Homily for the Week of September 4, 2011

Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time 2011

Ezekiel 33,7-9

Psalm 94,1-2.6-7.8-9

Romans 13,8-10

Matthew 18,15-20

Each year we Americans celebrate Labor Day as a national holiday to honor American workers. As we approach Labor Day this year, over nine percent of Americans are looking for work and cannot find it. Other workers fear they could lose their jobs. Many families have lost their homes, and others owe more on their homes than they are worth. Hunger and homelessness are a part of life for too many children. This year, it is less a time for celebration and more a time for reflection on hardships experienced by workers and their families. For Catholics, it is also an opportunity to recall the teaching of the Church on the dignity of work and the rights of workers.

A look back in American history gives us a picture of our country about 150 years ago when workers were treated poorly, wages were kept low, most workers lived in poverty, children were forced into labor Government laws either forbade or interfered with the efforts of laborers to improve their lives. In Chicago a peaceful rally was being held to support striking workers. Police officers and strikers were killed. The organizers of the rally were arrested. After an unjust trial 4 of them were considered guilty and died by hanging. Later all 4 of these men were found to be innocent.

A few years later a conflict developed between the railroad labor unions and the Pullman railroad car company at Pullman, Ill. It grew into a nation-wide conflict between the railroad labor union and the railroads. The railroad union had been fighting to create an eight-hour workday. As a result President Cleveland signed a law making Labor Day a national holiday.

Today, few of us are aware of the injustices and the blood spilled to gain the rights that workers now enjoy in the United States. Unions fought for the good of workers. In our political atmosphere today we have a hard time remembering where we have come from in terms of labor justice. Tomorrow, Labor Day, take a moment to remember that Labor Day was created to help us remember the cost of justice for workers.

In our first reading today Ezekiel was told by the Lord that he was to be a watchman for the house of Israel. He was to be a voice for God to keep people faithful, and to be a voice for justice, something that became lacking as people of wealth and power fell away from God.

In the Gospel St. Matthew records Jesus’ telling His disciples that they are their brothers’ keepers with a responsibility to point out the faults of others. The “fault” to be corrected was not connecting our faith with how we treat others. Like Ezekiel, the disciples are to call believers to faithfulness, but they were not to be righteous judges. Jesus put this task in the context of Christian love. We are not to be hardhearted as we pray in the Psalm response today. We are called to be a loving and joyful people who sincerely want to share what we have been given. We work with and within the community of faith. In the community, which means wherever two or three are gathered, we must remember that we speak because of Christ’s love.

Being afraid, however, makes us want to run the other way, How often have we not gotten involved because we were afraid of anger or rejection, fear of being hurt again. Those are all reasonable fears, but they account for only one side of the reality, because hidden in the heart of even the most hardened sinner -- right next to all the meanness -- is an untapped reservoir of goodness. That goodness can be drawn forth and made to grow. But first, that goodness has to be seen, and named and hoped in.

As teachers and coaches know, to fail to see the good in another, and not to tell the person of that goodness, means we fail to expect the good from another. When we do this we ultimately condemn that person to death. But to see and name the goodness of another, and to hope in that goodness, is to support one another and give the gift of life. There is not one of us who does not appreciate honest praise for the good that we have done. We all like to be appreciated.

Note that Jesus does not tell us to ignore the enemy. Rather Jesus ask us to love the enemy. But it is not the kind of love that allows others to remain just the way they are. Rather it is a love that is strong enough to help people to grow, to change for the better, and even to get them to seek forgiveness from God.

But what if we do all of this, and yet nothing seems to change between the two of you. Jesus tells us that then we are to pray for the person. Jesus says: IF TWO OF YOU AGREE ON EARTH ABOUT ANYTHING FOR WHICH YOU ARE TO PRAY, IT SHALL BE GRANTED TO THEM.

Why is prayer the best remedy after you have exhausted all human remedies? Because Jesus adds his own powerful prayers to ours. When we pray Jesus is in our midst. There is never any more powerful prayer than when we gather around His altar as we are doing today.