Homily: Fr. Jorge on Fraternal Correction

“To Win a Brother”

 

by Rev. Jorge Jesus Lopez
Chaplain
Thomas Aquinas College, California
Homily for the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
September 10, 2023

 

This passage of today’s Gospel is read in the framework of the Discourse of the Community life; that is, how life should be within a Christian Community: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell the Church. If he refuses to listen even to the Church, then treat him as you would a gentile or a tax collector.”

Now, our common understanding of this passage is this: If somebody has done something wrong, or I think he has done some wrong, I need to reprimand him. For that reason, you might be reprimanded for something you haven’t done … because people feel the need to reprimand everybody for everything done in a different way than they think it should be done. You need to talk that way, you need to pray like that, blah, blah, blah. This is a common recrimination that people are satisfied by making. 

In any case, this is not how it should be. Here we are talking about an interpersonal relationship in which something went wrong, someone committed a fault, a serious one, a grave fault. Jesus says: Go and tell your brother about his fault between you and him alone. So first, talk with him alone; if he doesn’t listen to you, take somebody else and talk with him. If he doesn’t listen to you then, make it more serious and speak with the community. If he doesn’t listen to you, then: Treat him as you would a gentile or a tax collector.

We need to say two things: The first is that, normally, the practice is the opposite one. The way that we behave — even in the Church — is the opposite. If your brother sins against you, first you tell everyone. After that, you say it to somebody who knows your brother, and then he will be told by that friend that you are upset with him. This is an anti-evangelical practice being carried on in so many communities. Unfortunately, this is the normal strategy that we use to survive in our Christian communities. 

Second, we need to keep in mind that we have to see this problem with new eyes and focus our sight on this phrase: won over your brother … won over your brother… 

In this world, there are people who gain money, people who gain degrees, people who gain status, people who gain reputation – and there are people who gain brothers …

“In this world, there are people who gain money, people who gain degrees, people who gain status, people who gain reputation – and there are people who gain brothers.”

The brother, who offended you, had been lost, but then you won him over. He has done a fault, he has sinned. The problem is not that you need to find justice for yourselves, but that you have lost a brother. If this brother has done wrong with you, it is because he had not thought of you as a brother. 

You need to talk with him, not because in this case you will gain justice, your rights will be respected, your value recognized, and in that, finally, you will become satisfied. No! You need to talk with him to win a brother. This is the most important value here: a brother … or a friend, a son, a husband, a wife. 

 How can we allow ourselves to lose a brother? Can we live a good life knowing that we have lost a brother? He is my brother because we are bound by faith. 

And do you think that you will have a better life if you lose a brother? That you will lose a brother without losing some part of your heart? Can we close the door so easily? We can’t do that. We can’t present ourselves in front of the Lord without our brothers and sisters. 

The Lord Jesus, Who, to win His brothers, has given up His life, will teach us how to win a brother. This is the point, because when a person approaches you to criticize you, to tell you that you — in his view — have done something wrong, you get it. You know either he wants to win you, to help you, to support you, or simply that he’s bitter and only wants to express his discomfort. If a criticism is made because he loves you, you understand it. 

Well, every one of us has some brother who is doing wrong with us … Then we need to figure out how we are going to work with others’ faults. Here we need to think of a way of going to those who have done wrong to us, to win them, to recover fraternity among us. 

So, talk to him alone, try to open his heart, to win him. If he doesn’t listen to you, take some people to support you in trying to win him as a brother. And then, tell the community. Tell them that you want to win him as a brother, that you can’t live without being in peace with him. He has done wrong, but we need to live as brothers. Because you and I are brothers, this situation cannot be accepted. 

And if he doesn’t even listen in that case, if you don’t win him … what should you do? Then treat him as you would a gentile or a tax collector?

If you want to read this text according to the healthy and timely practice that the Church uses in extreme cases of excommunication, exclusion from Christian community, St. Paul speaks about this practice as a therapeutic one. To win a brother, the Church needs to use a strong disciplinary measure to let that brother know that he needs to change his mind; otherwise he can’t be part of the Community. 

But in this text, Jesus is not talking about this practice. Because the gentiles and tax collectors in Matthew’s gospel are there not to be excluded, but to be loved. St. Matthew in Chapter 5 says, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.” 

In fact, Matthew knows very well how to interpret Jesus’s words, since he was a tax collector, a sinner who was forgiven and given a chance of life by the Lord.

If he doesn’t listen to you, if he doesn’t listen to another brother, if he doesn’t want to listen even to the community — well, you need to love him, as he is. You need to love him, pagan, gentile, tax collector. You need to give your life for him. 

With some people, it’s necessary to talk about Christ, and with others, it’s necessary to be Christ. With some people, we must work together; with others, it might be necessary to love them for free. Work together when it’s possible, but when it doesn’t work anymore, it’s necessary to welcome them, to love them as they are.

How can we think that, when we have suffered something bad from our brother, we are allowed to exclude him from the Christian community, just because he hasn’t changed his mind?

Jesus, Who for us has died on the Cross ... How can we think that this word (this command) is different? 

Think of how Jesus treats you. He doesn’t say, if you don’t listen to me and you don’t listen to my prophets, you are excommunicated. No: If you don’t listen to me, I will die for you. I want to win you. 

To win a brother, to save a sinner, to save one who is doing badly, it’s always the case. 

“”With some people, it’s necessary to talk about Christ, and with others, it’s necessary to be Christ. With some people, we must work together; with others, it might be necessary to love them for free..”

In fact, the first people who changed their mind and embraced the Faith for the first sermon of the first pope of the Church were those who asked Jesus to be crucified. St Peter, on the day of Pentecost, said: “‘Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves know — this Jesus, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men … God raised Him up.’ Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’”

I hope every one of us this morning would have our heart cut and say to the Lord: What shall we do? 

We are called to use the strategy of the gentile and tax collector. We need to love who is in front of me, as he is, without putting conditions, without pretending that the other will understand. You need to love him as he is: somebody in need of the healing power of God’s love.