Homily For The 23rd Sunday In The Ordinary Time Yr. A, September 10, 2023.
“Forgetting offenses is a sign of sincere repentance. If you keep the memory of them, you may believe you have repented but you are like someone running in his sleep. Let no one consider it a minor defect, this darkness that often clouds the eyes even of spiritual people.”–St. John Climacus
Sunday Readings
My Dearest Friends in Christ,
You are welcome to another encounter with the life-changing word of God. Today Jesus gives us a model for Christian reconciliation or conflict resolution. Let us embrace these steps to achieve more extraordinary love, peace, and harmony in the human family of God and in society at large.
One of the reasons I admire and cherish the word of God, the Bible, is that it is not just a compendium or library of theoretical ideas but a practical and comprehensive guide to life and well-being. This is evident in the gospel reading of today.
Forgiveness and Reconciliation, Any Difference?
Do you know that there is a subtle difference between forgiveness and reconciliation? Do you know we often forgive people without reconciling with them? Reconciliation takes forgiveness a further step ahead. Reconciliation means habitually forgetting the harm done, and relating with the offender as if nothing ever happened. As humans, we often find it difficult to reconcile with people who have offended us even after going to confession. We often claim to have forgiven another, while in our hearts we are still filled with animosity, and suspicions which often manifest in the way we treat them. Someone once said, “ I can’t help him again, not after he squandered the money I gave to him in the past.” Comments such as this, reveal an unwillingness to forgive and reconcile. I know it may be hard to treat the offender the same again, but with God’s grace, it is possible. Today’s readings, especially the gospel, give us practical steps to achieving genuine and sincere reconciliation with anyone who offends us.
Our Responsibility To Warn Others To Desist From Evil
In the first reading, God appointed Ezekiel as a watchman over His people. Like each one of us, God entrusted him with the duty of warning and dissuading people from doing evil. This responsibility has far-reaching implications. Failure to carry out this divine responsibility puts the blame on us and makes us culpable for whatever happens to a brother or sister who dies in sin. This is a call to condemn evil and bring the erring back to God. This is a Christian obligation and an act of fraternal charity. There comes a time when silence is no longer golden. Keeping silence when someone is perishing in sin is not golden, but rather a sin of omission.
The Procedural Model For Christian Reconciliation
God’s command to Ezekiel to be a watchman or gadfly in the first reading, connects with the first step in the gospel where Christ gives us a model of Christian reconciliation because it involves reaching out to one another to restore a broken relationship with one another and with God.
THE FIRST AND MOST CRUCIAL STEP in this procedural model of reconciliation is an openness to communicate our hurtful feelings by confronting the problem directly. Incubating our feelings in fear often breeds greater enmity and hatches evils such as gossiping, calumny, and blackmailing. In life, I have come to realize that we are often hurt by people who did not intend to hurt us and are unaware that they did. Given this situation or otherwise, the first step should be to go to that person to express your dissatisfaction with his or her behavior. Care must be taken, not to abuse or insult people who may have willingly or unwillingly hurt us. It has happened that people who reacted abusively to those who hurt them ended up stirring up more hatred or even physical violence. Complaints should be prudently made in order to dispose the offender to be compassionate and ask for forgiveness. When we do this in love, we win back the friendship with our brother or sister. It is not enough to ask God to forgive our offenses, we must also be humble and sincerely ask others to forgive us when we hurt them.
The circle of people becomes wider as the offending party refuses to listen. The word of God instructs us, as a SECOND STEP, to take one or two others with us ( c.f Deut 19:15 ) (not to testify against our brother or sister) if he or she refuses to listen to us. Caution must be exercised in this second step of bringing in additional people because not everyone is skillful or wise in handling disputes. There are people who instead of making peace and resolving issues amicably end up causing more harm. (cf. Prov 12:18). Always keep in mind that the goal of bringing additional persons is to aid the reconciliation process, which is to restore peace and love with the offending party and not to judge who is right or wrong. It would be helpful to bring in one or two persons whom you think the offender would easily listen to and respect. This could be the marriage sponsors in case of a marital dispute. If the offender refuses to listen to the appeal for reconciliation then take it to the Church.
THIRD STEP : Taking it to the Church here should be better understood in the sense of the Christian community, not a gossiping community. It is not announcing it. It involves a few members of the Church or other structures in the church such as the marriage tribunal or the justice, peace, and conflict resolution office, not the entire congregation.
The flow of the passage is important to make note of, as there is movement from the individual to the communal. The Christian community plays an integral role in ensuring peace and harmony, especially in reconciling and settling differences among its members. Prayers and the word of God should be part of our instruments for resolving misunderstandings because it is the Holy Spirit who moves people to admit their offenses and ask for forgiveness. The leaders of the Christian communities, such as the pastors, have the responsibility of settling disputes among members and ensuring peace within the community. Taking our misunderstanding to the Church or Christian community should be the last and not the first step. The problem with many today is that they ignore the first step and jump to the second or last step. If calling 911 to invite the police is your first point of call in resolving a misunderstanding, you better question your faith.
FINAL STEP: Treating a brother or sister as a gentile if he or she refuses to listen to the community should not be misinterpreted as giving up totally on them or drawing a battle line with them. It simply means, treating them as an unbeliever who needs to be forgiven. Remember you have to forgive others ad Infinitum. (cf. Mathew 18:22) When we reconcile with others, we restore our relationship with God which is severed by that misunderstanding.
Let us not forget that in the second reading, St. Paul tells us we owe love to everyone, even to those who hurt us or refuse reconciliation. When we love, we have fulfilled the law. God will always be in our midst whenever we gather for a holy purpose. And when we are united in our prayerful resolutions to bring peace, reconciliation, and the good of all, God says it shall be granted.
May God grant us the gift of His peace to work for the reconciliation of all children of God who have been torn apart by their differences and the grace to forgive and reconcile with those who offend us. Amen.
I keep you and your family always in my prayers. ©Clem C. Aladi (2024)
