23rd Sunday in
Ordinary Time
Cycle A
September 10, 2017
Saint Mary Parish, Pylesville 4pm and 8am
Saint Matthew Parish, Baltimore 11am
An Intervention?
Several years ago, I read about an incident between a
father and his teenage son.
This father discovered a half-empty bottle of wine in
his son’s bedroom and quickly reacted, “How
did this get here?” The son mumbled,
“I don’t know.”
The father got angrier, “I’ll give you one minute to come up with a better answer than that.” The son, “It
belongs to a friend of mine.”
The father, “Do
you expect me to believe that?” And
with that, the son walked out of the house and slammed the door.
Things got worse, and eventually the father called the
counselor at his son’s school. The
counselor first asked the father why he was so concerned about the wine and he
replied, “I don’t want him to get into
trouble.”
The counselor then asked the father why he didn’t want
his son to get into trouble. The father
answered that he didn’t want his son to get into legal trouble or get addicted
to alcohol and ruin his future.
Again, the counselor pushed the father about why he
was so concerned. Finally, he responded,
“I love my son and I want the best for
him.”
And to that the counselor asked, “Do you think that your son got that message?” And after a minute, the father sadly replied,
“I guess not!”
Guidelines for Intervening
That
incident helps us to appreciate today’s Scripture readings.
The
passages call us to address situations where someone is doing something wrong
or harmful or offensive. They give us three
guidelines for doing this.
First Guideline: Motives
First,
we need to make sure that our motives are pure.
We
need to be careful that we are not trying to put others down or get back at
them. Our motive needs to be the
well-being of the other person, like that father for his son, or reconciliation
with the other person, like talking with your husband or wife about a problem
between the two of you.
Today
Saint Paul says whatever we do needs to be grounded in love. That can be very challenging.
In
the situations we are talking about, I think this means things like asking rather
than accusing, speaking calmly rather than loudly, and seeking agreement rather
than argument. This would be more of our
approach as we try to be pure in our motives.
Second Guideline: Who
The
second guideline is that we first need to try to deal with the issue
one-on-one.
This
is the most respectful and least confrontational way of proceeding. It minimizes defensiveness.
If
this does not work, then we can bring in a third party. And a third party can be a family member, a
friend, a counselor, or a priest.
Whoever
is involved in doing this needs to be respectful. The goal is to respectfully lead the other
person to go in a better direction or to help work out a reconciliation.
Third Guideline:
Commitment
And
the third guideline is that we hang in there and don’t give up on another
person.
In
the gospel, Jesus says that if a person will not listen to third parties, then “treat them as you would a tax collector or
gentile.” We’ve got to interpret
these words very carefully.
Jesus
does not cut off or excommunicate or refuse to have anything to do with gentiles
or tax collectors. On the contrary, he
makes a point of hanging out with them and and even having dinner with them.
Now,
no question, with children and youth, we need to provide direction and
rules. And no question, in the case of
abuse or things like that, we have to protect others and ourselves.
But
in general, the direction that the gospel gives is: don’t give up on the other
person. As hard as it can be at times,
stay open and keep the door open to them.
Conclusion
So,
the Scripture today leaves us with some guidelines for how to proceed in these
real-life situations. I hope they will
be helpful for us.
