Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Life is a web of relationships. Family, friends, work, neighborhoods – they are all a web of relationships. Relationships are life-giving, but they can also suck the life out of us. Relationships can make life easy, but we can also find ourselves entangled in its complex web. Relationships can make life meaningful, but they have the capacity to empty our lives of meaning. Think, for example, about how marriage creates a whole new network of relationships. On the reverse think about how a divorce throws an entire network of relationships into chaos. If you have never struggled with relationships, please thank God, because you are blessed.
Let us allow today’s scripture readings to speak to our web of relationships. Here are my three points for today.
The Ideal
Let us begin with the ideal. As Christians, the ideal is very simple – that every believer conducts his or her affairs with such integrity that when two or three people gather in Christ’s name, it indeed looks like a gathering of believers. Whether it is the intimate relationships within our families, or the less intimate setting our friendships, or the more formal work environment, or the relationships within the church community, it would be lovely it our relationships are guided by the ideal. Often, though, reality is far from the ideal. Even Jesus struggled with the community of the Twelve apostles. As close as they were to Jesus, they contested to be the first and the greatest in the kingdom of God and argued about who was the greatest.
In all of scripture, we have but one instance of the ideal community. In the Acts of the Apostles, the community of believers was of one heart and mind. They held everything that had in common and there was not a needy person among them. And then like a mirage, that scene disappears.
However, the ideal must always remain in our sight. The ideal comes to us both from Jesus’ life and his teachings. Before he made the ultimate self-sacrifice for the salvation of the world, he said to his disciples, “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Mt 13:35). He said, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so should you love one another” (Jn 13:34). Yes, relationships are complex, but Jesus lays out an ideal before us. More importantly he lived his own life by that ideal.
The Reality
The Matthean community had the ideal that Jesus presented in its consciousness. But it also had to face the reality of managing intra-community relationships, especially when believers did not live up to the ideal. We ourselves face this reality in our families and at our workplace. Relationships do break down in families, in workplaces, and in societies. Families split for that reason. People get fired or resign from jobs for that reason. Political, social, and religious divides exist for that reason.
The question is simple. What do we do to resolve a conflict either at home, work, or society? What does a community do when members do not live up to the ideal?
Matthew’s answer is Jesus’ four-step process. It is a judicial process. However, notice that it is carried out with much love. The real goal is to reconcile and integrate the erring person into the community. Alienation is the last resort. In other words, conflict resolution or correction can be an act of love, concern, and tenderness.
I also find it very interesting that today’s gospel passage ends with Jesus’ words, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them.” It provides us with a form of Chrisitan ethic for resolving conflicts. It says to us that whenever two or three are gathered together in Christ’s name, it must look like a gathering where Christ is present. The quality of the relationship within the Christian community and the Christian family, must be, to say the least, Christian!
Except to Love One Another
In today’s second reading, Paul gives us an additional ethic to manage our complex web of relationships. He says, “Brothers and sisters: Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another” (Rom 13:8). In fact, if we add the verse before, it says, “Pay to all their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, toll to whom tolls are due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due” (Rom 13:7). And then he continues, “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another” (Rom 13:8). Furthermore, Paul says, “Love does no evil to the neighbor, hence, love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom 13:10).
In our very toxic political, social, and ecclesial environment, conflicts arise very easily. We can often find ourselves entangled in the web of complex relationships. As Christians and believers, though, no matter what our differences, no matter what we believe, no matter what side we take, no matter what is gained or lost, there is one thing in which we cannot be found wanting - that we “owe nothing to anyone except to love one another!” All “the commandments, Paul says, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet, ” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Rom 13:9). This is the ultimate Christian ethic. May we never be found wanting in living it.
Let us bring our complex web of relationships, our families, our church, our nation and the world before this altar. This Eucharist has the power to transform us. May our participation in this Eucharist transform our world into a place where we “owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another.”
- Fr. Satish Joseph