This morning’s Gospel reading is 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.”

How many people remember the book I’m OK — You’re OK? Published in 1967, it sold millions of books and seemed to be in everyone’s library at some point, along with Jonathan Livingston Seagull (don’t ask). It created a pop-culture sensation in the 1970s with its adoption and expansion of “transactional analysis” to define human behavior. Perhaps only Games People Play by Eric Berne was as pop-culture influential in this period in examining how people engage each other. (We had all three, and I read all three in my youth.)

The book is far too complicated and interesting to break down into a simple analysis here, but the popular interpretation of Thomas Harris’ argument was that most conflict came from poor communication based on a model of inequality. The proper way to conduct dialogue, Harris argued, was on the Adult-Adult level in which the highest level of relationship could be attained — the I’m OK – You’re OK status. Perhaps unfairly to Harris, this became a siren song of “tolerance” on the basis of total non-judgment, and more specifically, of adopting an attitude that cultural comparisons and valuations were somehow divisive themselves rather than an attempt to deal with and correct the differences.

Harris understood that this had theological implications and wrote about them in his book, but for the culture at the time and since, those have been mostly overlooked. Instead, many found it easier to employ the I’m OK – You’re OK model for loving our neighbors: we simply leave them alone. And that works in a secular sense for getting along in this world, at least right up until the moment it doesn’t, to which we’ll return in a moment.

But what does the Lord mean when He commands that we “love thy neighbor”? Is it simply the Golden Rule? Do unto others as you would have done unto you is a very good philosophical rule, and one of the best principles for human beings to learn to live together in peace — for a while. In the Beatitudes (Matthew 7:12), Jesus teaches this directly: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”

Did Jesus mean to teach us the I’m OK – You’re OK model of tolerance? No, and both today’s Gospel, our readings, and the Great Commission itself make that clear. Jesus does not teach that love in its caritas form — the form which He urges repeatedly — means to leave our neighbors alone, but rather to show them the path to eternal life through the truth of the Word.

Today’s Gospel deals more specifically about how to deal with an injury from one’s neighbor, which presumes that the Golden Rule has already failed in some personal way. What does Jesus instruct in these instances? Not to ignore it, which gives some better context to “turn the other cheek” from the Beatitudes, but to attempt first to resolve it amicably and privately. If that does not work, Jesus gives the disciples a model of escalating public steps to reform the brother and bring him back into the community on the basis of the Word. Jesus does not suggest at any time that transgressions should be forgotten or overlooked for the peace of the community, but that they should be resolved on the basis of the Law and the Word. And if the transgressor refused to do anything to cooperate, eventually he would have to be cast out until he repented.

To our modern senses, this seems harsh, but it’s just the opposite. To speak the truth and to help one find salvation is love, a caritas love that seeks to lift up all, including the transgressor in this instance. To say nothing, or worse yet to pretend that the transgressor’s point of view is somehow culturally equal and worthy of respect is not a loving act at all. It is an act of abandonment, a cold act of cutting off without even an attempt to provide the opportunity for salvation.

We get this message much more explicitly from our first reading today. Ezekiel delivers a message from the Lord about the duties of His prophets:

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. But if you warn the wicked, trying to turn him from his way, and he refuses to turn from his way, he shall die for his guilt, but you shall save yourself.

The Lord doesn’t sound too interested in transactional analysis in this passage, nor in finding ways to tolerate the “wicked” and allow them to go unwarned. That may have made things easier for prophets, allowing them to avoid conflict, but the Lord didn’t send the prophets just to keep arguments from taking place. He sent the prophets to teach the Word and the Law.

Jesus did the same thing in the Great Commission. In Matthew 28:18-20, He commands the apostles to “go and make disciples of all nations,” not to go out and simply exist in plurality among them. The Great Commission is a call to evangelize, a great loving act by proclaiming salvation through Christ to all and converting them for their place in eternal life. Almost all of the apostles and centuries more of disciples and evangelists would lay down their lives for this mission in order to speak the Truth to all.

That, clearly, is how the Lord defines loving our neighbors. It is not love to remain silent while our neighbors are lost in sin and confusion, especially not in the caritas sense. Keeping quiet only means that we are thinking of ourselves first, not our neighbors — our comfort, our standing in a secular community, and so on.

That brings us to the final point from today’s Gospel — community. Jesus tells the disciples to use “the entire church” as the final arbiter of these transgressions, or in other words, the local community based on the Word. Why is this important? Because the Church is the community built on the caritas of evangelization, the cities of God here in this world that struggle and strive for salvation on a common basis: the Word. Those communities and later cultures became strong and thrived under that common purpose of eternal salvation, with adherence to the Word and each other on the basis of a shared set of values.

What happens when we pretend that values don’t matter, and that all values are equal? What happens when we decide that evangelization is an offense and that the Word is a lamp that is best lit within four walls and not shared? To whom do we then go to resolve transgressions through caritas love? Can we even define “transgressions” in such a culture, and indeed does “community” even exist at all?

Take a look around and find the answer, and discover what a world in which “loving thy neighbor” has been transformed in secular terms to “every man for himself.” And pray that we may recover our courage to truly love again and remember our real mission.

The front-page image is a detail from “Jesus and His Disciples” by Rembrandt, 1634. On display at the Teylers Museum, Haarlem, The Netherlands. Via Wikimedia Commons. 

“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature, looking at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.