Author: misericordiaedomini

A reading from the Gospel according to Matthew: 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.”  

Yesterday’s gospel goes further than this, but I want to stop here.  This one little passages — five sentences — provides the solution to so many of the dramas and conflicts in the world today.  Don’t believe in simple solutions?  Maybe you haven’t given them a try.

The entire modus operandi of this passage is respect.  Simple, common respect.  You value the person’s privacy and reputation enough to pull him aside and say one-on-one to him, “Hey, you hurt me” or “Hey, you weren’t right in what you said earlier.”  Instead of immediately telling everyone else or confronting the person in front of a large group so as to create humiliation, you’re treating him the way you’d like to be treated — with respect.  This should send a clear message to the person.

But suppose he doesn’t listen to you, as will (sadly) most likely be the case.  Well then, that’s when you start asking for help.  Get just a couple people — people who are involved in the problem and who you can trust to keep level heads instead of flying off the handle if the person gets upset with them.  Then, have another private conversation/intervention.  Again, this shows respect for the person who hurt you — the golden rule isn’t hard to remember, y’all.

Suppose even this isn’t enough.  In the Gospel passage, it says to refer to the church.  Sadly, in our case, many people won’t listen to the idea of a God at all, let alone any authority from an organized church.  But perhaps there’s still some kind of higher authority in that person’s life, whether it’s a parent, a boss, a principle, an RA, or whomever.  Maybe it’s the police, who knows.  Go to this person, whoever it might be.  Give the case over to that individual — notice how you’re still not making a public humiliation out of it.  Even when the case goes to someone outside the situation, you’re still keeping it more or less private.

And some people still won’t listen.  So what does Jesus say to do next?  “Treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.”  What’s your immediate thought about that?  Tax collectors and Gentiles — the ‘bad guys’ of the bible.  They were always the corrupt ones, the pagans, the dogs, and the unclean.  So treating your offender like a Gentile or a tax collector surely must mean to cast him out of your life and shun him for his action, right?  Wrong.  Look at what Jesus did to these people: he loved them, ate with them, cured their diseases, led them to conversion. . . but not once did he commend them for their ways.  He only commended them once they had faith in him and repented.

So what does that mean for us?  You guessed it: WWJD.  It sounds so cliche and Protestant, but it really is the way to go.  If that person who hurt you refuses after all your polite attempts to change or apologize and make amends, then your last resort would be to do what Jesus did: love the person as a child of God, respect him for who he is, but never commend him for his work.  This may take the form of talking or sharing less of your personal self with the other person (e.g. a former best friend would become simply an acquaintance).  It might hurt, the other person might view it as an injustice, but in reality, all you’re doing is treating that person as a child of God — one who has broken your trust, but a child of God nonetheless.

Respect.  Privacy.  The Golden Rule.  It means giving up gossip.  It means giving up drama.  It means giving up sleepless nights worrying about your reputation with another or angrily venting to whoever will listen.  It means giving up a toxic outlook on life.

It’s strange.  To many people, it’s unheard of.  And there will be many times it doesn’t seem to make sense because our emotions are our own worst enemies many times.

It’ll be hard, but I dare you to try it out.

Hello.   You’re pretty sure you don’t know me — I don’t blame you.  We haven’t talked in a while.  But I thought I might as well send you this.

We used to be best friends when you were younger — remember that?  No, I don’t expect you to.  But maybe you remember a little bit.  You had all those imaginary friends?  All those make-believe worlds?  All those fanciful lives you loved to pretend you had?  I was all those friends.  I took you to all those worlds.  I showed you all those lives.

Remember when your parents took off your training wheels?  Remember how unsteady you felt, but how you somehow managed to stay up?  That was me.  I held you better than any training wheels could.

And then when you got old enough to walk around the streets by yourself — you were never by yourself.  But it was around that time that you started forgetting about those imaginary friends.  You started settling for the life you were given instead of pushing out of it to what might be.  That’s when you started to forget me. . .

I’ve been working overtime since then.  Why don’t you sleep as much as you used to?  When you were sleeping, there was less to worry about.  Now I have to be behind every wheel wheel, in all the stores, at all the friends’ houses, around all the TV’s, between every hand you hold, nearly every hour of the day.  There are a million perils I’ve helped you avoid and you don’t even know it.

Other people recognize me more than you do, and I’m not even focusing on them.  I guess they see the effects.  You and that one “friend?” — everyone but you realizes that I’m the only one that’s prevented you from going out with each other.  How that wreck was somehow not your fault? — you’re the only person who doesn’t see my hand in that.

I can’t honestly blame you for a lot of your attitude, though.  You must find it hard to see someone who, honestly, can’t be seen without years of practice.  But I encourage you — be like those other people who see what I’ve done.  Accept that there’s someone there working on your side all the time.

And see me in other people.  I said I don’t particularly focus on others, but sometimes they help me work a lot better than I can on my own.  Because, you see, you listen to people who look like you.  That one friend who’s advice stuck in your mind for some bizarre reason?  I bet you can guess who told him to say that.  Or that driver who slammed on her breaks with inhuman strength and speed so you could safely run that red light?  Yes, I had a hand in that.

I love you.  You’re worth all the effort.  You’re worth all the trying and failing.  You’re worth all the headache and heartache.  Because I see something absolutely beautiful — something precious, something that deserves to be guarded by one of the strongest forces on earth.

Everyone needs a guardian.  Call it a rule of thumb.  Call it a necessity.  Personally, I prefer to call it a principle.

I have a name, but I’d be happy if all you ever remembered was,

~G.A.