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I love good a malaprop
as well as a good play on words. One recent malaprop I heard came when,
in the midst of a discussion, I asserted a point to which the other
person responded, "Well, that's a mute point!" Just this
morning, I read a good play on words in a letter to the editor of a
magazine published for priests. The writer offered the following advice
about giving a homily: “Father, if you don’t strike oil in three
minutes, stop boring.” I don’t know about the three minutes, but I have
personal experience that a boring homily can be a real penance. So,
I’ll continue to do my best and, even though I will be longer than three
minutes, I will try to “drill” rather than to “bore.”
Several years ago I
read a book entitled The Courageous Follower. What originally
caught my attention was the book’s subtitle, “people who stand up to
and for their leaders.” The author’s thesis is that it takes
courage not only to tell leaders what that they need to hear (and may
not want to hear) but also to tell others in defense of leaders what
these people need to hear (and may not want to hear). All too often,
the author argues, followers lack the courage it takes to challenge
their leaders and to defend them.
It’s very easy to read
a book like The Courageous Follower and to recognize how very
ordinary and common place it is to talk about people and their
shortcoming and failures than it is to talk to people about their
shortcomings and failures. This may also partially explain why so many
offices, worksites, neighborhoods, parishes, homes, and schools become
verbal war zones where gossip, innuendo, and backstabbing predominate.
While the author of
The Courageous Follower attributes much of this propensity to the
absence of the virtue of courage, today’s scripture readings attribute
this behavior to something more fundamental, namely, a lack of love of
neighbor. “Owe nothing to anyone,” St. Paul tells the Romans, “except
to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the
law.” For his part, Jesus is much more blunt when he says, “If someone
sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.”
And Ezekiel prophesies, “If you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked
from his way, the wicked shall die for his guilt, but I will hold you
responsible for his death.”
Talking about
other people’s shortcomings and failures rather than talking to
people about their shortcomings and failures gives evidence of a heart
devoid of love of neighbor, a failure that scripture reminds us is just
as heinous as that of the wrongdoing of the wicked.
The kinds of things we
need to talk to people about that today’s scriptures allude to are not
those things people need to be told and having to do with their
external, physical selves, those embarrassing things we wish others
would tell us about. How often have you discovered something terribly
embarrassing about yourself and wished that someone had brought it to
your attention? As important as these matters of social propriety are,
they pale in comparison to those matters relating to our internal,
spiritual selves, the substantive matters today’s scriptures allude to.
These substantive matters focus upon those shortcomings, failures, and
the evil misdeeds we wish that we could keep others from noticing. And,
when someone does notice these misdeeds and brings these matters to our
attention, we may try to make them regret that they ever brought the
subject up. Today’s scriptures are challenging us to consider the
obligation we have to talk directly to people about these substantive
matters.
From this perspective,
there are many things people do that Jesus' disciples must talk to these
people about. We may see someone acting in a way that explains why they
are having trouble in their marriage. A parent we know well may be
dealing with a child in a rather demeaning way. At work, a boss or
co-worker may be lying about expenses or stealing company property. Or,
at school, we may see the student seated in the next row cheating on a
test or copying someone else's homework. It’s so very easy to believe
that these evils are “none of my business.” It’s also very easy to
invent reasons to explain why these people are doing what they are doing
so that we don’t have to hold them either personally responsible or
accountable for their misdeeds. We might even put “spin” on their
misdeeds so that we don’t have to bear any personal responsibility or be
held accountable for putting a stop to it. We may even pretend that we
won’t ever be held accountable for allowing the to continue perpetrating
their misdeeds. We’ve gone so far in today’s society that we’re willing
to call what is objectively evil “a choice” and to say that it is
“someone’s right” for which we have no right “to interfere.” But, then,
we talk about their misdeeds with everybody else rather than
to them.
If these evils aren’t
our business, then why are we so very quick to talk to others about what
these people are doing and why it is so very wrong? Are we so full of
fear that we purposely don’t “make it our business” and talk directly to
the evildoers so that they might correct their misdeeds? The author of
The Courageous Follower writes that this has to do with a lack of
courage. And yes, the lack of this virtue is certainly part of the
explanation.
But, today’s
scriptures remind Jesus’ disciples that it has to do with something more
fundamental, namely, the lack of love of neighbor. This is what allows
others not only to continue perpetrating evil and it also makes
accomplices of us, all of which is bad enough. More substantively from
a scriptural perspective, however, this lack of love of neighbor in our
hearts will certainly lead to the death of our soul.
Consider someone you
recently may have talked about rather than to. It could
be a small matter like a sudden weight gain, to a more serious matter
like the way a friend speaks to a spouse, or a very serious matter like
the abuse of alcohol and/or drugs or neglecting their spiritual life.
Instead of speaking directly to that person, what if you were to write
letter to that person. Think about it. How would you approach the
topic address your concern? Would you be frank, matter of fact, and to
the point? Would you speak from your heart and related your
experience? Would you make a recommendation by discussing that doing
what is right, proper, good, and just is the only thing to do?
Unfortunately, Jesus
demands more of his disciples than letter writing. He says, “If someone
sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.”
Certainly, this requires the virtue of courage. More substantively,
however, it also requires love of God as well as love of neighbor. Love
of God because we are demonstrating in fact that we place a higher
premium on God’s saving and life-giving word than we do upon our
feelings. And love of neighbor because, as Jesus’ disciples, we have
been commissioned to bring God’s saving and life‑giving word to all
people both in season and out of season, both when convenient and
inconvenient.
That is what the
prophet Ezekiel is alluding to in today’s first reading when he reminds
us of our duty to be watchmen. In the ancient near East, walls and
ramparts were erected around cities to protect them and their citizens
from enemies. The watchman’s duty was to remain vigilant and to keep an
eye out for potential threats. Darkness made this an especially
difficult challenge. Any failure to keep watch successfully meant
certain death for the watchman because of the potential for the
destruction of the city and its inhabitants.
By calling his fellow
Israelites “watchmen,” Ezekiel was reminding the people (and he reminds
Jesus’ disciples as well) to be on the alert for potential adversaries
who threaten not only our own well-being but also the well-being of
others. Ezekiel was not telling the Israelites to become busybodies.
No, being a watchman requires they observe, watch, contemplate and, most
of all, that when they saw moral dangers, to speak up and sound the
alarm. A failure to do so in moral matters, Ezekiel reminded the
Israelites, leads to death, not only the death of others and the
community as well but, more importantly, the death of their souls.
Jesus teaches his
disciples that saving other people and leading them back to the love of
God and love of neighbor is very much the business of discipleship. The
failure to do so not only allows people to continue to living in
separation from the love of God and love of neighbor but, equally as
important, any failure on the part of a disciple to correct others will
separate the disciple from God because the disciple does not love one’s
neighbor. It is not a question of whether or not the disciple is
prepared to talk to others about what God requires of them but whether
love of neighbor is present in the disciple’s heart to a sufficient
degree that the disciple is motivated to do so.
This is, as St. Paul
reminds as Jesus’ disciples, the debt we owe one another. It is a debt
of love, a debt owed because God has spoken not about but
directly to each and everyone us in Christ Jesus. |
HOMILY
