THE CALL OF
RECONCILIATION ( ...page
2 )
.
THE CALL OF
RECONCILIATION ( ...page
2 )
October 5th
1998
Matthew 5, 20-26
"I tell
you, then, that you will be able to enter the Kingdom of heaven only if you are
more faithful than the teachers of Law and the Pharisees in doing what God
requires.
You have heard that people were told in the past,
`Do not commit murder; anyone who does it will be brought to trial'. But now I
tell you: whoever is angry with his brother will be brought to trial, whoever
calls his brother `You good for nothing!' Will be brought before the Council,
and whoever calls his brother a worthless fool will be in danger of going to the
fire of hell. So if you are about to offer your gift to God at the altar and
there you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift
there in front of the altar, go at once and make peace with your brother, and
then come back and offer your gift to God. If someone brings a lawsuit against
you and takes you to court, settle the dispute with him while there is time,
before you get to court. Once you are there, he will hand you over to the judge,
who will hand you over to the police, and you will be put in jail. There you
will stay, I tell you, until you pay the last penny of your fine."
Meditation
In this text Matthew states the
urgency of reconciliation and he does it in a very radical fashion. He goes
beyond what seems reasonable. In fact Matthew opens three different doors for
reconciliation.
There
is the reconciliation with the Other,
the Enemy, the Brother, and this reconciliation with the other is also the door
that leads to the reconciliation with God. If I reconcile myself with the
other, I reconcile myself with God, and I cannot reconcile myself with God
unless I reconcile myself with the other. This is
true to such an extent, that the Church entrusts God's forgiveness to men.
Reconciliation with oneself is often the kind of reconciliation that we forget most frequently, mostly because if one is not reconciled with oneself, one tends to quarrel and to be on bad terms with others. If I don't dare to look at myself, I always blame others; if I don't see clearly, I don't see myself clearly either, and the temptation to accuse others is great.
All this passage: «if your right eye causes you to sin, take it out and throw it away!» it is not an invitation to self-mutilation, but a call for conversion. A call for a change of point of view as regards to the others and to oneself, for a change of the way we see ourselves and the others. We can note, that in this call for reconciliation Jesus does not only say «if you have something against your brother go and make peace with him», but he says «if your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar, go at once and make peace with your brother, and then come back and offer your gift to God».
This
process of reconciliation that we are beginning today, is truly a challenge to
our faith, it is an act of faith.
It is something more than a diplomatic negotiation, which doesn't mean that we
should not negotiate. It means that the process of reconciliation that we start,
is a process of conversion, a deep personal conversion, a change of heart, a
change of ways of looking at things.
Not only those at war need reconciliation. All of us have
to take part in this movement of reconciliation, we have to begin this process
of reconciliation for the sake of those who are at war, so that they can take
part in it. And we can only do this in our soul, by a movement of the heart,
from inside, through a conversion in Jesus Christ. This movement towards
conversion comes from God, at the initiative of God, it is not us who have
decided but God, his tenderness, and we are the recipients of His tenderness.
This tenderness of God, that has been damaged in the heart of men, is entrusted
to you this evening for healing.
This is why we dare to say Our Father...
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