Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 10 September 2017

It’s easy to be a gentle hypocrite! I ‘m not suggesting that we all are, but when I check my own motives and behaviour, especially in matters concerning my faith practice, I am sometimes stunned at how very blind I can be to my own double standards. Don’t worry, there are no big issues emerging, but it’s the perennial problem of how to deal with conflicts between what the Church says should be done and what life is actually like in real time!

Deep down I know that it is important that I am at peace and connected with the family of God represented by my faith community, friends, family and those others I meet, but at times I can feel very self righteous and without realising it, pass judgement on somebody, usually in conversation with others, on what I feel they are doing wrong. Fortunately it usually stops right there, but there are times when this self–righteous condemnation is destructive.

How can I deal with it, when is it my duty to speak out against things that are harmful to others, such as bad behaviour (or in my case try to rectify bad theology or misquoting of scripture)? Well, in Matthew's Gospel we find Jesus saying: “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over”. (Mt 15:18). Whilst the particular context in this Gospel is the community of believers, the practical wisdom applies to most situations in which people try to deal with problems. What concerns me though, is the ancient wisdom of not immediately causing greater scandal by confronting the issue openly, without pause for thought. This isn’t a cover-up but dealing with somebody as Jesus suggests, in careful stages, at first out of public hearing and done with sensitivity.

This ancient wisdom shows honour and politeness towards others, opening that channel of love by which we are supposed to live. That’s what Paul has in mind when he writes: ‘Brothers and sisters: Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law’. (Rm 13:8)

It’s not easy, but nobody has ever said love is easy. In dealing with sin, or situations that are destructive, we have always got to leave the gate to the sheepfold open, to bolt the door of our heart and of our community is to shun, lock out another. But there are times when we are repulsed by what is going on, atrocities in war and conflict where religious people do terrible things to each other, nobody suggests we condone these things, but if we are ever to help heal the world we live in, then we also have to listen with the voice of God in our heart and reach out to the sinner, to see how they too may find pardon in the heart of God.

Yet we also have hope and we can ask for divine help, for as Jesus promised: ‘For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” (Mt 15:20)

Thought for the week:

From St Benedict’s Rule - Chapter 64 The election of an Abbot.

‘In administering correction he should act prudently and not go to excess, lest in seeking too eagerly to scrape off the rust he break the vessel. Let him keep his own frailty ever before his eyes and remember that the bruised reed must not be broken. By this we do not mean that he should allow vices to grow; on the contrary, as we have already said, he should eradicate them prudently and with charity, in the way which may seem best in each case. Let him study rather to be loved than to be feared’.

Fr Robin is an Eastern Rite Catholic Chaplain for Melkites in the UK. He is also an Ecumenical Canon of Christ Church, Oxford