To Win Over My Sister
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September 6, 2020“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.” (Mt 18:15)
Today’s gospel gives some very practical instruction on how to foster unity through reconciliation by dealing directly with failures in relationships. There are times when we wax lyrical about gospel values, without a practical application in sight. This is not one of those moments. In fact, the situation of conflict envisioned by these words, and the proposed means of dealing with it are so eminently practical that it is hard to read them in any but the most literal sense. We are then faced with a difficult demand. None of us finds this easy to practice. Mostly, I think, we would like to avoid it, or dilute the teaching because it is too hard. And yet it remains for us a word of the Lord.
Speaking honestly to one who has hurt us is a mature and courageous way to forward our relationships. If well-motivated and carefully executed, it is also an act of love which fulfils the law: “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law” (Rom 13:8). More than this, the Scriptures speak of it as a fundamental responsibility, something we owe to anyone we call brother or sister. Today’s reading from Ezekiel helps us to get in touch with some of the urgency involved:
“You, son of man, I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel;
when you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me.
If I tell the wicked, ‘O wicked one, you shall surely die,’
and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked from his way,
the wicked shall die for his guilt,
but I will hold you responsible for his death.” (Ez 33:7-8)
Before God, the prophet is held accountable for the people he is called to warn and so rescue from perdition. Before Christ, the Christian is held accountable for his brother or sister to whom she is bound as a member of one family. Like Cain, we may not shake from us the burden of being our brother’s keeper. If we fail in this, Abel’s blood cries out from the earth to God, and both of us are lost. If we are true to our responsibility then we win – we win our sister’s life, and our own too.
St Benedict has much to say about this in his Rule, especially in speaking of the abbot’s responsibility to act like the shepherd, bringing back wandering sheep to the fold. But this is not just the abbot’s job. Maintaining and restoring unity is a mutual responsibility for all in community. We are not talking about shepherd to sheep, but sheep to sheep, sister to sister, sinner to sinner. As the abbot must adapt himself to different characters, temperaments, and levels of understanding, by choosing words and means carefully, so each of us must employ delicacy in dealing with one another. We must try to choose the right moment, the right words, the right tone of voice and body language. Not that we can ever attain total control over ourselves. But we must make the effort to purify our hearts through prayer, so that we can speak and act out of a place of calm and clarity, and so that we are open to hearing a word from the other in return. It is so much easier to try to fix someone else’s problem according to my own viewpoint, without letting in their side of the story. Listening to the other makes things more complicated, doesn’t it? We have to take account of the situation this person may be in, their weaknesses and sufferings, and risk allowing our heart to be moved, our resolve to whip them into shape softened. The result of two softened hearts is exactly the win-win situation envisioned by the gospel. Without such openness, our words may do more damage than good. Too many bungled attempts may discourage us from even trying to live this challenging gospel teaching. Certainly, it doesn’t always go down well. But the stakes are high, and the key virtue is perseverance.
“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.’” (Mt 18:16)
St Benedict’s deep reading of the gospel teaching on reconciliation reveals that it is far from a simple: try this, try that, try a third thing, then give up. It is in chapter 23-28 of the Rule, the so-called “penal code,” where we find this teaching. We may not be attracted by this part of the Rule, with its difficult language of correction, excommunication, and punishment. But if we read it attentively enough to appreciate its gospel roots, its spiritual depth and human sensitivity, we discover that the message is basically this: there is no limit to how much time and effort can be poured into saving a relationship. The second phase, after attempts at direct personal address have failed, involves taking pains to bring in other persons and other means to re-establish communication and win back the other.
RB 23 calls for the errant brother to be warned twice privately, then rebuked publicly and then excommunicated. What is the point of excommunication? RB 24-26 help us to understand that it is rooted in Paul’s words to the Corinthians: “Such a man is handed over for the destruction of his flesh that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord” (1 Cor 5:5). Excommunication is a strong action aimed at saving a person from themselves. It is essential that it be understood. No-one may be excommunicated who lacks understanding of the meaning of it – that by his action he has in effect removed himself from communion, and needs to acknowledge this fact, repent and make reparation so as to be welcomed back. Excommunication is thus not punitive but pedagogical. It is an act of mercy in the form of tough love. We can think of ways in which this can be practiced in our time and culture. RB 27 goes on to exhort the wise physician to the utmost care and concern for the sick brother, to send in wise seniors to support, exhort and console. “Let love for him be reaffirmed” (2 Cor 2:8). RB 28 gives yet more possibilities for creative intervention when there is no amendment after reproof, after encouragement and exhortation with Scripture, after tough love and then tougher love. The wise physician has more resources up his sleeve, an even better remedy: that all the brothers should pray for him. Our frustration at the roadblocks in relationship should never cause us to forget these essential elements: it is love and love alone which heals, and it is never too late for prayer.
“If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.” (Mt 18:17)
Benedict interprets the hard word of the gospel with the term “amputation” – the removal of a diseased part that the whole may flourish. This represents an extreme case in which the one responsible for leading the community must face a choice to remove one for the sake of the many. But our focus here is on mutual relationships in community. Is it possible to embrace this word of Scripture on the personal level? Does there really come a point beyond which we simply cut off another person as if they no longer existed, as if we could blot them out from our personal book of life? We can sometimes “excommunicate” others in a way they cannot understand, and which does not win them back. We can even excommunicate ourselves. This is not a life-giving choice. Living with people over the long haul, it becomes clear that some relationships do not sustain too much face-to-face honesty, and some faults are not subject to fixing this side of the grave. And yet, if we have really gone through all the labor and anxiety involved in trying to rescue the sheep, if we have really exhausted ourselves so as not to lose our sister, will we not be bound to her forever? Can we really ever let her go?
St Benedict describes the good zeal that monks should have: “They should each try to be the first to show respect to the other (Rom 12:10), supporting with the greatest patience one another’s weaknesses of body or behavior” (RB 72.4-5). And it is the weaknesses of behavior which can be the hardest to accept. I love what Isaac of Stella has to say about this:
“Then how is it that when I see in my brother something that cannot be put right, because of either his physical or his moral weakness, I do not bear patiently with him, loving him and caring for him with all my heart? Is it not that I lack in myself the charity that bears all things, suffers all things and is kind, because it is love? Whatever manner of life a man follows, it is not that, but sincere love for God and others which really is pleasing to God. Love – that is the whole way and the end toward which we are going. In very truth, there is no failure whatever that can take us out of love when it is genuine. May he grant us that love, for without it we can in no way please him who lives and reigns, God forever and ever.”
Patient endurance is surely better than treating anyone like an outsider, but better than endurance is “the pure love of brothers or sisters” (RB 72.8). This love is not something we can pull out of our hat like the magician’s white rabbit. But we can ask for it. We can beg for it. So, let us try once more to live the hard and beautiful teaching of the gospel and the Rule. Let us take courage to face our sisters by speaking the truth in love. Let us persist in the urgent effort not to lose any of them because of neglect or hasty condemnation or failure to listen. Most of all let us beg God with all that is in us for that pure love of our brothers and sisters, which cannot bear the loss of another from my book of life, no matter what the cost. This is a win-win situation!
