23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, A September 6, 2020
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
Video of 8am Mass: https://youtu.be/ITpHMmgwkmQ
“Love is love.” “Love trumps hate.” “Love wins” It’s a popular tactic to include “love” in slogans for political and social movements. St. Paul does something similar. “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another.” Jesus himself sums up the entire Jewish law with a similar phrase: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” which St. Paul repeats here.
But there are two very important questions. What. Is. Love? Why should I love? That’s where the slogans break down. If you ask, you’ll get vague answers about being nice and being helpful and being respectful… not quite wrong, but not exactly clear.
Why should I love my neighbor… why should I not steal and kill and lie? You see, the world has this vague idea that we should be nice, but they don’t have a good reason for it. People will say you should love your neighbor, but if the situation is desperate enough, you should let them kill their unborn child, as if the child isn’t a neighbor too. They’ll say you should respect people, but if there are too many of them, they shouldn’t be allowed to have kids. One moment they’ll say you should leave people alone and let them follow their own preferences, the next they’ll turn around and condemn you for not preferring to vote a or think a certain way. When the word love is so flexible that everyone can define it for themselves, it just becomes an empty sound, a meaningless noise. And none of this explains why we should bother to love.
But love is not meaningless and there is a reason for it. Problem is, our feelings will never give us that meaning and motive. Our desires, emotions, preferences, attractions, inclinations, instincts… as important and real as all of these are, they cannot replace our minds, our ability to understand and think. And this ability points us beyond ourselves because it doesn’t make much sense that a mindless, random universe gave us the ability to think and reason and understand. If our minds are rational, then the universe must be something more than random. So what we understand is that the universe follows a design outside ourselves. And Catholics know that the one who designed it didn’t leave us in the dark. He revealed himself and his design, giving us what we need to understand the world, ourselves, and most importantly, love. So, what is love and why do we do it?
St. Paul and Jesus both give a similar answer. Jesus says to the rich young man and St. Paul says right here in his letter to the Romans: “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet, and whatever other commandment there may be.” The ten commandments point us toward love, to a concern for what happens to our neighbor. But the fullest expression of love is in Jesus’ command to “love as I have loved you.” This points us to this definition: Love means to choose what is best for another person. Not what they like or what feels good. What is best. And what is best? That they understand how the world is broken by original sin, that they escape slavery to personal sin, that they learn to understand the design of the world and themselves… that they go to heaven where everything which is broken about them is repaired and made even better.
To love is to choose what is best for another. Okay, then why do we love other people? Because they are made in the image of God. They, no matter their color, culture, or beliefs, have a certain dignity and value because they are made in God’s image. And because they are made in God’s image, they have the right and the responsibility to live according to God’s design, which is what is best for them.
And that is why it is a loving thing to correct people, to tell them they are wrong and even why something as harsh as excommunication is actually an act of love. That’s what’s going on in the first reading and the gospel. When someone sins – when they act in a way contrary to that the design of God, to the image of God in themselves, they should be corrected because you love them. And Jesus gives us the steps for the kind of correction that is not arrogant, selfish, or cruel, but loving.
Notice first of all that Jesus is talking to his disciples, not people in general. This is about correcting our brothers and sisters in Christ, not the world at large – there’s a different approach there. And the first step is to go to them privately. Not condemn them on twitter, not make passive aggressive comments, not complain to their boss. Go to them and seek to clear it up. Only when and if that fails should we involve other people. Only when that fails do we go to the authority of the Church. Finally, the Church only uses excommunication when all other efforts have been made and they persist in their sin.
And the goal of excommunication is not simple punishment, but to treat them “as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.” Remember that Jesus spent a lot of his time with gentiles and tax collectors. Not joining in or condoning their sin, but evangelizing them, befriending them, calling them to conversion. He didn’t invite them to Mass or give them the Eucharist until after their conversion. So, he called them to conversion, and he did so because he loved them, and he loved them because they were made in God’s image.
Whether they were disciples or outsiders, Jesus responded with a love that sought what was best: he loved them by trying to lead them to holiness without trying to control them or manipulate them into it. With brothers, it is a matter of support and correction. With outsiders, it is a matter of evangelization. With both, it is a matter of healing and generosity and patience. With both, it is a matter of pointing out the truth that sin enslaves us and only grace can set us free.
And that grace is given through the Church, the apostles, bishops, and priests who have the authority to bind and loose on heaven and earth, who have the power to unite in prayer, who have the power to call the presence of God himself into concrete times and places. Love is love. It is not indifference, it is not relativism, it is not emotion. Love is the truth that we are made in God’s image, called to live like him, and expected to bring others with us. We should never be offensive on purpose, but if we’re too afraid that people might not like us when we speak the truth – as kindly as possible – then maybe we don’t love them after all. Maybe we just like to be liked… and well, that is not love.