Source, Summit and Summons 

Ezekiel 33:7-9 gives us the “watchman” role. The first act of stewardship, of leadership, or of taking responsibility for anything, is to notice what needs to be addressed. The second duty is to respond in whatever way is called for. This includes something both cowardice and culture disincline us to do: speaking out to “dissuade the wicked from their ways.” John Paul II said the failure to speak out is a failure to live up to our Christian responsibility: 

Whenever the church speaks of… “social sins”… or the collective behavior of certain social groups, big or small, or even of whole nations and blocs of nations, she… proclaims that such cases of social sin are the result of the accumulation and concentration of many personal sins:… of those who cause or support evil or who exploit it; of those who are in a position to avoid, eliminate or at least limit certain social evils but who fail to do so out of laziness, fear or the conspiracy of silence. [This happens] through the secret complicity or indifference; of those who take refuge in the supposed impossibility of changing the world; and also of those who sidestep the effort and sacrifice required…. The real responsibility, then, lies with individuals. (John Paul II’s closing exhortation after the Synod on Reconciliation, Rome, December 2, 1984, par.31.) 

This gives special urgency to the Responsorial (Psalm 95): “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”  

Where do we hear his voice? One answer, of course, is “Everywhere.” If we have the alertness of “stewards of the kingship of Christ,” we will hear his voice in anything that cries out for correction. Responsibility and leadership have ears.  

How to disagree 

Trying to change things can cause fights. In Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus teaches us a loving way to disagree with each other. First, he says, go directly to the person you disagree with, one-on-one. Don’t criticize the person to everyone else first, gathering a lynch mob at your back. And don’t go first to the authorities (pastor, bishop, etc.).  Speak to your brother or sister on equal terms. “Go and point out the fault but keep it between the two of you.” See if you can come peacefully to an understanding. One on one. 

If you can’t, Jesus says, “Take one or two others along with you.” We would call these “facilitators”—people who can “translate” what each says into terms the other might understand. 

If that doesn’t work, and only if that doesn’t work, then “refer it to the church.” Let someone with the authority to do so tell you how to remain in communion with each other and the Church. The time-honored principle is: “In what is necessary, unity. In what allows for differences of opinion, freedom. In everything, charity.” 

Jesus tells us to take the disagreement even higher: “If two of you join your voices on earth to pray for anything whatever, it shall be granted you by my Father in heaven.” When Christians pray together instead of arguing, Jesus says, “There am I in their midst.” 

If we just followed the procedure Jesus lays down here, most of the divisions in parishes, dioceses, and the Church would never get started. Before we accuse another, what if we first tried sitting together after Communion in the “peace and unity” of the Spirit, conscious of Christ abiding in us both? 

Only one thing 

That is basically what Jesus told Martha to do when she complained about her sister Mary: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things. But there is need of only one thing.” Mary was “sitting at the Lord’s feet and listening to what he was saying.” If we did more of that, we would not have so much to fight about. 

In Romans 13:8-10 Paul said, “Any commandment can be summed up in this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’… Love is the fulfillment of the law.” If our concern about other rules causes us to break that one, something is wrong with our priorities. 

Prayer Prompt: What does it say to you that every Mass ends with the word “Go!”? (“Go forth, the Mass is ended.”  Or: “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.” Or: “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.” Or: “Go in peace.”) Does the Eucharist fill me with desire to go out and renew the face of the earth? 

— Fr. David M. Knight

View today’s Mass readings, Lectionary #127, on the USCCB website here

Fr. David M. Knight (1931-2021) was a priest of the Diocese of Memphis in Tennessee, a prolific writer, and a highly sought after confessor, spiritual director, and retreat master. He authored more than 40 books and hundreds of articles that focus primarily on lay spirituality and life-long spiritual growth.