23rd Sunday in OT: Rom 13.8-10, Matt 18.15-20
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation

Early in the school year, Brother Jim, an itinerant street preacher, would appear on campus, stand in front of the Student Union, and rant and rave at the passing students. He swung around a big KJV of the bible like a club. He was particularly fond of attacking the young women who were dressed in his words, “like prostitutes”—make-up, open-toed shoes, and styled hair.

He condemned with equal fervor communism, smoking, alcohol consumption, nearly every form of sexual behavior, and the Catholic Church. His rantings drew large crowds and a few brave students would argue with him about his theological positions. I never went up against Br. Jim. I wasn’t much of a Christian at the time. I thought he was joke. And I realized pretty quickly that Br. Jim was less interested in converting sinners than he was in reassuring himself that his half-baked prejudices were, in fact, fully baked. The crowd’s opposition only served to strengthen his resolve and affirm in his own mind the correctness of his preaching. Br. Jim was a self-declared martyr, someone who has put himself in the pagan arena and dared God to protect him as evidence of God’s presence, power, and love.

It was far too easy, far too simple for him to point the finger, make the accusation, and move on to the next campus, leaving in his wake an image of the laughable Christian obsessed with everyone else’s sex life. His was self-righteous ecclesiastical theater.

This is not what Jesus had in mind when he told his disciples to correct one another when necessary. Nor is this how brothers and sister in Christ now should be correcting one another. Fraternal correction is about willing the good and not competition in piety. It is about hoping for the best from one another and not expecting the worst. It is about bringing salvation, not condemnation; it is about helping one another in the arduous work of perfecting our natures and sharing the good fruits of an abundant prayer life. Fraternal correction can never be about playing “gotcha” games or pulling down theological or ecclesial opponents. It can never be about undermining someone’s reputation for political gain. Or undermining their confidence in who they are as a child of the Father.

I’m not telling you all of this b/c I believe that you are abusing fraternal correction. Hardly. I’m telling you this b/c in teaching us how to correct one another in the content and practice of our faith, Jesus is also teaching us what his true church looks like. Paul puts it succinctly, “Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.” If fraternal correction is to do what it is supposed to do—bring the sinner back to Christ—it must be practiced out of a church that understands itself as a fulfillment of the law, a body of believers who hold the apostolic faith, teach the apostolic faith, and practice among themselves abiding charity, ready trust, and eager forgiveness.

Matthew’s gospel couldn’t be clearer on this point: go to the sinner yourself first. If he or she doesn’t listen, then bring in another member of the church along and bear witness to the sin and call for repentance. If that doesn’t work, then the larger church is to be called and the sinner treated like one cast out—not permanently cast out, but medicinally cast out, that is, removed from the community for his or her own good, an encouragement to repent and return—Jesus said that even the tax collectors and prostitutes can repent to come to him!

We know that this scenario can work b/c Jesus empowers the church to make it work. To the apostles he gives the authority to bind and loose, to tie up and free, to license and limit. The church must have the authority to welcome back the repentant sinner, otherwise, fraternal correction is just psychobabble and passive-aggressive control games. Real conversion, real reunion can be achieved through the grace of God working in the church.

How we do avoid allowing fraternal correction to become something like a crude political tool or self-righteous weapon? Look carefully at the reading from Romans: “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another.” Have no debt to each other but the debt of love—the obligation to will the good for all the members of the body of Christ. If fraternal correction comes out of love, then it cannot be political or self-righteousness. The question to ask is: am I being motivated by a will that wills the good for this sinner? If your motivation is anything but love, then stop right there!

Another way to avoid allowing fraternal correction to become something other than an expression of love is to pay careful attention to the sequence of events in Jesus’ description of how to correct a sinner: one-on-one, first; then a smaller group; and then the larger church. Why this sequence? Why not go straight to the church and be done with it? The idea here is to allow the sinner an opportunity to admit his or her error and come back to the church w/o causing greater scandal to the community. If his or her heart can be moved to conversion w/o the pressure of the whole community knowing about his or her transgression, then this is by far the better way. It is, in other words, the more loving thing to do.

What is most astonishing to me about this reading from Matthew is the very familiar saying of Jesus, “Where two or more are gathered in my name, I am with them.” Is there a more powerful statement of the presence of Christ among us than this? And it comes at the end of his instruction on fraternal correction and his conferral of binding and loosening authority on the apostles. Christ has not abandoned the church to it own devices. He has not left us to fend for ourselves alone in a world packed with ravening wolves. He has given us a powerful tool for conversion, the authority to use it, AND he has promised to be with us when we come together in his name.

How we call one another back into God’s righteousness reveals the nature of the church. If the one correcting is turning himself/herself into a martyr for the cause, then the church is revealed as a weapon against ecclesial criminals. If the one correcting is correcting for political points or advantage, then the church is revealed as a club for powerbrokers. However, if the one correcting is doing so out of a genuine will for the good of the sinner, then the church is revealed to be what Christ left it to be: an apostolic witness to his teachings, an instrument of grace, and the hope of every sinner who has ears to hear and eyes to see.