September 7th is the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: Ez 33:7-9; Ps 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9; Rom 13:8-10; Mt 18:15-20

What does it mean to be my brother’s keeper? This is the question that our readings for today are posing even if they never expressly word it in quite that way.

Let’s take our first reading. Here we have God telling the prophet Ezekiel to prophesy the following to Israel: "If…you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked from his way…I will hold you responsible for his death." A very normal first reaction to this is, "What! How can you blame me for what someone else is doing? That’s not fair." And the interesting thing is, it’s not. But then the wonder of God is that He’s not about being fair. He’s about being madly in love with all people and love demands a higher ethic than just being fair. God is concerned about the salvation of all of us. Being fair is somewhat secondary to that overwhelming concern of love.

Who is the "wicked" person that is referred to in this prophesy? It is not the person committing this or that specific sin. Rather it is anyone who knowingly rejects God and His truth as contained in the scriptures. And so Ezekiel is not being asked to preach against a specific sin but rather against a broad rejection of God and a refusal to live according to his laws. It is that failure and refusal that is the breeding ground for all sin and it is this Ezekiel is preaching against. Note how love enters in here.

Thomas Jefferson

Love demands that we be our brother’s keeper − that we reach out in love and call them back to God. We are responsible for the physical, economic, moral and spiritual well-being of our brothers and sister in the world. And our failure to share with them the truth that we know is itself seen as being a culpable sin on our part, a failure of love. This may not seem fair to us but it is certainly the challenge of love extended to each of us by God in this passage of scripture.

Our reading from St. Matthew continues this idea. "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault…If he listens to you, you have won over your brother." Note how this is not about condemning the other but rather about love and concern for the other winning him, or her, back for God.

Again: What does it mean to be our brother’s keeper?

Now no one likes a nag, or a "church lady" who knows better than anyone else what’s right and what’s wrong and who is determined to make sure everyone else knows it too. But even worse is the scenario in which one is indifferent to sin (the rejection of God) in the world. It is this indifference that we are being warned against on this Sunday.

We are challenged today to give witness to the truth, to the fact that some things are right and some things are wrong. And in a pluralistic culture in which it is politically correct to deny the very possibility that there are absolute truths revealed by God and applicable to all people, standing up for the idea that there is such a thing can be very difficult to do. Abortion, torture, unjust political and economic systems are all examples of things that occur in our world and that need to be challenged by Christians everywhere. They violate what we believe to be absolute truths revealed to us by God. A Christian really cannot be indifferent to any of them and Ezekiel and Matthew remind us of this demand of love.

Pope Benedict XVI

It is our faith that Christ came to save all people and that all salvation comes from and through him. This does not mean that we disrespect other peoples beliefs, or that we are being asked by God to force people to do things just the way we do them, but it does demand that we not loose sight of our own beliefs, of the truths that have been given to us by God, of the Christian belief that there is a definite right and wrong in the world and that differing beliefs and ways of doing things aren’t all equal. We have an obligation to share what we have with our brothers and sisters everywhere. We must not loose the courage and the love needed to proclaim our faith to the world. Our epistle sums up where all of this leads to: "Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law." May God give us the courage and strength to do this even when it is politically or socially uncomfortable to do so.