God did not ‘mind his own business'
(Following is Archbishop George H. Niederauer’s homily delivered Sept. 7 at St. Mary’s Cathedral, San Francisco.)
During my days of teaching English in college there was a class in which the students read and discussed Oscar Wilde’s play, “The Importance of Being Earnest.” During the second act, two young women mistakenly believe they are in love with the same young man, so they start quarreling. One woman says to the other, “At moments like this, speaking the truth becomes more than a duty — it becomes a pleasure!”
That is so characteristic of our own human behavior. For instance, we may say to someone, “Let me tell you what I think of you. Let me be brutally frank.” In that moment, of course, the word “brutally” is much more important than the word “frank.” When we feel wronged by another person, so often our responses don’t help the situation. Maybe we just see the in silence. Perhaps we contemplate revenge. Perhaps our attitude toward the other person is to say something like, “Forget you!”
Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel challenges us to do something quite different from all that. He urges us to take the initiative, to go to the person, to name the problem, to build a bridge and walk across it ourselves.
Sometimes “Mind your own business” and “Keep out of it” may be good advice, especially in regard to other people’s quarrels. However, minding your own business and keeping out of it are not supreme values, or even ultimately wise pieces of advice, no matter how popular they are.
In contrast, we hear the mind of God from the prophet Ezekiel (33:7-9): you are a “watchman for Israel.” If you warn the wicked man, and he still persists in his wickedness, then he will be punished, but you will be innocent of his fate. However, if you could warn the wicked man and fail to do so, his fall will be your fall, too. You are your brother’s keeper, even, and especially, the most unattractive kinds of brothers and sisters.
Why is it my business? Because God did not “mind his own business.” He sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to teach us, to live and die and rise for us, and to bring us together as his Church. Because God has made Jesus our brother, we are sisters and brothers to one another. So St. Paul tells the Romans (13:8), “Owe no debt except the debt that binds us to love one another.” The debt of love can never be finally paid off like a mortgage, because Jesus keeps giving himself to us moment by moment, day by day, especially in the gift of Eucharist – here and now and forever.
Paul goes even further to say that the command to love one another sums up all 10 commandments, because, if we keep the command to love, we will keep all those commandments as well. Every sin is a sin against love, love for God and love for others.
Hence, true correction of a sister or brother in Christ springs from genuine love for her or him. We must be careful that our correcting or challenging of another does not spring from our pride, from our desire for superiority, from our anger or resentment, or from a wish to make others feel belittled and small.
A rule of thumb is this: whenever you start to evaluate the behavior of another, always stop and examine your own motives. That’s why Jesus describes the process of correction in Matthew’s Gospel, and he is assuming that the misunderstanding is something that happened in the context of the church to which both parties belong. At first, Jesus says, just have a one-to-one conversation – yourself and the person in question. If that fails, perhaps one or two others need to go with you, not to gang up on someone, but to show that others, too, think there is an issue to be addressed and resolved. Finally, you may need to ask the leaders and members of the Church to help work toward reconciliation.
Don’t be too quick to assume that, if all this fails, you can write off and shun the offender. Jesus says, “Treat him as you would the Gentile or the tax collector,” but remember how patient and loving Jesus was toward Gentiles and tax collectors!
In my 13 years as bishop I have begun to realize how difficult most people find it is to confront one another in an honest, direct, but positive and reconciling way. Over and over again people write to me demanding that I correct someone who works for the Catholic Church. Most of the time, when I ask them whether they have actually approached the person about the matter, the answer I get is, “No, that’s your job.” However, I imagine that, if the same letter-writer went to the place where she worked, and found out that a co-worker had complained to the boss about her, without bringing the objection to her first, she would be furious.
Confrontation is hard, but God’s grace is there for us. Jesus points out that prayer is the context for all we do in the Church and in the world. Where two or more are gathered together, there is God in their midst. Then we hear words that can be easily misunderstood: “If two of you join your voices on earth to pray for anything whatever, it shall be granted you by my Father in heaven.”
It’s true, every unselfish prayer is heard and answered, but not every request is granted. On Holy Thursday night in the Garden of Gethsemani, Jesus prayed to the Father, asking that he might escape the suffering and death that he faced. He prayed, “Father, take this cup [of suffering] I away from me. But let it be as you would have it, not as I.”
Jesus asked the Father for escape, if that were possible, but the Father gave him victory instead. His prayer was answered most fully in the Resurrection victory of Easter Sunday morning. In this imperfect and sinful world, Jesus had to suffer at the hands of sinners, but that was not the end of the story. That suffering became the way to redemption for us all.
