(Twenty-third
Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on September 6, 2020 at St. Pius
X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Ezekiel 33:7-9; Psalm 95:1-9; Romans
13:8-10; Matthew 18:15-20.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twenty-third Sunday 2020]
One day a man
named John is deeply offended by his friend Bill. John goes before the Lord and prays in this
fashion: “Dear God, you know everything.
You know what Bill did to me. You
know how his words and actions have hurt me.
So change him; please change him.
Make him realize what he's done.
Make him come to me and apologize.
Thank you, God. Amen.”
The very same
day a woman named Mary is deeply offended by her friend Jane. She also decides to pray, but her prayer is a
little different than John's. (See if
you can determine the difference.) She
says, “Dear God, you know everything.
You know how deeply I’ve been hurt.
But I’m not sure what I should do about it. Should I confront Jane? Should I wait for her to apologize? Should I pretend that the whole incident
never happened? Should I break off my
friendship with her completely? Lord,
help me to see how you want me to deal with this very unpleasant
situation. Amen.”
Now it's
interesting, on the following Sunday, both John and Mary go to church, and the
gospel that's read on that occasion is the one all of you heard this morning: Matthew,
chapter 18, verses 15 to 20. The
question is, who is more likely to take
the message of this gospel to heart and actually put it into practice—John or Mary? The answer is Mary. And you can find the reason for that in the
prayers they uttered beforehand. Yes,
both of them went to the Lord in the midst of their difficulties—that's
true. But they approached God in very
different ways—which is the key point.
John went to God with the solution. Mary went to God with the problem.
Before John ever spoke a word of his prayer he already had everything figured
out in his own mind. He thought he knew
exactly what had to happen for things to get straightened out with Bill. So his prayer basically consisted of giving God
orders. In effect he said, “Ok Lord, here's
the scoop—this is the solution to the problem.
Bill is a dirty, rotten scoundrel and he's got to change. Which is your job, God; you change him. Make him realize what he's done to poor,
innocent me! Make him come to me and
apologize—and we'll all live happily ever after. Thank you God. Amen.”
So here comes
the Lord, the very next Sunday, speaking to John directly and clearly in this
gospel text, giving him concrete guidelines on how to deal with Bill. Jesus says there, “If your brother should
commit some wrong against you, do this—and if that doesn't work, do this—and if
that doesn't work, do this—and if that doesn't work, do this.” I think it's safe to say that those words
would probably go in one of John's ears and right out the other. He wouldn't pay any attention to the Lord's
solution to his problem, because he's already got his own.
Notice how
different Mary was—as illustrated in her prayer. She had the very same problem as John, but
she went to the Lord asking him for the
answer, asking him for guidance,
asking him for HIS solution. The basic thrust of her prayer was, “Dear
God, this is the problem I’m facing, and I’m not sure how to deal with it. Help me to see what I need to do to handle it
properly. Help me to see what I need to
do to be reconciled with my friend.”
So I think it
should be obvious, when she goes to church the following Sunday and hears this
gospel passage proclaimed, in all likelihood she’ll respond by saying, “Thank
you, Lord, this is just what I needed to hear.
These are the guidelines I need to follow to get my relationship with Jane
back in order.” And then, if she's really
smart, Mary will go to someone (perhaps her parish priest) for a little spiritual
direction, in order to figure out how to apply these principles of Jesus to her
particular situation.
I share this
with you today because I think it’s very common for people to go to God like John
did: with the solution and not the problem.
I've certainly been guilty of this; I'm sure we all have. We say, “Lord, this is what I want—this is
what I need—this is what I think you should do.” And we never go any further than that. So we never receive (and put into practice)
the solution God may try to give us through a text of Scripture at Mass, or
through the words of another person, or through some other means. We don't hear
it, because our minds and hearts are closed.
We think we’ve already got it all figured out.
The challenge
is to go to the Lord with the attitude of Mary: putting the problem confidently
in his hands, and allowing him to give us his
solution. Because the fact of the matter
is, my brothers and sisters, God’s solution is at least as good as ours is—always! And, most of the time, it is much, much
better.
