Sep 6 2020

First reading Ezekiel 33:7-9

If you do not speak to the wicked man, I will hold you responsible for his death

The word of the Lord was addressed to me as follows: ‘Son of man, I have appointed you as sentry to the House of Israel. When you hear a word from my mouth, warn them in my name. If I say to a wicked man: Wicked wretch, you are to die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked man to renounce his ways, then he shall die for his sin, but I will hold you responsible for his death. If, however, you do warn a wicked man to renounce his ways and repent, and he does not repent, then he shall die for his sin, but you yourself will have saved your life.’

Responsorial Psalm 94(95):1-2,6-9

O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’

Come, ring out our joy to the Lord;

hail the rock who saves us.

Let us come before him, giving thanks,

with songs let us hail the Lord.

Come in; let us bow and bend low;

let us kneel before the God who made us:

for he is our God and we

the people who belong to his pasture,

the flock that is led by his hand.

O that today you would listen to his voice!

‘Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,

as on that day at Massah in the desert

when your fathers put me to the test;

when they tried me, though they saw my work.’

Second reading Romans 13:8-10

Your only debt should be the debt of mutual love

Avoid getting into debt, except the debt of mutual love. If you love your fellow men you have carried out your obligations. All the commandments: You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and so on, are summed up in this single command: You must love your neighbour as yourself. Love is the one thing that cannot hurt your neighbour; that is why it is the answer to every one of the commandments.

Gospel Matthew 18:15-20

If your brother listens to you, you have won back your brother

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘If your brother does something wrong, go and have it out with him alone, between your two selves. If he listens to you, you have won back your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you: the evidence of two or three witnesses is required to sustain any charge. But if he refuses to listen to these, report it to the community; and if he refuses to listen to the community, treat him like a pagan or a tax collector.

‘I tell you solemnly, whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.

‘I tell you solemnly once again, if two of you on earth agree to ask anything at all, it will be granted to you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them.’

Reflection

Today’s Gospel is about the need to correct one another. We find the same teaching in the First Reading from Ezekiel. The Second Reading from Paul alerts us to the truth that all we do, including correcting of others, is to be done in love.

If we do not love another person, we certainly do not know them. They are aware of this and they cannot trust our judgment concerning their behaviour. Any correction we offer will not work. We had better leave it to someone who loves and so knows them. It obviously matters how we behave.

If we hurt others we are certainly hurting ourselves. One would hope that there was someone in our lives who cared enough about us to point out the error of our ways. If we don’t care that someone is behaving badly, we must not love that person very much.

Jesus is also telling us how we should go about this correction when it concerns people who are part of the Christian community with us. Correcting others is necessarily a delicate task and so Matthew has prepared us for what Jesus has to say here.

Matthew chapter 18 verses 1-5 records Jesus’ call for humility. If we correct someone from an assumed position of superiority, it is surely not going to work, for we will be putting the other person down and the ones who are being corrected will experience the need to protect themselves from our put down.

If we lack humility, if we think that we are better than the other person, once again it is better for us to leave the correction to someone else. Our pride cannot but distort our judgment. After speaking of the need for humility, Jesus goes on to warn against giving scandal (Matthew 18:6-9).

However, sometimes people are scandalised even though what is happening is in fact very good. The Pharisees were scandalised when Jesus ate with sinners and when he healed on the Sabbath. This was because of their narrow-minded view of God and their refusal to look at what was really happening.

We cannot please everyone. However, if people of good will, the people Jesus describes as ‘the little ones who believe in me’, are scandalised by the way in which we correct others, we can be sure that there is something wrong with our way of going about things.

Fr Michael Fallon msc