Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish

FR MICHAEL BIBLICAL IMAGERY

(Fr Michael Boakye Yeboah: Vice Rector of St Gregory Seminary, Kumasi-Ghana)

WATCHMAN

Is working as a watchman a profession or a hobby? Definitely keeping watch of your kid brother or sister while your parents are at work can be deemed a hobby because some people love that type of job. Others see “a watchman” as a profession and normally to enhance their social status they may nicknamed it “security officer.” In my part of the world some people are disrespected because they are watchmen but, on any day, that concept is wrong. Nobody’s line of work should be met with disrespect because each person’s line of work plays a key role in our survival in this world. In this reflection, I will pay more attention to the spiritual significance of the term “watchman”.

My love for this theme “watchman” is not because of its subjective nuance but its communal significance. I employ the word watchman within the context of “fraternal correction” (brotherly correction). All that is to say that we should never see a brother or sister doing wrong, and turn a blind eye to his or her wrongdoing or pretend that it is not our business. It is very much our business because love demands that we correct him or her, and love is always our business.

Sometimes when a wrongdoer refuses to listen to us, the fault is ours. Maybe our approach was not good enough, it was more designed to offend or humiliate the wrongdoer than correct him or her. In that case, the offender will tell us to go mind our business. Therefore, when we correct people, we should do so with respect, charitably, gently, without hurting their feelings unnecessarily, without humiliating them or putting them down. A well-known adage says that “You can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with a barrel of vinegar.”

On the other hand, we should allow ourselves to be corrected if and when we go wrong. We should not make it unduly difficult for people to correct us. Sometimes, when people fail to correct us, it is because of our attitude. They are afraid of hurting our feelings or that we may take offence and respond with hostility. If people fail to correct us because we make it difficult for them to do so, we are the losers, since nobody is above mistake and nobody is beyond wrongdoing. If and when people correct us, they are doing us a favour, they are showing us love. They are carrying out the demands of fraternal correction in our regard.

The texts for this Sunday’s celebration are absolutely decisive for the form God wants for the Church. In the center stands loving mutual admonition. This is an obligation resting on every Christian, for we are members of a single body and the entire organism cannot afford to be indifferent when a single member injures itself and thereby damages the life of the whole. Of course, the Gospel makes it clear that admonition (and such correction as may be necessary) dare take place only as a sign of divine self-revelation and of the ecclesial order established by Christ. At the same time, the person disciplined must show humility that points away from himself toward the objective grace of God and its requirement. In the second reading St Paul locates that requirement entirely within Christian love, which brings together all the individual commandments and thereby fulfills the law, God’s guidance. The person sinning may perhaps respond with his conception of love; in that case one has to show him that his conception is too narrow and one-sided to be God’s intended fulfillment of all the commandments.

In all these, the person remains free. Even the best admonition, whether it takes place personally and confidentially or more officially through an appointed representative of the Church, can run up against a boundary set by a clear and resounding “No”. At this point the first reading becomes significant: if the admonisher has done his task and the offender still refuses to turn from his false path, then he has met his obligation and, as the reading says, has preserved his life. The obligation is laid down with utter earnestness, but God does not promise that it will meet with success. Thus, in the entire New Testament God indicates only a single boundary line beyond which the sinner or fallen one can no longer consider himself a member of God’s Church. The Church does not direct him to leave her communion, rather, he excommunicates himself. The Church has to recognize what has happened and must confirm it, in order to ensure that the person involved understands what has happened. This was already true of the Old Covenant, as the first reading shows, and it must thus be all the more characteristic of the New Covenant, where membership in the ecclesial fellowship of Christ is more personal, filled with greater responsibility, and more colorful.

From Jesus’ two final comments we see how ecclesial, common prayer can really count on a heavenly hearing. Both promises are magnificent: whatever two ask for out of shared and loving expectancy toward God will be granted. Wherever two or three are assembled in Jesus’ name he is in their midst. May God help us to live in a forgiving community.