September 5

23d Sunday in Ordinary Time Mt 18/15-20

The very words in today's Gospel illustrate the point made in last week's Background paragraph. The instruction was meant for the early Church which was split my many internal conflicts. There was not, as one recent author said, a single Church but many churches which were part of a movement. Within congregations and among congregations there was constant controversy (so nothing much has changed). The author is trying to use the instructions of Jesus about love as a kind of rule of thumb for settling controversies and conflicts. It is strange, is it not, the Jesus's message of love was forgotten so soon after his own time.

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Once upon a time a new pastor came to a parish. They're crazy his predecessor said. I can't wait to get out of here. All they do is fight. The new pastor discovered that the parish was split into two factions about whether their ought to be computers in the classrooms of the parish school. One faction said that education was about reading and writing and arithmetic and that computers were an expensive and unnecessary luxury. The other said that children had to learn to use computers early in life and that if children were not on the internet by third grade, they would fall behind forever. The school board was split right down the middle. So was the whole parish. People didn't talk to one another. They wouldn't sit next to each other in church. Their kids fought with each other in the streets. They said mean things to one another in the corridors. It's your job to do something about it, the principal of the school told the new priest. Otherwise we might have to close the school. No one can teach in this environment. Brilliant, said the new priest. The next Sunday he announced that he was closing the school because he was sick of all the fighting. At first the two factions didn't believe him. Then he began negotiations to sell the building. Everyone in the parish turned against him. Soon they forgot their fights because they were so busy fighting him. So he let them win. And they all lived happily every after, even those who thought that maybe the poor priest had outsmarted them.