20180910
DEALING WITH SINS IN
THE COMMUNITY
10 SEPTEMBER,
2018, Monday, 23rd Week, Ordinary Time
Readings at Mass
Liturgical Colour:
Green.
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First reading
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1 Corinthians 5:1-8 ©
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Get rid of the old yeast of evil and
wickedness
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I have been told as an undoubted fact that
one of you is living with his father’s wife. This is a case of sexual
immorality among you that must be unparalleled even among pagans. How can you
be so proud of yourselves? You should be in mourning. A man who does a thing
like that ought to have been expelled from the community. Though I am far away
in body, I am with you in spirit, and have already condemned the man who did
this thing as if I were actually present. When you are assembled together in
the name of the Lord Jesus, and I am spiritually present with you, then with
the power of our Lord Jesus he is to be handed over to Satan so that his
sensual body may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.
The
pride that you take in yourselves is hardly to your credit. You must know how
even a small amount of yeast is enough to leaven all the dough, so get rid of
all the old yeast, and make yourselves into a completely new batch of bread,
unleavened as you are meant to be. Christ, our passover, has been sacrificed;
let us celebrate the feast, then, by getting rid of all the old yeast of evil
and wickedness, having only the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 5:5-7,12 ©
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Lead me, Lord, in your
justice.
You are no God who loves evil;
no sinner is your guest.
The boastful shall not stand their ground
before your face.
Lead me, Lord, in your
justice.
You hate all who do evil;
you destroy all who lie.
The deceitful and bloodthirsty man
the Lord detests.
Lead me, Lord, in your
justice.
All those you protect shall be glad
and ring out their joy.
You shelter them; in you they rejoice,
those who love your name.
Lead me, Lord, in your
justice.
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Gospel Acclamation
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Ps118:105
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Your word is a lamp for my steps
and a light for my path.
Alleluia!
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Or:
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Jn10:27
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Alleluia, alleluia!
The sheep that belong to me listen to my
voice,
says the Lord,
I know them and they follow me.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Luke 6:6-11 ©
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Is it against the law on the sabbath to
save life?
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On the sabbath Jesus went into the
synagogue and began to teach, and a man was there whose right hand was
withered. The scribes and the Pharisees were watching him to see if he would
cure a man on the sabbath, hoping to find something to use against him. But he
knew their thoughts; and he said to the man with the withered hand, ‘Stand up!
Come out into the middle.’ And he came out and stood there. Then Jesus said to
them, ‘I put it to you: is it against the law on the sabbath to do good, or to
do evil; to save life, or to destroy it?’ Then he looked round at them all and
said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He did so, and his hand was better.
But they were furious, and began to discuss the best way of dealing with Jesus.
DEALING WITH SINS IN THE COMMUNITY
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ 1 Cor 5:1-8; Ps 5:5-7, 12; Lk 6:6-11 ]
In the first reading, we
read of the scandal in the Christian community in Corinth. St Paul was
informed that one of the members was living with his father’s wife. St Paul in no uncertain terms
condemned such a sin. He said, “This is a case of sexual immorality among
you that must be unparalleled even among pagans. How can you be so proud
of yourselves? You should be in mourning.” For him, it was unthinkable
that Christians could conduct themselves in such a manner. It was
scandalous.
In order to protect the
community and the person who was living in sin, he instructed that “a man who
does a thing like that ought to have been expelled from the community.” Excommunication was a practice in the
early Church to weed out sinners from the community. Such an action
appears to be very harsh by our standards today. But it is important that
we understand the context of such a drastic action.
Firstly, St Paul understood
clearly the nature of sin.
He said, “You must know how even a small amount of yeast is enough to leaven
all the dough.” When sin is allowed to take root, it will grow and become
uncontrollable. That is why in the scriptures God and sin cannot co-exist.
In the responsorial psalm, the psalmist says, “You are no God who loves evil;
no sinner is your guest. The boastful shall not stand their ground before your
face. You hate all who do evil; you destroy all who lie. The deceitful
and bloodthirsty man the Lord detests.” Sin, therefore, must be
eradicated at all costs. Hence his exhortation to the Corinthians to “get
rid of all the old yeast, and make yourselves into a completely new batch of
bread, unleavened as you are meant to be.”
Secondly, St Paul was
concerned about what unchecked sin could do; especially a serious one that
could damage the soul of the sinner himself. By allowing him to sin and not say
anything about the situation, his sin would grow in him. As sin
intensifies, he would not be able to hear the Word of God clearly or see the
truth of God because he is blinded by pride and selfishness. In
order to save his soul, St Paul said, I “have already condemned the man who did
this thing as if I were actually present. When you are assembled together
in the name of the Lord Jesus, and I am spiritually present with you, then with
the power of our Lord Jesus he is to be handed over to Satan so that his
sensual body may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the
Lord.” So excommunication was intended not to destroy but to save the
soul of the person.
Thirdly, based on the
principle of the yeast that grows, there is also a danger for the rest of the
community. When sin is
tolerated and not exposed, very soon, as it is in our times, the Christian
community will normalize what is evil to be what is good. Indeed, over
the years, the Church has allowed secularistic values of the world to creep
into our community. We have lost the sense of the Sacred even when we are
in church before the Blessed Sacrament. We lack reverence for the Sacred in the
way we dress and pray. We engage in entertainment and pleasures that are
contrary to our values and our virtues. St Paul felt the need to
protect the rest of the community from allowing sin to take root because of bad
influence and example.
However, there is also
the danger that if we act the way St Paul did with sinners in the Christian
community, we can fall into legalism, like the scribes and Pharisees in the
gospel. We read that “the
scribes and the Pharisees were watching him to see if he would cure a man on
the Sabbath, hoping to find something against him.” They were out to find
fault with Jesus so that they could accuse Him of breaking the law. Jesus
was perceived as a deviant and a law breaker, and certainly a threat to the
religious and social institutions of the day.
So how do we reconcile
the need for compassion and the danger of allowing sin to prevail in the
community? How do we
reconcile Jesus’ compassion and forgiveness for sinners? How do we
reconcile Jesus’ parable of the Wheat and the Darnel in the gospel when the
master told the servants who wanted to get rid of the weeds not to do so?
(Mt 13:24-30) His advice was, “‘No; for
in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let
both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell
the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but
gather the wheat into my barn.'” (Mt 13:29-30) The truth is that
life is not all black and white. It is always gray. Not everything
is as neat as we would like it to be. In every situation, it is not just
a matter of right or wrong, but the situation could mitigate how the law is to
be applied.
The underlying principle
is given by Jesus in the gospel when He was faced with the prospect of having
to break the law for a greater need.
Jesus said to the Jewish leaders, “I put it to you: is it against the law on
the Sabbath to do good, or to do evil; to save life, or to destroy it?”
So whatever actions we take, it must be for the purpose of a greater
good. If what we do gives life, then sometimes it might be necessary to
break the laws. Even in the case of St Paul, he made it clear that the
action was to be taken “so that his sensual body may be destroyed and his
spirit saved on the day of the Lord.” So the purpose of excommunication
was in order for the sinner to repent of his sin and be readmitted to the
community once he has put sin to death.
Secondly, it must be
scandalous to the community.
In other words, whatever was done must be considered outrageous and
unacceptable to the community. What was considered scandalous in
those days might not appear to be so scandalous today because of changing
situations. Take for instance, the case of divorce. Until the
early 1970’s, divorce was a taboo among Catholics. It was considered such
a serious sin that a Catholic was ostracized if he or she were divorced and
worse still, remarried. He or she was certainly not allowed to serve in
any church ministry and the community frowned upon the person’s status.
However, today, because women are educated, with most of them working, fidelity
in marriage is more difficult. As Jesus said to the Pharisee who asked
him “‘Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to
divorce her?’ He said to them, ‘It was because you were so hard-hearted that
Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not
so.'” (Mt 19:7f) Today,
society accepts divorce as a fact of life and the Church is more tolerant of
divorced Catholics because she recognizes the challenges of fidelity in
marriages today.
Using these two
principles, if we apply them to the sins in community, we must therefore
exercise prudence in disciplining our members. For some very serious and
scandalous sins, like pedophilia, for the safety of the community and the
pedophile himself, the person must be excluded from the larger
community. So when a sin threatens to destroy the community and the
sinner himself or herself, drastic actions must be taken to save both.
For others, a dressing down, as St Paul did, would be helpful to bring about
repentance. This was how St Peter preached in his first homily when he
accused them of killing our Lord. And “when they heard this, they were
cut to the heart” and repented. (cf Acts 2:37-38) However, the same words
spoken to the Sanhedrin brought an opposite reaction. “When they heard this,
they were enraged and wanted to kill them.” (Acts 5:33)
So what is effective for
one group of people might not be effective for another group of people. For some, they need compassion,
understanding and acceptance. We need to journey with them, show our
tender, loving care. If they are doing evil things, it is because they
are hurting. So for such people, using harsh words will only drive them
further away from us. But if we are gentle with them, they would be more
disposed to listening to what we have to tell them. They will then be
more receptive to the Word of God. That is why we need to pray for
discernment and wisdom in applying the principles, the Word of God with
compassion.
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
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