Mass Readings for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Ezekiel 33.7-9 Psalm 95.1-2, 6-7, 9 Romans 13.8-10 Matthew 18.15-20
In today’s gospel we have the thorny issue of how to deal with sins against each other. While we have reconciliation with God through a special sacrament; we still need to know how to be reconciled among ourselves. Jesus counsels us to deal with these sins, at least initially, quietly and on a personal level – go and talk, one on one, with the offending party.
Now we ought to ask ourselves, what kind of sin is he talking about, the sort that is dealt with through discretion and an initial private conversation? As we hear from St. Paul today, most of the ten commandments concern our lives as social beings. That is, after the primacy of God, they treat with what we aren’t supposed to do to our neighbors; these are “don’ts” as opposed to “dos”. Don’t steal from each other, don’t murder each other; but also, don’t lie about each other, don’t “covet” what the other has – that is, don’t live in envy of others. And that last one is often quite the hardest!
And while I am sure that this principle of beginning with the discrete, private conversation could be applied to such things as murder and theft, I don’t think that is what is intended for us, especially today. Such might have been the case in the past where there was Christian culture but no effective civil authority to police the more grievous offenses. But for most of us now living within a civilization built on Christian principles, the sins between us are likely those that violate the intangible in interpersonal affairs, and in particular, affect reputation. As these often involve gossip, insult and slander, the Church categorizes these as “offenses against truth.” (CCC 3.2, ch. 2, art. 8). They are those that can destroy reputation. This is addressed to a community of ostensible believers, brothers and sisters in the faith who are to be treating each other with mutual respect and speaking only in truth to one another, and about one another.
It’s important to note that in the catechism this topic is treated within the context, not of the 8th commandment to “not bear false witness” but rather that most important interpretive key: “to love one’s neighbor as oneself.”
So, it does call for personal reflection on how honest we are about ourselves – what lies do we tell ourselves? If in painting another in colors of villainy, do we also present ourselves to ourselves in only complimentary hues?
This whole subject might strike us as relatively trivial and inconsequential in light of the many big crises that we face, as a nation, as an international community. Yet what Christ teaches does scale up beyond the strictly personal – we look around us today and see that between communities, families, nations and international alliances that seem set against each other, the problem is often one of truth being set aside in favor of honor, pride, and politics. This is particularly grievous that it happens among those that have a Christian heritage, even if they are no longer a confessing national community, or group of nations, such as we find in Europe and the Americas. Yet down at our individual level, it’s much the same. The matter of honor may be how we are seen within our immediate social circle; our pride injured by apparent insult, and in terms of politics, it can be the maneuvering for influence in an organization, a workplace, that informs how we have reacted.
Consider the first remedy Jesus recommends: the private conversation. This is to be a sincere dialogue. Such conversations are difficult, especially if we feel wronged by the other, but more so because the art of conversation has been lost to so many. Indeed, real dialogue has been forsaken in our culture.
For one, a conversation is not a debate. It may incorporate argument, but only in the sense that each person has a perspective on what has happened, and wishes to convince the other theirs is the correct version of events – indeed, that they have the truth of it.
However, it is rarely the case that one person has the whole of the truth. A conversation, a proper argument, should have as its aim the truth and not as in a debate, a winner and a loser.
As well, we must not be set upon destroying the argument of our interlocutor. Rather, we are to try to understand it, even when not sympathetic to it. The debater is looking for logical fallacies, inconsistencies, non sequiturs so as to dismember and destroy the argument of the other. Our concern is to understand in spite of such flaws, in a very real way empathize with our apparent enemy. But so too must we examine our own position, and understand ourselves honestly. We truly may be the injured party, the victim of some slander, but we must ask why this has happened at all? Have we provoked this situation?
Those familiar with the Shakespeare play, King Lear, might recall the old king’s lament that he is “more sinned against than sinning.” (King Lear, Act 3, sc.2)
If you know the play, it is hubris, and the naïve presumption that Lear can control the behavior of others that leads to tragedy. Yet for most of the play, he refuses to see in what is happening any of his own responsibility. Make no mistake, those who abuse him are not excused in their wrongdoing, and their treachery far worse, but neither can we absolve Lear from his willful stupidity, especially as it costs the innocent lives of others.
Another important element of this conversation aimed at reconciliation aside from truthfulness and truth-seeking, is charity. We must be generous to each other, and not look to take the worst possible interpretation of another’s words and actions until we have proof that this worst of possibilities is indeed the truth of it.
When we look for enmity in the words of another, we’re almost sure to find it unless they are absolutely saccharine, devoid of any criticism, any constructive comment. That is, if we are looking to be offended, we will be.
But why would we seek to be offended? Well, that’s a cynical tactic of the past, and was often couched in the need within Christian society to validate one’s own aggression as a matter of justice. Christian kings of the Middle Ages, mindful of the sin of waging aggressive wars always had a ready argument as to why their armies on the march were not invaders, but agents of justice, protecting God-given rights – usually those of the king himself.
Today, it’s more subtle, and it stems from a distortion of Christian principles. To be the victim in our current cultural moment is to have the upper hand. The Christian revolution upended the pagan moral economy based on power where might made right. Jesus, as the crucified one, is the victim, but also the victor. Jesus the crucified criminal is the innocent while those who judged and condemned him are the true villains. To maneuver an enemy into being identified by others as the oppressor is to win the fight; and I think a lot of us have internalized that lesson. Unless I can be seen by others as obviously the victim, then I won’t dare complain about my treatment at the hands of others, even if it is objectively unjust, unfair.
So, instead of entering into conversations as brothers and sisters in Christ, children of God, we see too often the parties mutually aggrieved, each trying to take the part of the victim and cast the other as the oppressor doing the victimizing.
When we see Jesus in the gospels in conversation, we don’t see any of that. Famously, he eats with tax collectors and sinners (and sin, we know, is an offense against Christ), and there is no sense that in those encounters he’s looking for a debate to win, but rather a dialogue that will lead people into the truth.
True, he does debate the Pharisees, and those are contests. But the Pharisees aren’t interested in the truth, only with power. Jesus has come to defeat that mindset. Sadly, this is what we encounter today.
So, when we come to those difficult discussions with those who are at least ostensibly Christian, and who have offended us, either by direct insult or lie, or perhaps by their causing scandal by flouting church teaching and then casting us as being in error, we need to make an approach that is charitable, generous, and open to discussion. Jesus then indicates the next steps if we cannot resolve matters discretely: bring others in to help adjudicate. The aim is always to bring us all back into truth, and not to see the wicked destroyed but saved, especially as we be a little wicked ourselves. Our aim is always to restore that communion in which we find Christ, where we are two, or three or more gathered reconciled, forgiving, in his name.
Amen.