The Book of Ezekiel teaches that we have a duty to challenge others when they are being sinful. Our gospel suggests that if another member of the church wrongs us we should challenge them. I wonder how we understand what our faith teaches us about difficult situations of conflict and grievance and when we should challenge others.
I don’t suppose most of us go around telling people off where we think they are doing something wrong. Sometimes though this can be a failing in courage. Some people do. I remember my mother used to get very cross if she saw people throwing stones or littering on Brighton beach and she would have no compunction about telling them off much to my embarrassment if I was with her! It takes courage to do that and a readiness to not be conflict averse. We can’t always avoid having to challenge people!
On the other hand, some people are a bit too eager to correct others and to point out other people’s faults and to take great satisfaction in doing so! Perhaps on this subject we should remember Jesus’s warnings about self-righteousness alongside today’s readings. Do not point out the splinter in your brother’s eye when you have a plank in your own!
We don’t always know the whole story. The police sent round a local circular recently pointing out that we should be aware for example that some people are exempt from wearing face masks in shops. This was in response to people being unfairly and rudely challenged by others. I suspect there have been a lot of inappropriate challenges in these tense times in this sort of case and others.
It is definitely true though that sometimes as the Book of Ezekiel teaches a failure to correct can be a failure to love. The Old Testament reading makes clear that the point of correction is not just the self-satisfaction of the person doing the correcting, it is the well-being of the person corrected. There is an important truth in this. We can’t wash our hands of one another. We all belong to one another and sin isn’t just an individual thing, it is a corporate thing. Sin doesn’t just affect the sinner. There are no victimless sins and love is not just letting people do whatever they want to.
The gospel passage reflects on a church situation where one person has sinned against another and it gives a sort of legal process of how to act in such a case. People have different views in biblical scholarship on how much this is a direct tradition of something Jesus taught and how far it may have been an application of Jesus’ teaching applied to the needs of the early church. Either way, it reflects how close-knit the early church was and also the deep sense of responsibility to one another that church members felt.
I’m not sure how exactly we could apply the advice intended for that early church to St Baldred’s or St Adrian’s. We probably wouldn’t encourage people to tell their grievances to the whole church gathering, for example! Mind you, I have known of awkward and painful situations where that has happened and perhaps that is where a sense of grievance has grown without being addressed quickly as the gospel suggests so some elements of it may well be relevant to our churches now if perhaps not all.
The first step on the procedure is to challenge the person that has wronged us, assuming of course that we are in the right. As I suggested earlier we might first want to try to give the other person the benefit of the doubt as we should for a brother or sister in Christ and think about whether we have misjudged the situation.
But it does happen that people sometimes wrong us and we shouldn’t also put ourselves in the wrong all the time. Again, it is important to challenge wrong-doing in an appropriate way both for our own sakes and for the sake of the other person. Our duty to love even when it is difficult and even to love our enemy is not a calling to be a doormat. We are allowed to stand up for ourselves.
This is advice which applies to our wider relationships too. But the question is in what spirit do we challenge another. As the gospel implies we should not merely challenge to vent anger but rather to achieve reconciliation. As the rest of the process shows reconciliation can be hard work.
Challenging appropriately when we feel hurt or wronged can be very difficult of course. We are only human.
What makes reconciliation more likely is if there is a loving relationship to draw on. In a church community where people are doing the right things, looking after one another, encouraging and nurturing one another and seeking to follow Christ by serving others. There will be more good relationship to draw on. If we have to tell someone that they are in the wrong, it is easier to hear that if they know that we love them! It is also easier perhaps, if we are aware of our own faults and we too can accept appropriate correction from others.
If we want to follow Jesus, we can’t duck out of the hard work, challenge and self-sacrifice that taking reconciliation seriously involves. Jesus was never afraid to call out wrong-doing but he was always ready alongside that to show that he wanted the good and the well-being of the other. Amen.