"Come with Your Brothers into the Choir"

 

I don’t typically read “The Ethicist” column in the Sunday NY Times magazine. Sometimes, however, the moral dilemmas are common enough and relatable enough that I find the column somwhat more interesting. For example, one column a couple of weeks ago addressed the increasingly common problem of families fighting and refusing to remain in contact because of differences over politics and related cultural concerns. Of course, people have always disagreed about politics; but, until not that long ago, that would not usually have been seen as a reason to break off contact with someone.

In this particular case, the supposed ethical expert made what I thought were two particularly important points. The first is that family estrangement of this sort “has become sadly familiar over the past decade or so. The strategy of severing all ties with one’s parents has been encouraged by certain high-profile therapists,” supported by social media. Also “therapeutic culture has tended to expand, sometimes recklessly,” conflating complaints that “can arise from genuinely damaging relationships,” with descriptions of “ordinary parental shortcoming.” The second is that if you don’t want to be the reconciler/mediator, that is your choice, but that it may be worth the effort, “your participation might assist people you love in reaching some kind of resolution with one another.” It might, he says, somewhat pessimistically, because what he calls “No-contact culture” is resistant “to almost every effort at reconciliation.”

All this seemed especially on point as I was reflecting on today’s Gospel reading [Matthew 18:15-20], in which Jesus addresses the problem of conflict within the Church community and how to deal with it. Jesus doesn’t pretend, as religious people sometimes try to do, that there will never be conflicts. Conflict characterized the very first human family - Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel – and political and legal procedures to resolve conflicts, which might otherwise descend into endless cycles of violence, revenge, and vendettas, have been a cornerstone of civilized life.

 

It is, however, a very specific sort of “due process” that Jesus proposes – religious rather than secular, but also communitarian rather than individualistic and oriented toward reconciliation rather than legal justice, material compensation, or personal punishment.

Obsessed as we all are in our individualistic society with personal rights, when we speak of “due process” typically what get emphasized are legal guarantees for the individuals involved. The “due process,” which Jesus outlines, focuses less on the individuals and their rights or sensitivities and more on the community. And, most importantly, it is a process aimed not at vindication and separation but at reconciliation and reincorporation into the community.

In that regard, it reminds me of the process in Church law for dealing with problematic people in religious communities. The person is warned and given a chance to change course several times before the process ends in expulsion. That’s because the goal of the process is not expulsion but rather the person’s reconciliation with the community. Expulsion may end up being necessary, but always only as a last resort - as it is in the process Jesus outlines in today’s Gospel, in which only after three tries – individually, in a small group, and finally involving the whole community – is the person expelled.

Even so, the story doesn’t quite end there. The excommunication which Jesus outlines is specified as: If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.

Now, in the ordinary world, the meaning of that would have been perfectly clear. As much as possible, devout, observant Jews avoided undue contact with such people, and they probably would generally avoid admitting them into their homes and sharing meals with them. That served a certain purpose in that society, just as judicial proceedings and imprisonment do in our society.

Yet, when Jesus says treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector, he may be muddying the waters a bit, because, of course, we can all recall how Jesus himself sometimes treated Gentiles and tax collectors. Such people may indeed be outside the community, and that may be because of their own bad behavior, but they’re not forgotten. In the divided, highly conflicted North African Church of the fourth century, Saint Augustine (354-430), speaking of the heretical and schismatic Donatist Christians he had to oppose so vigorously, famously said: “My friends, we must grieve over these as over our brothers. Whether they like it or not, they are our brothers” [Commentary on Psalm 32 (33)].

 

For years, I was a fan of medieval mystery stories, like Ellis Peters’ 20 Brother Cadfael Mysteries (set in 12th-century Shrewsbury).  In these mysteries, Brother Cadfael - over and above his avocation as an amateur but very effective detective - is, first and foremost, a Benedictine monk. But, In the 20th and final Brother Cadfael book, called Brother Cadfael’s Penance, Cadfael has, sadly, broken his vow of obedience. But then, at the end of the story, he returns to the monastery and kneels before his Abbot, and the Abbot simply responds: “Get up now, and come with your brothers into the choir.”

 

Unlike Cadfael and his brother monks, we live in a conflict-obsessed society driven by social media and what some, on both sides of the political divide, have taken to calling “cancel culture.” Clearly, we cannot be unaffected by all the vitriolic conflict that surrounds us. Yet, whatever we are or do as a community of disciples, our goal can never simply be to cancel one another. Rather, it must always be to bring us all back together, so that we may eventually all be together, here and now at this altar, and forever in God’s kingdom.

Homily for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Saint Paul the Apostle Church, NY, September 6, 2026.