Remember the Context: Unity and Love

“Love is a fulfillment of the law” says St. Paul to the Romans.

The theme of today’s scripture is “reconciliation.”

But before we jump to conclusions about what is said,

it is important to remember the context of the passages of today.

When we are reading scripture,

there are two things that are really important for us

so that we can understand it more fully for our day.

The first is the context in which it is situated and

then also the history in which it has been written.

Context and history are especially in applying it to our local situation.

Let me talk about context.

There are several contexts here that are important today.

There is the context of where this gospel passage lies in the gospel

and also the liturgical texts;

that is the three different readings along with the responsorial psalm.

That is an important context.

Let me give you an example:

Matthew’s gospel is written predominately to a Jewish community;

it has some Gentiles in it but it is predominately a Jewish community.

We have been listening all summer long to Matthew’s gospel

with what is called the parable discourses.

There are five discourses in Matthew’s gospel.

But we now move to a different discourse;

it is called the Instruction Discourse.

According to the gospel of Matthew

Jesus shifts into an instructional mode.

He starts to give instructions.

We will see this in the next several weeks.

That is important because we are no longer talking in parables.

Now we are talking in instructions.

Other gospels do not do this.

That is the first important context.

The second important context is that this particular instruction

is being given to the community for the community’s sake.

In other words, Jesus says, “How do you deal with

disagreement inside the community?”

That is the ultimate question that is being asked.

Matthew is putting it in Jesus’ words;

here is a four-step process

but remember the premise of this context

is that we are talking about people inside the community.

The temptation is to apply these four steps to people outside the community

and that is not what it was intended for.

Now it might be useful for that

but it is important to understand that Jesus was talking about the community.

The community of followers of him.

We all know this can apply to business practice

and even personal practice but the scriptural practice here is

that if you have a disagreement with somebody inside our community;

somebody is sinning;

somebody is doing what is not right

according to our custom as believers

then we ought to go to them alone first.

We ought to not shame them.

We ought to go to them and hold them accountable saying,

“Hey, you are doing this.” That is the first step.

The second step,

if they do not listen to our reason

is to then bring two or three witnesses

and then do what we would do today, the term is “intervention.”

We would sort of do an intervention.

“Hey look, you are breaking up the unity of our community

by what you are saying or doing.”

And you point out the weakness.

Then, only then you move to the third step

if that does not work; then you tell the Church.

Now this Church would be the leadership, the disciples,

at the time would have been told.

“Hey look, this is what is going on.”

Then the leaders would intervene and say,

“Hey, you are affecting the unity of the community.”

They would then ask the person to reform;

to change their ways;

that they are affecting the unity of the community.

Now if those do not work then it is really interesting that he says then

treat them as you would a Gentile or tax collector;

this sounds so harsh

but we do not understand the context.

If we don’t remember the context we will miss this;

how do the Jewish leaders treat the tax collectors or the Gentiles?

They would ostracize them;

they would have been kicked out of the community.

We would call that excommunication today. Kick them out.

But you see it is Jesus who is talking.

Jesus does not do that to tax collectors and sinners.

How does Jesus treats the tax collectors and sinners?

He dines with them.

He walks with them.

He engages with them.

He loves them even more than he does the members of the community.

Why? Because now they have fallen clearly outside the community

and they do not understand how much they have affected the community.

Jesus says, “You love them all the more!”

That is the real twist in this set of circumstances.

What we tend to do is to go to that fourth step and say, 

“Okay, you are sinning; out of the community you go.

You are not obeying the rules.”

But Jesus was not a very rule-based man;

his rule was the rule of love.

All four steps were meant to be done with love.

If they failed all that then we double down on the love

and we go meet with them;

we dine with them;

and love them and call them to reform by our love.

The second component to the context is the history.

What was the history in which Jesus acted?

When you say, “Treat them like the gentiles and the tax collectors.”

We have to look to Jesus’ history.

What and how has he done this before?

And of course we know we have heard over and over again

that his first and only commandment was

to love the Lord your God with all your heart,

all your soul and to love your neighbor as yourself.

That is why Paul was able to say to the Romans

to sum up the whole of the law is the law of love;

love is the fulfillment of the law.

Okay that is all great understanding Fr. Brendan,

but what does that matter to our lives?

According to the Prophet Ezekiel this morning,

he was getting chastised by the Lord if he did not speak up,

that he was responsible for the sins of others

if he was not willing to speak

because God gave him that gift to see.

So how do we apply this to ourselves?

This message is for our community;

not just for the community of St. Simon’s, but we as a Catholic Church.

We should be united as a community of believers.

We have so much division inside our Church already.

And we tend to go to step four—ostracize!

But that is not actually what Jesus says in today’s gospel.

He wants us to double down on love;

to be continuously generous with our movement of love towards all.

Yes, call them generously in love;

call them one-on-one then help them understand

but we are to call in the, if you would,

the over pervading blanket in which we wrap this, is love.

There are ways in which we could apply this to our own lives:

inside of our family or friends when we have disagreements.

We could follow this four-step process quite well

but remember the goal is always unity and the method is always love.

They are the two guiding posts in applying the scripture.

Now certainly, we could apply it to our world

and where we are in the context as a country

and a world in the middle of this pandemic;

in the middle of all this social unrest;

in the middle of an election

but remember to include the context and the history.

When somebody is saying something,

understand the context and understand their history

and what they have said and done before.

Also understand how we apply that ourselves;

Jesus is always calling us to unity of the community

and always the blanket or the methodology.

We wrap it in is always love.

In the end love is the fulfillment of the law.