SUNDAY HOMILIES FOR YEAR A

By Fr Munachi E. Ezeogu, cssp

Homily for 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time - on the
Epistle
Home > Homilies > Year A > Sunday 24 Gospel

Passing Judgment on Disputable Matters

Sirach 27:30-28:7 Romans 14:7-9 Matthew 18:21-35

H. A. Ironside in his book Illustrations of Bible Truth narrates an

incident in the life of one Bishop Potter. Bishop Potter boarded a ship
for Europe. On going aboard, he discovered that he was to share the
cabin with another man. He quickly studied the man, left the room and
went to the purser's desk to ask if he could deposit his gold watch and
other valuables in the ship's safe. He explained that he was asking for
this service because he was pairing with a man who he did not think
was a trustworthy man, judging from the man's appearance. The purser
accepted the valuables and replied "It's all right, Bishop, I'll be very
glad to take care of them for you. The other man has been up here and
left his for the same reason!" What a cute illustration of the folly of
judging others.

Today's 2nd reading consists of three short verses, Romans 14:7-9. The
passage, read out of context, easily lends itself to misunderstanding. A
better understanding emerges when we read the passage in the context
of the entire chapter of Romans 14. In isolation, the passage seems to
be talking of life after death with the Lord. In context, however, Paul is
talking about life in this world. In isolation, the passage appears to be
concerned about our relationship with the Lord. Read in context,
however, we discover that Paul is actually more concerned with our
relationship with one another. We see this point more clearly at the
beginning of the chapter: "Accept those whose faith is weak, without
passing judgment on disputable matters" (Romans 14:1).

The problem Paul was addressing was the lack of understanding

between those he called the strong and the weak in the faith. He makes
a distinction between the strong and the weak Christians with two
examples. The strong consider all food clean and eat everything,
including pork, which observant Jews would not touch, and meat that
had been offered to idols. The weak Christians would abstain from
these and prefer to eat a vegetarian diet. Likewise the strong Christians
considered all days alike, while the weak Christians would observe
certain days as holier than others. Paul teaches that the strong and the
weak Christians must not judge or condemn each other since God
accepts both of them. God, who is the master of them both, has
 accepted them. They have, therefore, no grounds to criticize of malign
one another. If a servant's conduct is acceptable to the master, who are
you to complain against the servant?

It is at this point in his argument that Paul introduces the three verses
of today's 2nd reading:

We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. 8 If we

live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then,
whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. 9 For to this
end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both
the dead and the living. (Romans 14:7-9)

In other words, Paul is saying that holiness or right and wrong is not
about us or about what we think or feel but about the Lord. A Christian
criticizing another Christian on the ground of differences of opinion
and lifestyle is as good as the kettle calling the pot black. Both the
kettle and the pot belong to the same owner, who alone determines
which one of them is good for his purposes. If the owner says that the
pot is good enough, what right has the kettle to complain.

Does this mean that Christians have no right to raise their voice when
they see injustice going on in the world? No, Paul is not talking about
our relationship with the world but about our relationship with our
fellow committed Christians who differ from us because they are on a
different level of awareness and maturity. Paul is not talking about the
indisputable, essential moral demands of Christianity, such as in
murder, dishonesty, infidelity, and greed. He is talking about
"disputable matters," the gray areas that are non-essential to being a
Christian. Such area abound, for example, in African churches where
the issue of women covering their hair or not could tear a church apart.
Other examples include women wearing trousers and men wearing
earrings - all evidently non-essentials of the faith.

The principle Paul is teaching here is that which St Augustine would

later articulate as: "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in
all things charity." The challenge for us today is to recognize and
respect the freedom of fellow Christians in the area of the non-
essentials.
SUNDAY HOMILIES FOR YEAR A
By Fr Munachi E. Ezeogu, cssp
Homily for 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time - on the
Gospel
Home > Homilies > Year A > Sunday 24 Epistle
 Why It's So Hard to Forgive
Sirach 27:30-28:7 Romans 14:7-9 Matthew 18:21-35

There is the story of a man named George Wilson who in 1830 killed a
government employee who caught him in the act of robbing the mails.
He was tried and condemned to death by hanging. But the then
President of the United States, Andrew Jackson granted him executive
pardon. George Wilson, however, refused to accept the pardon. The
Department of Corrections did not know what to do. The case was
taken to the Supreme Court where Chief Justice Marshall ruled that "a
pardon is a slip of paper, the value of which is determined by the
acceptance of the person to be pardoned. If it is refused, it is no pardon.
George Wilson must be hanged." And hanged he was. Even if we are
opposed to the death penalty, we still cannot but agree with the
principle that pardon granted has to be accepted to become effective.
This is the point of today's gospel. When God forgives us, we must
accept God's forgiveness. The gospel then goes on to show us that the
way to accept God's forgiveness is not just to say "Amen, so be it!" but
to go out and forgive someone else.

The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant raises the frightening prospect

that pardon already granted by God could be revoked. The king who
forgave his servant his debt meant it. But when the servant went out
and failed to forgive his fellow servant, the king revoked the pardon.
By his action the servant had shown that he did not appreciate and
therefore was unworthy of the pardon he had been given. Is this a good
analogy of how God deals with us? That seems to be the point of the
parable. "So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if
you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart"
(Matthew 18:35). In other words, when God gives us His word of
forgiveness, everything is not over yet. The deal is finally concluded
only when we are able to go out and forgive those who sin against us.
The free grace of God's forgiveness needs our response of forgiving
our neighbour to be finally ratified. Isn't that a frightening thought?
"Forgive your neighbours the wrong they have done, and then your
sins will be pardoned when you pray" (Sirach 28:2).

Why do we find it hard to forgive others even though that is the only
way to anchor God's forgiveness? I think the reason is because we fail
to appreciate and celebrate our own forgiveness. Like the ungrateful
servant in the parable, we focus on the 100 denarii our neighbour owes
us rather than the 10,000 talents we owe to God, which God has
graciously cancelled.

Let us think about this in proportion. A denarius is a labourer's daily

wage. So his fellow servant owed him 100 days pay, which could be
paid back in a couple of months. But this same servant owed his master
10,000 talents. A talent was equal to 6,000 denarii. So he owed his
master the equivalent of 60,000,000 denarii. For a labourer working 5
days a week, 48 weeks a year, it would take 250,000 years to raise that
kind of money. This astronomical figure shows that the servant owed
his master so much that there was absolutely no way he could ever
hope to repay that. This is symbolic of the debt each of us owes God
through sin; a debt we could never ever hope to repay even if we spent
out whole life is sackcloth and ashes. Not even the combined penitence
of all humankind suffices to blot out a single sin. But God in his
infinite mercy sent his own Son to die on the cross and take away our
sins. And all He asks of us is to be grateful; to realise that He has done
for us so much more than we could ever be required to do for our
neighbour.

If we find ourselves in the club of those who find it so hard to forgive

other people, chances are that we have not come to appreciate and
celebrate sufficiently the immeasurable forgiveness that we ourselves
have received from God. So, let us pray today for a deeper appreciation
of the amazing love that God has shown us in Christ. It is this
awareness that will make it easier for us to let others off the hook for
their relatively minor offences against us.