Gospel Reflection For Sunday 10th September 2023

23rd Sunday Ordinary Time – by Fr Brian Maher OMI

Gospel Reflection for Sunday September 10th 2023 | 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Three strikes and you’re out..” seems to be the approach of the early Church to disputes and conflicts. Strike one: Negotiation…Try talking together. Strike two: Mediation…Third party facilitation. Strike three: Arbitration…Dispute goes to the governing body for decision. After that, you’re out! – literally out! …dismissed, excluded, fired, shunned, spurned, avoided, or any other word you care to use.

It is a very business-like process and seems difficult to reconcile with Jesus’ command that we forgive one another, “not seven times, but seventy times seven”, or in other words, always, forever, without exception. Is it possibly that within one generation of Jesus’ death and resurrection this has been forgotten? Is the beautiful message of God’s infinite forgiveness already being watered down?

The answer, I think, is really quite simple. The early Church, just like today’s Church, is made up of human men and women – limited, imperfect, weak, human men and women. In an ideal world or in an ideal Church, disputes would be decided by a chat, a coffee, apologies and forgiveness, a shake of hands or a hug, and we start over. But we don’t live in an ideal world, and we are not part of an ideal Church. Pride, stubbornness, jealousy, anger, all of these and more, harden our hearts and cloud our judgement and sometimes make reconciliation almost impossible. It’s sad, maybe, but it’s true. All we need to do is look within ourselves, our families, our work places, our societies to see this in full HD technicolour.

There will always be a divide between the ‘ideal’ and the ‘pragmatic’. The ‘ideal’ holds out to us the way things might be, or even should be, in a perfect world. The pragmatic simply says, ‘this is not a perfect world, so we need structures to help us get as close to the ideal as possible.

As the driver of a motor vehicle I know that driving at speed is dangerous. I regularly see on television the horrific crashes caused by speed and the pain and grief of those left behind. I agree with, and applaud, the speed limits and advice we are given to ensure that all of us can drive, cycle or walk safely and confidently. In an ideal world I would never dream of driving faster than the recommended speed.

Yet…a few years ago I was returning from holidays and driving through the night to reach my destination. As I went through a tiny village, utterly deserted and sleeping peacefully, I suddenly saw a flash of light behind me. A fraction of a second later I saw the speed camera, and looking at the dashboard saw I was travelling at 37mph ……in a 30mph speed zone. As expected, a week later the dreaded official letter arrived with photographic evidence of my speed and informing me of the penalty fine and points taken off my licence. In an ideal world I would never have broken the speed limit in the first place, and having broken it I would, with good grace, have accepted the penalty and moved on, lesson learned.

I did pay the fine and lose my three points (it was that or court!), but I did so grinding my teeth, seething with anger and telling everyone who would listen of the awful injustice I had suffered. I mean…2.30am, a tiny one-street village, not a car or person in sight, I had reduced my speed, I prided myself on being a good and careful driver and still I was a criminal! The horror of it! It was unjust, unfair and unreasonable! It was just plain wrong! I got not a jot of sympathy from family or friends. “What if a mother was running across the street to fetch a doctor for a sick child? You might have killed her.” they said smugly. How absurd! No way would it happen.   

You see, the ideal is fine in itself. Nobody would argue with it. But when it is my pride that is hurt, and my bank balance that takes the hit, and my licence that will label me a ‘law-breaker’ for three years, it is very different.

Jesus gives us the ideal and it is wonderful. It is “The Sermon on the Mount – forgiveness, humility, gentleness, peace, justice – and nobody could argue with the values it contains.

But when these values become ‘real’ we discover how difficult they are and we fail as often as we succeed.

Does that mean there is something wrong with the ideal? Was Jesus setting the bar too high? Was he asking too much from us? No! He was saying this is what you must strive for…and keep striving for…again and again and again.

Does it mean that when I fail – to forgive, or be gentle, or work for peace or be just – that I am an awful person, a failure, a sinner? No again! It simply means that I am human, and humans fail and let themselves down and are weak. So, I pick myself up, look again at the ideal and start over.

What might seem harsh and opposed to the message of Jesus in this Gospel is not that at all. In fact it is a sign of comfort and hope for all of us. If all we have is the ideal then we are doomed to failure. Constant failure erodes our self confidence and leaves us feeling useless, dirty, nasty, shameful. Constant failure convinces us that we are unworthy of love and of being saved.

Every parent wants their child to grow up a good and moral person – honest, happy, respecting others, reliable, forgiving, truthful, and so on. But if a parent demands all of these virtues constantly and scolds and punishes the child when she/he fails, then exactly what the parent wants will be lost. The child will give up trying, convinced that he/she is somehow incapable of being good. Worse than that, the parent will become someone to be feared rather than loved, someone to run from rather than run to.

Instead, a wise parent teaches their child the ideal and points their child in the direction of what is good. But intuitively that parent knows that the child cannot always live up to this ideal. Failure is an opportunity for the parent to model forgiveness, gentleness, tolerance and understanding. The failure can be acknowledged and the implications of that failure for others made clear to the child. Natural consequences may follow and the child may need to say sorry, ask for forgiveness, return what was broken or taken or take a time-out to think about what he/she did. But at no time does the child feel unloved or incapable of doing better the next time.

This is what love is. This is what God is. This is what Matthew, in today’s Gospel is saying to us.

It is in Matthew’s Gospel that we find the clearest telling of the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew holds out the ideal Christian life to us clearly and unambiguously. He does not in any way water down the message of Jesus or the demands of the Kingdom he preaches. But he also knows that his readers are a small, struggling band of believers, persecuted and afraid, and that among them tensions will arise and conflicts develop. It is not what Jesus wants – of course not – but it happens.

Instead of labelling these courageous followers of Jesus failures and unworthy of Jesus, he gives them a way to ease the tensions and resolve the conflicts. Matthew is saying, “Failure happens and that’s OK. But you must acknowledge that failure and seek forgiveness and reconciliation”. A person who cannot, or will not, do that is, in effect, saying that they do not want to be part of a Community which tries to follow the message of Jesus and so that person has to leave, or be asked to leave, the Community, for the sake of the others.

Jesus himself, when he talked about peace and justice, knew quite well that all around him people were slaves – bought and sold like animals, to work without payment or dignity. He clearly set out the ideal, “Blessed are those who work for justice…” but he did not condemn out of hand those who did not live up to it. They could be part of the community of believers so long as they were open to the challenges of the Gospel and genuinely wanted to promote a Kingdom of justice and dignity.

When he talked about peace he knew quite well that his own people were under the power of Rome and were treated cruelly and harshly. He knew some of his followers – even one of his Apostles – promoted active revolt against Roman rule. He clearly stated the ideal, “Blessed are the peacemakers…..” but he welcomed those who failed to live up to it. By living with those who believed and by wanting to follow Jesus’ message, and by seeking, with the help of the Community, to do so, they were loved by God and forgiven.

And when he said to the woman caught committing adultery, “Has no one condemned you? Neither do I. Go, and sin no more…” he was not lessening in any way the ideal his message held out to us. “Go and sin no more…” is the challenge of Jesus and of the community of believers, but being able to up to it is not a requirement of membership. He forgave her without reserve. He didn’t even impose a penance, except the huge penance of trying to do better!

Jesus lived a full and, I have no doubt, happy life. His call to prepare for the coming Kingdom of God was urgent and demanding and he never pretended that it was not. “Take up your cross and follow me…” is not exactly encouraging a wild and hedonistic lifestyle! Yet, people followed him because they were attracted to him and to his lifestyle. A smile, a welcome, a word of encouragement, a sympathetic hug, a gesture of understanding, attracts people. A frown, rejection, hard words, labels of intolerance, indifference, repel people. It is not difficult to work out how Jesus lived his life. This is our call too! We must not, as Pope Francis reminds us, “look like someone who has just come back from a funeral!”

And in case we look at our world and its failures, and indifference, and cruelty, and sin, and are tempted to despair of ever living as Jesus calls us to live, then all we have to do is go with Mary Magdalene on Easter Sunday morning, discover the tomb of Jesus is empty, hear the Risen Lord call her by name, and recognise that he is truly alive, and our smile of joy has to return to our face.

And in case we look at our world and feel alone in our efforts to make a difference, then all we have to do is read the last words of today’s Gospel, and we will turn to the person next to us in Church and say a sincere “thank you.” Those words: “…For where two or three gather in my name, I shall be there with them.”

We gather in his name and he is here with us.

Psalm 139:6 says it perfectly: “How wonderful for me this knowledge. How great, beyond my grasp!”

Many thanks,

Brian.

If you have any comments, questions or thoughts on this scripture reflection, please feel welcome to email me at b.maher@oblates.ie

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