24th Sunday in OT: Sir 27.30-28.7; Rom 14.7-9; Matt 18.21-35
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, University of Dallas
Fraternal correction. Love one another. Spend more time looking in a mirror and less time looking through binoculars. Serve God by serving one another. Be fresh wineskins for the New Wine of the Lord. And on and on and on. It’s getting to where here lately it is difficult to hold a decent grudge, point fingers at other peoples’ sins, or justify a little self-righteous anger. Or just plain ole wallow in some sticky self-pity! Don’t be vengeful. Let go of rebukes. Do not hate your neighbor. Overlook faults. Be merciful. Do not cherish wrath. It’s too much! Perhaps we are right to complain that the Lord is too demanding of our faith, too demanding of our obedience. It is easier to find refuge in the ruins than to help build a new city.
And here today we come to Mass to hear another string of demands, perhaps the most demanding of demands: Forgive seven times seventy those who offend against you. We must forgive. This is not an encouragement. Jesus doesn’t say, “I urge you to consider forgiving them.” He doesn’t say, “Ya know, wouldn’t it be better if you just forgave them?” He, in fact, says, “You wicked servant! Unless you forgive your brothers from your heart your heavenly Father will give you over to the Torturers.” That’t not a suggestion or hint, folks. That’s a threat. Plain and simple.
In our dumbed-down, inoffensive, consumerist American religion, we’re not used to hearing about threats from God. But there it is. “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants.” Ouch. The admonition, no, the demand that we forgive seems odd given that forgiveness is generally thought of as something that must be given freely, willingly. Isn’t forgiveness that sort of religiously thing that we’re told to do but often fail to do precisely b/c we know Other People are supposed to do it too. I mean, of course, I know I’m supposed to forgive, but aren’t you supposed to forgive my refusal to forgive you? Of course you are! But you don’t b/c I won’t forgive you and on and on and on, round and round we go, spinning into Hell clinging to one another, teeth embedded, claws deep in the flesh, we fall, forever, together.
Forgive one another. How easily said. Forgive one another. Not so easily done. I wonder why? Why is it so hard for us to forgive? What problems do we run into when struggling with forgiving those who have hurt us?
No doubt these problems are Legion. There is fear. Are we condoning the sin if we forgive? Are we saying that the forgiven sin won’t be a sin in the future. THAT sin is OK now? Maybe we fear becoming prey to bullies, becoming a victim to others’ wrath. To deny forgiveness to the bully is a sure way to guard our dignity, to be diligent against abuse. Along with fear, there is also wrathful anger. Maybe we like being indignant, the feeling of resentment, the grudge, the rancor of spitefully stroking every slight, every wound, counting up the injustices and hurts. We become the Devil’s Accountant and our denial of forgiveness, our disobedience, becomes a way of playing a very perverse version of God—refusing forgiveness to feel superior, righteous, holier than the offender. Here we are tempted to imitate Satan, the angel who went from being the glorious Morning Star to the Lord of the Damned b/c his envy of God, his need to be God, killed his love for God. If the Morning Star can fall, we must ask with Ben Sira, son of Eleazar, who wrote the Book of Sirach: “If one who is but flesh cherishes wrath, who will forgive his sins?”
Perhaps we can look at this another way. The contemporary American poet, Eric Pankey, in a poem titled, “Prayer,” asks this question: “What do you love better: the ruin or its repair/Desire’s affliction or fire’s harsh sacrament?” The question of whether or not to forgive can be about whether or not to relinguish hurt and reach for healing. It can be about forgetting. It can also be about obedience and meeting the demands of your faith. But finally forgiveness is about figuring out what you love more: the ruin of sin or the repair of forgiveness, self-destructive suffering or the hard, hard choice of burning away the slights, the injuries in the “fire’s harsh sacrament”?
Paul writes to the Romans: “None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” Surely this is what we love best: that we are the Lord’s, we belong wholly—body, soul, spirit—to a loving God who has saved us from the need to be spiteful in the face of hurts, from the need to hold grudges, from the need to wallow in pity, wrath, and self-righteous anger. We are freed from the slavery of enmity, vengence, death, and decay. Put the chains back on if you will, but consider:
What do you love better: sin’s ruin or Christ’s repair?
What do you love better: the Father’s mercy or His justice?
What do you love better: your freedom or the nursed hurt?
Don’t be vengeful. Let go of rebukes. Do not hate your neighbor. Overlook faults. Be merciful. Do not cherish wrath. It is too much. It is too much if we go alone into the wilderness of holiness. Though it is easier to find refuge in the ruins than help to build a new city, we are promised to a God Who makes demands, Who wants our obedience, and expects us to live up to our end of the Covenant. Building His kingdom, the holy city, one soul at a time begins with the movement of love toward forgiveness. We can survive in the ruins. But we will flourish in the work of repair. And we will flourish more beautifully together than alone.
10 November 2005
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.
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.
Just starting...
Hello everyone...
This is Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP. I started this blog so that I would have a place to post my homilies. Please feel free to critique, question, comment upon, or even damn my efforts. I preach on a regular basis at St. Albert the Great Priory in Irving, TX and at the Church of the Incarnation at the University of Dallas.
Pax,
Fr. Philip Neri, OP
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)