole
bunch of people you have just strongly rebuked.
I’ve been in that situation during my Protestant pastor days, and it’s
no fun. One time, I had to preach on
marriage and point out the fact that cohabitation—living together in a sexual
relationship before being married—is a sin, and incompatible with a Christian
view of marriage, love, and family.
People got up and stormed out of my church, which shook me up. But was I wrong to be clear about what the
Bible teaches? The prophet Ezekiel would
not think so.
About two years ago, Pope
Francis had this experience, too. Asked
to address a group of engaged couples in Italy, and knowing that cohabitation
before marriage (fornication) has become the custom and habit rather than the
exception in Italy and throughout the Western world, he nonetheless knew God
was calling him to warn the young people about the dangers of unchastity before
marriage:
I do not
want to moralise, but I do want to say something that is not liked, something
unpopular. Even the pope sometimes has to take risks on things to tell the
truth. Love is in deeds, in how one communicates; love is very respectful of
people. It does not use people, i.e. love is chaste. And you, young people, in
this hedonistic world [of ours], in this world where only advertising, pleasure
. . . the good life . . . [prevail], I tell you: be chaste! Be chaste!
“Even the Pope sometimes has
to take risks on things to tell the truth.”
Here Pope Francis recognizes that the Papacy also is a position of a
watchman on the walls, whose duty as the successor of Peter is to warn Christians
and the world lovingly yet clearly of the dangers that destroy the soul.
This weekend poses a good
opportunity for us lay faithful to pray for courage on the part of the
hierarchy. We need leadership that is
not afraid to speak out about the favorite sins of our age, which all seem to
be offenses against matrimony: masturbation, pornography, cohabitation,
divorce, homosexual practice, contraception, abortion. These offenses are widely practiced and
tolerated among Catholics worldwide, and frequently not even recognized as sins. They need to be addressed clearly and
publicly, otherwise the culture within the Church will never change. In the West it doesn’t take
courage to warn against many forms of lying, stealing, killing, offenses against the
environment, racism, and economic injustice.
No one is openly for these kind of sins: if you condemn them, the media and culture will generally congratulate
you and pat you on the back. But every
age and culture has its pet sins that it will not tolerate being
criticized. It’s safe to condemn the
mafia in Nebraska, but it takes courage in Sicily. Likewise, it’s safe to condemn racism in
contemporary America, but it wasn’t in the Old South or in Nazi Germany. And, it is not safe to condemn abortion or a
host of sexual offenses against marriage in the contemporary Church in the West. Even the Pope feels he takes a risk to do so,
as we see from the address above. The
Pope knows it’s easy to condemn the “unpopular” sins, the sins that the culture also
recognizes as wrong and thus provoke no negative reaction when they are called out. But to speak out on the "popular sins" is to
risk one’s job, one’s reputation, one’s friendships. My brother had his minivan tires slashed for
putting a pro-life, pro-marriage bumper sticker on his car in Connecticut. And they were slashed in such a way that the tire would fail suddenly while in use, while he was driving on the highway with
his six kids …. Providentially he
discovered it before it was too late.
Welcome to modern America, folks, where a bumper sticker saying “1 Man 1 Women
4 Life” will get you and your family killed in an “accident.”
And so it bears repeating
that the First Reading does not simply apply to the hierarchy. All of us were baptized into Christ’s
threefold office of king, priest, and prophet. Lay Catholics do have a prophetic role in our
society. We don’t “get off the
hook.” We do need to warn family
members, coworkers, friends, about behaviors that are leading to their ultimate, spiritual death. Obviously this takes a great deal
of love, tact, and prudence—but if we remain silent we are tacitly approving
evil.
P. The Responsorial Psalm
puts us the shoe on the other foot. In
the Responsorial Psalm, we don’t hear a call to rebuke the sinner, but to accept
the rebuke when we are the
sinner:
Responsorial Psalm Ps 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9
R. (8)If today
you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
"Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works."
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
"Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works."
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
So the Psalm calls us to
humility. Others have their pet sins;
we, too, often have ours. When others
confront us with our sin, let us not have a hard heart like Israel did in the
wilderness. That would lead us to “forty
years of wandering” in a spiritual desert.
2. The Second Reading is
another installment in our lectio
continua through Romans. Though not
chosen to match the themes of the First and the Gospel, nonetheless when the
readings are juxtaposed, we can see implications and relationships:
Reading 2 Rom 13:8-10
Brothers and sisters:
Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another;
for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery;
you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet, "
and whatever other commandment there may be,
are summed up in this saying, namely,
"You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Love does no evil to the neighbor;
hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.
Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another;
for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery;
you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet, "
and whatever other commandment there may be,
are summed up in this saying, namely,
"You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Love does no evil to the neighbor;
hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.
There are three implications of
this passage in light of the Ezekiel passage.
First, we need to remember that sin is a lack of love. Ultimately, the popular sins of our society, which tend to be sexual in nature, are failures of love, failures to act in others’ best interest and to treat them with their full dignity as persons. Masturbation, pornography, cohabitation, divorce, homosexual practice, contraception, abortion are acts of non-love, even if we mistakenly think, in the moment, that we are “loving” someone by committing or condoning one of these acts.
There is a common error, widespread in the contemporary Church, that love or mercy override the moral law. This misunderstanding arises from a misreading of some things that St. Paul says in his epistles, in places where he contrasts "law" and "faith", for example. The problem is, in most of these cases St. Paul means "the Old Testament Law" or the "Old Covenant" when he speaks of the "Law"; and "faith" means "faith in Christ" or simply "the New Covenant." Now, the Old Law of the Old Covenant was not always loving. Because of the "hardness of heart" of Israel, Moses permitted some things that were contrary to love. For example, he permitted men to divorce their wives, even though this was contrary to love (Deut 24:1-4). Jesus removed all these concessions that Moses introduced into the law of the covenant people in the Sermon on the Mount. So Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him write her a certificate of divorce,' but I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for porneia, causes her to commit adultery ...." What happens in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7), then, is that Jesus realigns law with love in the New Covenant, such that the moral teaching of Jesus (and by extension the Church) is never contrary to love. Thus, for Christians, we can never say, "The right thing to do is X, but the loving thing to do is Y." Nor can we ever say, "The moral thing to do is X, but the loving thing to do is Y." Christian morality, or "the moral law", always follows love, and vice-versa. If we think that there is a conflict between what is right and what is loving, either (1) we have misunderstood the nature of what is right, i.e. morality, or (2) we have misunderstood the nature of love.
First, we need to remember that sin is a lack of love. Ultimately, the popular sins of our society, which tend to be sexual in nature, are failures of love, failures to act in others’ best interest and to treat them with their full dignity as persons. Masturbation, pornography, cohabitation, divorce, homosexual practice, contraception, abortion are acts of non-love, even if we mistakenly think, in the moment, that we are “loving” someone by committing or condoning one of these acts.
There is a common error, widespread in the contemporary Church, that love or mercy override the moral law. This misunderstanding arises from a misreading of some things that St. Paul says in his epistles, in places where he contrasts "law" and "faith", for example. The problem is, in most of these cases St. Paul means "the Old Testament Law" or the "Old Covenant" when he speaks of the "Law"; and "faith" means "faith in Christ" or simply "the New Covenant." Now, the Old Law of the Old Covenant was not always loving. Because of the "hardness of heart" of Israel, Moses permitted some things that were contrary to love. For example, he permitted men to divorce their wives, even though this was contrary to love (Deut 24:1-4). Jesus removed all these concessions that Moses introduced into the law of the covenant people in the Sermon on the Mount. So Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him write her a certificate of divorce,' but I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for porneia, causes her to commit adultery ...." What happens in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7), then, is that Jesus realigns law with love in the New Covenant, such that the moral teaching of Jesus (and by extension the Church) is never contrary to love. Thus, for Christians, we can never say, "The right thing to do is X, but the loving thing to do is Y." Nor can we ever say, "The moral thing to do is X, but the loving thing to do is Y." Christian morality, or "the moral law", always follows love, and vice-versa. If we think that there is a conflict between what is right and what is loving, either (1) we have misunderstood the nature of what is right, i.e. morality, or (2) we have misunderstood the nature of love.
Love has an objective aspect. It has to be based on truth. It’s not just a subjective feeling. You may really like someone, but if you
mistakenly give them poison rather than medicine, your act is not objectively
loving. Society has completely lost
sight of this fact. Love is now confused
with “niceness,” with complying with whatever a person wants. And Christians are viewed as unloving when they will not condone or cooperate with or agree to the delusions or falsehoods that some people in society want to insist upon. The Catechism is actually quite good about how the moral law follows love and vice-versa, and in its treatment of offenses against the Ten Commandments, it
explains why different sins are actually a failure of love.
Secondly, a rebuke, when made
with a correct intention, is also an act of love. It is not loving
to overlook the fact that people are in sin.
Of course, it is also quite possible to rebuke people out of arrogance
and self-righteousness. And, sometimes,
we may have a right intention in offering a rebuke, and nonetheless be
perceived as arrogant, which is painful.
Sometimes we want to avoid the risk of being perceived as
self-righteous, so we avoid confronting others in love. Sometimes our failure to rebuke is motivated
by self-love. We want to avoid the pain
of possibly being rejected. Truth and
authenticity are sacrificed for the sake of social comfort. If Pope Francis had shrunk from speaking
clearly about chastity to young people in his address quoted above, he would
have been failed to love them, because love tells the truth and points people
toward goodness and beauty, not merely pleasure and physical comfort.
G. The Gospel Reading provides instructions
about the proper way to confront others within the New Covenant community:
Gospel Mt 18:15-20
Jesus said to his disciples:
“If your brother sins against you,
go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.
If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.
If he does not listen,
take one or two others along with you,
so that 'every fact may be established
on the testimony of two or three witnesses.'
If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church.
If he refuses to listen even to the church,
then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.
Amen, I say to you,
whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Again, amen, I say to you,
if two of you agree on earth
about anything for which they are to pray,
it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.
For where two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them.”
“If your brother sins against you,
go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.
If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.
If he does not listen,
take one or two others along with you,
so that 'every fact may be established
on the testimony of two or three witnesses.'
If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church.
If he refuses to listen even to the church,
then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.
Amen, I say to you,
whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Again, amen, I say to you,
if two of you agree on earth
about anything for which they are to pray,
it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.
For where two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them.”
Jesus’ words are primarily
addressed to the “disciples” (v. 1), which the Church has understood to mean
the Twelve, who are the proto-hierarchy of the Church. The guidelines in this passage are intended
to inform their juridical and sacramental role, as those who will establish and
enforce halakhah for the new covenant
community, and will dispense the forgiveness of sin (see John 20:22-23).
When confronting sin within
the Church, the watchwords are private
and personal. One begins by going to the person in private, and making a personal appeal. The goal is reconciliation, not condemnation.
This principle applies to all
life within the Church. When offended,
however, our tendency is first to go and tell all our friends and anyone else
who will listen about how so-and-so did something outrageous to us. This spreads the circle of the offense while
making no progress toward reconciliation.
It also starts a cycle of gossip and escalating exaggeration.
If a personal approach does
not resolve the issue, Jesus instructs us to bring along one or two
others. The Lord makes reference to
Deuteronomy 19:15:
“A single witness shall not prevail against a man for any crime or
for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed; only on the
evidence of two witnesses, or of three
witnesses, shall a charge be sustained.
The Lord’s citation of
juridical instructions from the Old Covenant community may indicate that the
primary intention of this passage is to set up the basics of a juridical
process for the New Covenant community.
The principles our Lord expounds should form the basis of the Church’s
internal law or “canon law.”
If he refuses to
listen to them, tell it to the Church.
This would be a public
ecclesiastical rebuke for grave sin.
If he refuses to listen even to the Church, treat him
as you would a tax collector or sinner.
This teaches that the
judgment of the Church is the final court of appeal on earth. Treatment as “a tax collector or sinner”
means a withdrawal of recognition of the person as a member of the New Covenant
community, which later in Church history would come to be called
“excommunication.” The person is
“outside of” (ex) the communion; hence, excommunication.
But Jesus ate with tax
collectors and sinners (Matt 9:10). So one
does not give up on the excommunicated member.
The excommunicated person is moved into the category of persons who need
to be evangelized, who have not yet received the Gospel. If they “won’t listen even to the Church,”
they do not realize that the Church is the mystical Body of Christ that acts
with Christ’s authority on earth, which is a central truth of the Gospel. So they have not truly grasped the Gospel,
and must be re-evangelized.
Amen, I say to you,
whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Our comments about the halakhic significance of the terms
“bind” and “loose” from two weeks ago (re: Matt 16:18 and context) are also
appropriate here. This authority to
establish the correct interpretation of divine law (that is, halakhah), given personally to Peter, is
now also conferred to the Twelve as a body.
The Catholic Church has understood this to mean that the Church speaks
authoritatively either through the Peter (that is, his successor) or the Twelve
(that is, the bishops united, i.e. an ecumenical council).
Again, amen, I say to you,
if two of you agree on earth
about anything for which they are to pray,
it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.
if two of you agree on earth
about anything for which they are to pray,
it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.
This does not confer
omnipotence to any group of Christians that agree together to pray about
something, for we have all had the experience of communal prayer—perhaps for a
sick member of our parish, for example—that was answered in the negative.
The juridical context and the
address to the Twelve reminds us that the primary force of these words is the
promise of divine assistance to the Apostles and their successors who will be
responsible for establishing halakhah for
the New Covenant community (the Church) and also for dealing pastorally for
those who have difficulty accepting the halakhah,
the teaching of the Church. God will
guide them through these difficulties if they seek his will in prayer.
For where two or three are gathered together in my
name,
there am I in the midst of them.
there am I in the midst of them.
Christ is present in his
Church: this is the source of all her wisdom, love, and authority. This gives Her the ability to speak the word
of warning to individuals and society as a whole—but always with the intent that
we may all learn to act in love (Rom 13:8).
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