23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle “A” – September 6, 2020 – Ezekiel 33:7-9; Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9; Romans 13:8-10; Matthew 18:15-20
The word DEBUNKING is defined as a process of exposing the falseness of a myth, idea, or belief. The 20th and 21 century notion that we are only responsible for ourselves, our own grace, our own sin, or our own salvation is debunked in the Scriptures of both Testaments. The reading from Ezekiel today clearly says that if I do not talk someone out of doing a wicked deed, they will be punished for doing evil, and SO WILL I BE! What? That contradicts the commonly-held belief of individualism.
There are people in churches and online today who’ll be amazed to hear THAT! Like the people who drive the getaway car in a bank robbery: some will be SHOCKED that when he or she is caught, they too are charged with bank robbery, even though they never went into the bank. Why? The law calls it aiding and abetting the crime. Yes, they are Guilty! And there’s another example in the Hebrew Scriptures: we all recall hearing of Cain in the Book of Genesis killing his brother Abel; when God asks Cain where Abel is, Cain tries to lie to God. Isn’t THAT ridiculous: of all the beings in the universe to lie to. And remember what Cain asked: am I my brother’s keeper? The answer is yes: we are called to live interdependently, in a Trinity communion of faith, hope and love.
But let’s be clear: the directions that Jesus provides for us correct someone who’s sinned against us is NOT simply based on a reward-punishment scale. On one fundamental level, the process illustrates the principle of subsidiarity – i.e., that we solve problems closest to the source of the problem: it’s actually what Vatican Council II told the Roman Catholic Church to do. Keeping a hurtful matter between two people is also about safeguarding and protecting each person’s dignity and privacy: if something is between two of us, keep it between the two of us. Why? For Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Mary, the motive and intent of what Jesus is recommending is LOVE; and telling someone they hurt me, in order to restore a break in a relationship, ALSO recognizes the existential fact pointed out by St. Paul: when one part of a body hurts, the whole body hurts.
Furthermore, Jesus says if a matter can’t be resolved between 2 or 3 people or with a group from the Church, then you have tried three times to reconcile and resolve it, and so the relationship is formally recognized as broken…for now. Of course, there is NO way of knowing when the Lord’s mercy and Love could intervene and foster a healing. For that moment, my obligation in a broken relationship shifts from seeking active reconciliation to active prayer for the other’s repentance, which itself is an act of love, and not revenge.
In our own time, 20 centuries after the Scriptures were first heard and later written down, we have two other behemoths with which to contend, communication systems that do NOT intend to keep people’s hurts and injustices to a minimum, and therefore for today’s Gospel purposes would have to be viewed and/or used with caution. Both media giants can take one small fact, and spread it all over the world, to millions of people within minutes, whether they have a right to that information or not. The first is Facebook: it’s a site where people post thoughts and also lots of pictures: where they’ve been, with who they’ve been out, even what they ATE!
The other media giant is Twitter and like Facebook, it can be used for evil or good: for example, sometimes people’s reputations are damaged in such a way that they can never recover from a verbal attack: losing friends, income, businesses, and so on. At the same time, it can be used for good, as when someone announced earlier this year of their intention to help an immigrant family at the border, a heart-breaking story. A family had travelled from Guatemala to the US-Mexican border, where they were separated from each other. One of their children lived and died in a metal cage, and when the parents were interviewed, they said they wanted to take their daughter back to Guatemala for burial. Someone here in the US announced that they would start a GoFundMe page to collect burial money for this young daughter. This is a corporate work of mercy of which Jesus would approve.
To conclude, on the day that Jesus died, he showed us two ways he practiced what he had preached for three years: first, Jesus said of his crucifiers: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they are doing.” And second, when Jesus he gave his life for us as a ransom to open heaven’s eternal joy: while we could never repay Him for this wondrous gift of redemption and rescue, but we CAN imitate his reconciling love, can’t we? Can’t we? As we journey closer to our receiving the blessing of the Eucharist today, let’s ask God to HELP us imitate Christ’s reconciling love IN ACTION!
