The Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 6, 2020

Matthew 18:15–20

Jesus said to his disciples: “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. Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, amen, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

“We piped you a tune, and you did not dance; we cried you a dirge, and you did not mourn” (Matthew 11, 17).  We act as misbehaving children who insist that all others conform to our fantasies, and then we throw fits when someone wavers in doing so.  And instead heeding the warning to walk, not run across the street, we endanger ourselves and others.  It is for this reason that the Lord provides laws for us.  We may think of ourselves as adults, but if “we do not know how to pray as we ought” (Romans 8, 26), as St. Paul says, then how less likely that we know how to act as we ought.

The Lord lays down laws for us in order to guide us, support us, protect us, and warn us.  If they seem onerous, it is only because we have become unaccustomed either to self-discipline or to following another’s directions.  It is like when a person wears down his shoes and at last buys new ones.  At first they hurt and their stiffness is troublesome, but if they fit properly, they benefit the structure of our feet and enable us to walk or run better.  The old shoes felt more comfortable, but they provided no support for our arches and had dangerous holes in the soles.  Now, over time, the new shoes wear down and become more comfortable, but in the case of God’s law, by continuously conforming ourselves to it, we become more “comfortable”.  

Who is this God who gives us laws?  He is the One who loves us so much that he would die on the Cross for us.  He shows no ordinary love in this, but a love that is “strong as death”, and with a “jealousy as hard as hell”.  If we would live with him in his eternal embrace in heaven, we must love him in exactly the same way.  Because of this, we must love him a love all things, and above all people: “He that loves father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loves son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10, 37).  Or, to put it another way, “Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law” (Matthew 10, 34-35).  He also warns us that obeying his laws, while gaining us heaven, also necessarily gains enemies on earth: “The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall put them to death. And you shall be hated by all men for my name’s sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved” (Matthew 10, 21-22).

Today, some folks declare themselves to be “autonomous”, which is only another way of saying that they are omnipotent, and therefore lawless.  (It is always funny to see bumper stickers on cars promoting or announcing autonomy because it is on the highway that we are least autonomous).  Still, whether they want to be or not, they are as subject to natural law as much as to physical law, both of which are established by God.  Those who transgress either will suffer the consequences.  Heaven is for those who follow the directions to get there.