 |
| Andre-Rublev's Saviour |
Homily preached by Br Simeon at Winmalee
on
on
Sunday
7th September 2014:
THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST.
Gospel:
Mt 18: 15-20
“If your brother
sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone . . . If
he does not listen, take 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 . . . “For where two or three
are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.”
May
the words I speak be those You want spoken, may the words we hear be those You
want heard, may we live to Your glory.
Amen.
What's
the best way to repair a damaged relationship?
Jesus offers his disciples spiritual freedom and power for restoring broken or
injured relationships. Jesus makes clear that his followers should not tolerate
a breach in relationships among themselves. Sin must be confronted and help
must be offered to restore a damaged relationship. When relationships between
brothers and sisters in the Lord are damaged, then we must spare no effort to
help the brother or sister at fault to see their error and to get things right
again.
Saint
Augustine of Hippo comments on Jesus' instruction:
If
someone has done you injury and you have suffered, what should be done? You
have heard the answer already in today’s scripture: “If your brother sins
against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.” If you fail
to do so, you are worse than he is. He has done someone harm, and by doing harm
he has stricken himself with a grievous wound. Will you then completely
disregard your brother’s wound? Will you simply watch him stumble and fall
down? Will you disregard his predicament? If so, you are worse in your silence
than he in his abuse. Therefore, when any one sins against us, let us take
great care, but not merely for ourselves. For it is a glorious thing to forget
injuries. Just set aside your own injury, but do not neglect your brother’s
wound. Therefore “go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone,” intent
upon his amendment but sparing his sense of shame. For it might happen that
through defensiveness he will begin to justify his sin, and so you will have
inadvertently nudged him still closer toward the very behaviour you desire to
amend. Therefore “tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens
to you, you have gained your brother,” because he might have been lost, had you
not spoken with him.
What
can we learn from this passage about how to mend a damaged relationship? If you
feel you have been wronged by someone, Jesus says the first step is to speak
directly but privately to the individual who has done the harm. One of the
worst things we can do is brood over our grievance. This can poison the mind
and heart and make it more difficult to go directly to the person who caused
the damage. If we truly want to settle a difference between someone, we need to
do it face to face. If this fails in its purpose, then the second step is to
bring another person or persons, someone who is wise and gracious rather than someone
who is hot-tempered or judgemental.
The
goal is not so much to put the offender on trial, but to persuade the offender
to see the wrong and to be reconciled. And if this fails, then we must still
not give up, but seek the help of the Christian community. Note the emphasis
here is on restoring a broken relationship by seeking the help of other
Christians who hopefully will pray and seek a solution for reconciliation based
on Christian love and wisdom, rather than relying on force or threat of legal action,
such as a lawsuit.
Lastly,
if even the Christian community fails to bring about reconciliation, what must
we do? Jesus seems to say that we have the right to abandon stubborn and
obdurate offenders and treat them like social outcasts. The tax-collectors and
Gentiles were regarded as "unclean" by the religious-minded
Jews. However we know from the gospel
accounts that Jesus often had fellowship with tax-collectors, ate with them,
and even praised them at times!
Jesus
refuses no one who is ready to receive pardon, healing, and restoration. The
call to accountability is inevitable and we can't escape it, both in this life
and at the day of judgement when the Lord Jesus will return. But while we have
the opportunity, we must not give up on stubborn offenders, but, instead make
every effort to win them with the grace and power of God's healing love and
wisdom.
As we
leave this place today, I leave this with you to ponder; “do you tolerate
broken relationships or do you seek to repair them as God gives you the
opportunity to mend and restore what is broken”?
Amen.
