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| Gemma's 5 Months old today! |
Ezekiel 33:7-9
Psalm 95:1-2, 6-9
Romans 13:8-10
Matthew 18:15-20
Well, as you all know, we got a
couple of cats for the rectory a few weeks back and the good news is they’re
getting along great, they’ve adjusted well, and they’re absolutely adorable
still. The unfortunate news, though, is that they’ve both gotten a little
illness. Earlier this week I was sitting with Gemma and noticed a spot on her
leg that I knew needed a vet’s eyes to check over. So we went for our first
official non-check up at the vet’s office and learned that Gemma seems to have
ringworm. So that means I had the joy of trying to hold down a cat with 20
razor-sharp claws and administer a nice little cream to her leg and foot twice
a day. Apparently Dominic was a bit jealous and developed something on his ear,
so now I get to hold down TWO cats with 20 razor-sharp claws and administer
medicine twice a day. If I didn’t have my long-sleeves on you’d think I’d been
rolling in barbed wire as a new hobby because the simple reality is that while
I’m trying to do something that expresses care for them, they are struggling to
receive it well, and I’m suffering because I know that it is what is best for
them. And that is what we hear in the Scriptures this weekend: that sometimes
when we show love to someone, it hurts them and it can hurt us as well.
This message of love sometimes
being a bit painful isn’t usually well received by the world around us because
love is synonymous with ‘be nice.’ Love is not hurting feelings, not saying
things that are hard to handle, and certainly not telling someone they’re wrong
or they need to change something. Love is simply be nice and let them be. But
the reailty is that not one time in the Gospel did Jesus say ‘Be nice’ - He
said love others.
Today the Scriptures speak
specifically to the aspect of love that is traditionally known as fraternal
correction. It is the practice of pointing out to a brother or sister in the
Lord that something they’re doing or not doing isn’t what God desires for them.
Our culture says to avoid this at all cost and some of us struggle with conflict
just because of our personality’s tendency to be peacemakers. But our faith
demands it of us. Ezekiel shows us that it is the desire of the Lord that we
speak to others when we see them in sin and that if we fail to do so we share
the guilt of their fault. There’s a tendency to just let people be to
themselves and think ‘they’re not hurting anyone but the truth is that all the
members of the Church are part of the same body and we are all interconnected.
If one part suffers, the whole body suffers. Just getting a sinus infection can
knock my whole body to the couch for a day and the Church isn’t so different.
So it is clear that we should do
some fraternal correction from time to time, but the important question is: How
do I do that? First, we have to be people of prayer. That is always the basic
starting point. We have to have a living relationship with God where we can
speak and listen to Him, because He is the one who puts on our hearts the call
to speak up. Once we are sure we are in a relationship of prayer, then we have
to make sure we have the right person, place, and time.
It’s easy to critique others and
bring it to the wrong people. How often are we tempted and sometimes fall into
the trap of seeing a fault in someone and rather than addressing it with them
we take it to a few other people who know that person and start to complain or
gossip about them. It’s easy because it means we can address the fault but we
don’t have to risk getting hurt by their response, but it is spiritually
catastrophic for several reasons. 1- it leaves the person in the same path with
nobody to help direct them out 2- it makes us puffed up in pride 3- it leads
other people into sin with us, which only increases the pride of the
individuals and malice of the group.
It’s also easy for critique
someone at the wrong place and time. We were pros at this in seminary. Anytime
a brother seminarian dropped a bowl in the refectory (cafeteria), there was
almost always a round of applause to highlight the fault. Or even better those
unfortunate days when you’d accidentally sleep through morning prayer and show
up late for morning class looking and smelling like death and a brother greets
you ‘Well, look who decided to come to class today!’ in front of everyone to
emphasize what everyone already knew. This is certainly not Christian charity.
True Christian charity is what we see in the Gospel: pulling the person
aside and speaking one on one, with humility, charity, and a spirit of
perseverance.
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| Fraternal Correction: He's doing it wrong... |
We have to begin with humility.
Anytime we approach someone to speak to them of a fault of their own, what is
the likely response? Lashing back. ‘Who are you to tell me my faults, with all
of the faults that you have!?’ or some similar response. This is why when we
enter into a conversation of fraternal correction we have to go into it not
trying to make ourselves look better or to make the other look worse, but
simply to speak out of love and concern for them. It’s saying, “Hey, I know I’m
not perfect and I have my faults as well, but I noticed this about you and
because I care for you, I wanted to bring it up to you and let you know that if
you want to work on that I’m willing to help you.” Humility in recognizing we
aren’t perfect, charity in emphasizing that it is out of concern for them, and
perseverance in the willingness to help them. Sometimes this changes hearts right away. But, as the Lord shows us, sometimes it doesn't. If they refuse to hear it from you, take a couple of others who are close to them and have witness - something like a modern day intervention for an addict. And if they don't respond, bring it to the Church, which would still have been a smaller community, so that the community could support them and lift them up in prayer as the Lord encourages. And if they don't respond, then treat them as a Gentile or tax-collector. That seems harsh, like we just gave up the fight and cut the line and leave them to their own devices, but what does Jesus' example show us? He ate with them and spoke with them in hopes that they would one day be ready to receive the Gospel message. We never give up hope on people who may be straying from the Lord's path, but we keep showing love and keep welcoming them in hopes that one day the Spirit will finally be able to speak to them. In the end, it's about humility, charity, perseverance because while it seems the hard
part is having the courage to speak fraternal correction, the truth is that it
is even harder when it is spoken to us by someone else. And that day will come.
About 9 nine years ago, my first
summer assignment as a seminarian was to a boys wilderness camp in North
Carolina. I went there not knowing a single person and was petrified because I
was MUCH more quiet and shy than I am now and it was a large group. I made it
through orientation and then went to go for my caving instructor certification,
since I was in charge of caving for the summer. I went with a co-counselor who
would be helping from time to time and met a group of others from various local
camps to go tours the caves on a three-day trip. At the end of the first day my
co-counselor had to head back to the camp for another meeting, but right before
he left he said, “Hey, Brent, can we talk for a minute?’ I said yes and we went
off from the group. He paused then looked at me and said, “So, I know that I’ve
only known you for like four days and you’re a seminarian, which means you’ll
be a priest one day, and that’s awesome. But I feel like I have to tell you
this. Brent, you are the most negative [person] I have ever met in my life.” I
was stunned and this anger came up in my heart – who is he to say that? He’s
known me for less than a week! All of this stuff came up but it didn’t come out
of my mouth. I simply said, “Okay” and walked away. For a couple of days it
stewed in my heart, those words that he spoke that pierced me like nothing ever
had before. When I got back to camp a few days later I took him aside and
thanked him. Those words hurt something fierce when he spoke them, but 9 years
later he still stands for me as one of the greatest witnesses of Christian
charity I’ve ever experienced and his words still rings in my heart and make me
think even today about how I speak, how I respond, how I view the world around
me. He helped me to see the course I was on and change course and I can’t be
thankful enough for it.
Love isn’t being nice to people.
Love is about willing what is best for them, and what is best for every person
on this earth is getting to Heaven. It is our job to help other see the way
when they are blinded to it, and sometimes to be directed ourselves. Humility,
charity, perseverance. May God grant us these gifts today and ever-increase
them, that we might enter into eternal glory accompanied by many brothers and
sisters who have journeyed with us on the way.
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