Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

          “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  This is not the first time we have heard this expression from Jesus.  In fact, we heard it only recently, two weeks ago, when (two chapters earlier in Matthew’s Gospel) after Peter had professed Jesus to be the Christ, Jesus said to him:  “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.  I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  In this exchange it is clear that our Lord was conferring upon Peter a special authority as head of the Apostles, the “rock” upon which He would build His Church.  But why does Jesus repeat this phrase here?

          It notes at the beginning of the passage that we heard today that Jesus was addressing “his disciples,” and therefore not just Peter on this occasion.  Also, before when Jesus had said this to Peter, the verbs to bind and to loose in the original Greek of Matthew’s Gospel were in the second person singular, in other words, “Whatever you [alone, Peter] bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you [alone, Peter] loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  But now when we see this phrase, these verbs to bind and to loose are in the second person plural, in other words, “Whatever you [all] bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you [all] loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  So, all of this would indicate that the authority that had been given to Peter alone two chapters earlier is now being conferred, in a secondary way, upon the other eleven.  Nothing is being taken away from Peter’s primacy, but now the other Apostles are given a share in the “power of the keys,” in this ministry of binding and loosing. 

          But I would like to suggest that this “power of the keys” may be extended even further, though again without in any way taking away from that special and particular authority granted to Peter and the other Apostles.  I believe that this power to bind and to loose is something in which all Christians participate, albeit in a different way and to a different degree.  And I don’t think that I am too far off base in saying this.  St. Augustine, for one, speaks about this same concept and I know that one of my professors in seminary wrote his doctoral dissertation on this very idea.  So, again, I don’t think this is too much of a stretch. 

          So, how is it that we (all of us) participate in this “power of the keys,” this power to bind and to loose.  I would suggest that we participate in this through forgiveness.  When someone has wronged us and we fail to forgive that person from the heart, then in a sense we hold that person bound.  More than this, when we fail to forgive someone who has wronged us we hold ourselves bound.  We know this from our own experience.  We know that when we hold a grudge, when we hold on to resentment, when we fail to forgive our brother or sister, we are fixated on the harm that they have done us.  We feel suffocated.  And so, in our unwillingness to forgive we know what it means to hold someone bound and to be bound ourselves.

          But we can also participate in the power to loose that is conferred upon the disciples today in the Gospel, and we do this through forgiveness.  When we forgive someone who has wronged us from the heart, the ill thoughts and anxiety that once possessed us begin to melt away.  We liberate our sisters and brothers from our bitter thoughts and, more than this, we liberate ourselves.  We experience once more that true freedom of the sons and daughters of God mentioned in our opening prayer.

          Of course, the only way to grow in this ability to forgive, to loose others and ourselves, is simply by doing it.  Many times people who are struggling to forgive someone will say, “Maybe someday, when enough time has passed and I have come to terms with the hurt I have experienced…maybe then I will be able to forgive.”  But I always tell them that day may never come – either because the hurt may never quite go away or because we could be called from this life at any time.  And so, we have to begin with forgiveness, even if it is through gritted teeth, even if it less than perfect to start.  We have to say the words and make that prayer, “Lord, I forgive them.”  And if someone is waiting to hear us say it, we need to tell that person, “I forgive you.” 

          Another way that we can grow in our ability to loose, to set ourselves and others free is by asking forgiveness ourselves.  Certainly we should ask the forgiveness of those we have offended, but we should also ask the forgiveness of God, and one of the privileged ways that we can do this as Catholics is in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In this sacrament we see and experience for ourselves how mercifully God deals with us, and we are humbled, and this in turn helps us to be merciful to others.  If we want to a good forgivers, then I think we must first become a good penitents.  And that is hard to do if the sacrament is something that we do only once in a very great while.  For this reason, we have extended the opportunities for the Sacrament of Reconciliation here at Chapel.  It’s available every day starting forty-five minutes before daily Mass (Monday through Friday) except on those few occasions when I have to be away from campus.   

          Perhaps second only to the words of consecration at Mass, one of my favorite things I get to say as a priest are the words of absolution in the Sacrament of Reconciliation: “I absolve you from your sins.”  Of course, I have heard these words many times from “the other side of the screen,” and so the power of these words is never lost on me when I say them to another. 

          There is one other way that I would suggest to you that we participate in the “power of the keys.”  And this is through gentle, but firm correction of our brothers and sisters when they have done wrong.  You see, we can also hold others bound in their sin by our silence, by our implied consent to what they are doing.  But we can set them free from their sin if we gently point out to them the error of their ways and show them instead the path of virtue.  It is this sort of binding and loosing that we hear about in our first reading, from the Prophet Ezekiel.  God says to Ezekiel, “You…I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel; when you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me…If I tell the wicked, ‘O wicked one, you shall surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked from this way, the wicked shall die for his guilt, but I will hold you responsible.” 

We are called, as brothers and sisters in the Lord, to (when necessary) correct each other’s faults.  And I say this with a little timidity because I know well that I have many faults that need correcting, so this homily might come back to bite me.  But if it makes me a better person, a better Christian, a better priest, then not only should I not run from this kind of correction, but I should embrace it, welcome it, seek it out even.

          Now, having said all of this, there is a way to give correction so that it does not become nitpicking, fault-finding, tattle-tailing or just self-righteous bullying.  There is a “protocol” for correction, and this is what Jesus gives us in the first part of the Gospel today.  When we have a problem with someone, he says we should first take it to that person directly, and I might add privately.  If this fails, then “take one or two others along with you.”  Today we might call this an “intervention.”  Finally, if all else fails, bring it to the church—but always with a mind to reconciliation.  And when even this fails, Jesus says, “treat [that person] as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.”  But how did Jesus treat Gentiles and tax collectors?  Remember this is Matthew the tax collector’s Gospel.  Jesus always treated them with compassion and with great patience.  We cannot and should not condone a person’s behavior who has done wrong, but we must always love them.  If we would follow this protocol, I think that most of the time we would never have to go further than the first step.  So, there’s always a time, a place and way. 

          Most importantly, any correction that we would offer must always be carried out in a spirit of true charity—in other words, not because we want to feel better about ourselves, not so that we can prove that we were right, not so that we can rub another person’s face in it; never to tear down, but always to build up—because we love that person and we want the highest and the best thing for them.  St. Thomas Aquinas defined love as “willing the good of the other.”  And so, this should be our motivation in any correction we might offer.  St. Paul couldn’t have aid said it any more clearly:  “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another.”

I know I’ve thrown a lot at you today, but I urge you to really consider these things this week.  Think about how you participate in the “power of the keys,” how you bind and how you loose in your relationships, either through forgiveness or lack of forgiveness, in giving and in taking loving correction, knowing that in some way “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”