Correcting your brother with love through prayer & forgiveness - Homily, Week Ordinary Time, Week 23 – Cycle A

Good morning. This is the time of the year when many of our young adults have gone off to college for the first time.  For many of them it’s a brand new experience of being away from home, living on their own, and making their own choices.  Unfortunately this is a time they choose to do things that are contrary to Mom and Dad’s rules and God’s law.  This brought me back to my days as a freshman at Purdue University and the constant reminder of the consequences of making sinful choices: Brother Max. Did anyone else get to experience Brother Max?   He was a street preacher who’d set up in the middle of campus and shout out scripture and eternal damnation to those living in sinful ways.  He would engage in heated debates with students, many of them doing so just for entertainment.  He was quite a spectacle. Brother Max was like the watchman in Ezekiel, and felt it his obligation to “dissuade the wicked from his way”, but it wasn’t very effective.  I believe that many of the students he was trying to save did not have a relationship with Christ, so his words were just noise.  He had mainly a one-way conversation that did not attempt to build a relationship with the students.

It’s pretty hard to correct someone if you don’t have a relationship with them.

Jesus gives advice today on how the disciples are to correct a brother or sister who sins against them.  This would apply as well to those causing spiritual harm to themselves. The first step is to go to your brother or sister, and confidentially try to work it out between the two of you.   Jesus said to “tell him his fault between you and him alone”.  Jesus had a good sense of human nature, as we don’t always do this.  Too often we jump to conclusion that others have personally meant to hurt us and complain to others about the one who hurt us. This does not give the person a chance to rectify the situation. If we address the person who has hurt us with love, it gives them a chance to reconcile with us.  They may have been unaware of their fault, and willing to make things right. If we have a relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ, we should be able to resolve our differences through forgiveness.  If we cannot resolve the issue one on one, Jesus provides a model through the Christian community, the Church, and only at last resort to go to the secular community.

Prayer is essential to resolving our differences. It’s good to first pray on the offenses to discern if it really needs addressing by asking for the Holy Spirit’s guidance. The Holy Spirit gives us patience, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom to help to discern what to do.   We need to discern if the sin is less serious or is it of grave matter, a mortal sin.

If it’s less serious it may be a matter of forgiving the other and not bringing the issue up at all. If it does need to be addressed, prayer is the best way to start the discussion. It helps bring down our defenses by calling on Jesus & the Holy Spirit to be present.   Once an agreement has been made to solve the situation, prayer is the way to go in peace. Jesus tells us, “If two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.”

Forgiveness is key to heal a situation where we’ve been hurt by another’s sin.   Jesus tells us, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”.  If we’ve been hurt, the damage has been done.  The offending party needs to do their best at repairing damage.  But sometimes this may not be possible.   If we don’t forgive and hold on to the feelings of hurt, it eats away at us, and causes us harm us.   Forgiving the offender us helps our own healing.

The offender needs healing as well.  They may have been forgiven by us, but may struggle with guilt of the harm they caused.  They need the mercy of Christ through the sacrament of reconciliation and to hear the healing words of the priest: “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”.   Our own forgiveness and the sacraments of the Church bring healing for both parties.

So returning to the story about Brother Max, how do you help those who are hurting others and themselves who don’t know Christ?  It’s hard to address the sins committed by others without having relationship with them.  So how do we go about doing that? By sharing our joy of knowing Christ with those who are in need, both physically and spiritually so we can build a relationship with them. This will take patience and understanding as those who don’t know Christ may be living a life contrary to God’s ways and hard for us to deal with.   How can we help them to encounter Christ? By showing them love as St. Paul calls us to do today.

What are some ways to show love?  By encountering others who don’t know Christ and building a relationship with them.  A colleague of mine was recently down at IU and saw a Dominican priest who was surrounded by students in the middle of campus.  The priest was just sitting on a bench next to a sign that read, “talk to a priest”. His approach was to use honey to attract students instead of the stings of Brother Max to

build a relationship with the students. Pope Francis washing the feet of the juvenile prison inmates on Good Friday service last year gave the youth of many faiths a personal encounter with Christ.   I’m able to bring Christ in Word and sacrament to men and woman by visiting them in Johnson County Jail and connecting them back to their faith communities. Our new food panty will serve a lot more people and that will be a great opportunity to share the joy of knowing Christ with many who may not know him.   By serving the clients at the pantry it shows them Christ’s love in meeting their physical needs, in praying with them, and inviting them to know Christ through our faith community.  By helping others develop a relationship with Christ, we can help them learn the ways of Christ and prevent them from hurting themselves and others.

So when we’re hurt by others in our Christian community or see others hurting themselves by their sins, follow Jesus’ model, and make sure to pray, and be forgiving.  Also when we encounter those who don’t know the way of Christ, make an effort to build a relationship with them in Christian love, so they can know how to live as God wills.  May God bless you.