23rd
Sunday of Ordinary Time
Cycle A
September 7, 2014
Saint Margaret Parish, Bel Air
Correcting Others
Several
years ago I read a brief article that has really stuck with me.
A man
named Jerome Weidman writes that he was in the third grade, in a public school
in New York City. His math teacher was
Mrs. O’Neill.
One day
Mrs. O’Neill was grading test papers, and she noticed that twelve boys had
given the same unusual, wrong answer to a question. She correctly assumed that the boys had
cheated.
The next
day, Mrs. O’Neill asked the twelve boys to stay after school for a minute. Without accusing them of anything, she simply
wrote on the blackboard a quotation from an English author.
The
quotation was: “The measure of real
character is what individuals would do if they knew they would never be found
out.” Jerome Weidman says that this
was the most important lesson in his life.
Correcting/Reconciling
That
teacher, Mrs. O’Neill, respectfully confronted those boys with their wrongdoing
and what she did illustrates the message of today’s readings.
The
passages tell us what to do if we see someone doing something that is either
morally wrong or personally offensive. In
the gospel, Jesus gives a three-step process for this.
Step 1: One-on-One
First, Jesus says that we are to talk about the problem
one-on-one.
Notice that he says that we are to talk with the person,
not about the person. Now, to be real
about it, if we first talk about the person to somebody else, our motive needs
to be to prepare to talk with the person in a constructive way.
So, maybe you need to talk with your spouse about the sharing
of household responsibilities. Or maybe
you need to talk with a family member who looks like he is into some kind of
substance abuse.
When we do this, we need to be respectful, as Mrs. O’Neill
was of her students, and definitely not be putting down or proving the other
person as wrong and ourselves as right.
We need be to be seeking a positive change of behavior or a
reconciliation of the relationship.
Step 2: Third-Party Assistance
Then, Jesus says that if the other person is closed to
looking at the issue, we should ask for the assistance of someone else.
This could mean both parents together talking with a son
or daughter about their hanging out with the wrong crowd. Or it could mean a husband and wife going to
a marriage counselor.
There are many times in life when some kind of third-party
assistance is required. There is a
humorous Arab proverb that says, “If one
person calls you a donkey or a you-know-what, you may pay no attention to that
person.
“But if five people
call you one, go out and buy yourself…a saddle.” I think you get the point about the value of
third parties.
Step 3: Keep Reaching Out
Finally, for the
third step, Jesus says that if someone will not even listen to several people
and the problem continues, then treat that person like a tax collector or
non-believer.
In the past, we as
a Church interpreted this as meaning: have nothing to do with him or
excommunicate her. Today Scripture
scholars give us a different insight.
They point out
that Jesus continues to associate and have dinner with tax collectors and
non-believers. He never gives up on
them.
So here, instead
of talking about excommunication, Jesus is talking about communication – and
continued communication. I find it so
wise that our Church talks less and less of excommunication.
So maybe someone
persists in sinful or harmful behavior or believes differently on some point of
faith. No question, we have to be steady
about what we believe is right or true.
And we may have to
protect ourselves – as in situations of domestic violence. But usually, instead of distancing the
individual or even labeling the entire culture as evil, Jesus is calling us to
keep communicating.
That’s what he
does with the tax collectors and non-believers in his day. And that is what he calls us to do to try to
redirect or become reconciled with an individual or a group or an entire culture
today.
