If your brother wrongs you.  I have to be careful here that I don’t wrong Aidan because we shouldn’t wrong each other so I’m going to keep this very, very short because after Communion he wants to speak with us a little bit.  This is kind of a bitter sweet celebration.  In one way it is Aidan’s Last Supper with us and in another way he’s sharing his farewell address with us after Communion.  In another way we’re celebrating it together because of his gifts, because he’s been a treasure, such an energy and a blessing to all of us.  We give thanks for that and we give thanks for Aidan.

After Mass you’re invited to hang out in the patio where we have wine and cheese and lemonade and cool water and a chance for pictures to be taken and memory pages and memory cards to be signed, and a chance to visit with Aidan. 

I wanted to say something about the Gospel though because it’s an interesting Gospel.  It’s a formula for what to do when things go wrong among family, friends or among Church believers.  I find some of the advice good and sound and some of it I don’t like at all.  Some of it sounds like Jesus giving us advice and some of it doesn’t sound like Jesus at all. 

The first piece of advice is to be face to face to one another.  When we have a wrong in our family and our friendship or in the Church we’re called to be direct and personal and private and polite about it.  Rather than having denial or behave as if nothing ever happened or act as if there’s a big elephant in the room that nobody sees or being passive and aggressive.  Some of the time this has been described as you have angry feelings towards somebody.  You have to name it, claim it and aim it which means takes responsibility and not go around in angry silence. 

The second step of the formula, if that’s not enough, is the Gospel suggests we call in a witness or two.  Now that doesn’t mean let’s you and me talk about her.  That’s not witness, that’s gossip.  Rather there are times when you need another person, a wise person to facilitate and assist our conversation.  Or sometimes in families and in working situations, we need an intervention so that someone stops their destructive behavior toward others or toward themselves.

Now the third part of the formula is the one I have a little trouble with.  It says go to the Church.  If the person doesn’t except the Church, treat them like a tax collector or a Gentile.  That doesn’t sound like Jesus to me.  As a matter of fact Jesus talked about saving all Gentiles and he took one of the tax collectors and named him an Apostle, Matthew. 

We as a community and the Church as an institution do have to insist on principles and values and standards and truth.  That’s part of the witnessing.  We have to have our ceremonies and rituals that remind us that we’re all on the way, that we’re all sinners and that we need to work at reconciliation.  We have the communal penance services.  We have confession.  We have the penitential rite, The Lord have Mercy at the beginning of each Mass.  As a community the people are always saying we have to seek forgiveness and be willing to change.  But beyond that I think that suggestion of neglecting people and excommunicating people and walking away from Church members is wrong headed.  It’s un-Catholic and it’s un-Christian.

I’ll give you a couple of specific examples from the current political campaign.  There are somewhere between two and three hundred bishops in the United States.  A few of them seem to be implying that unless you vote for the right party, you’re not a good Catholic.  They know which party it is. There are between two and three hundred bishops in the United States and a few of them, four or five, have been naming what politician should be allowed to go to Communion and which one should be refused Communion.  I think that’s simply wrong.  I’m sorry.  That’s not the Church that we belong to.  It’s not the Catholic moral tradition in which we stand.  It is not the way our God works with us.  Moving us gently by persuasion, patiently taking us where we are, helping us to recognize that truth is a very complicated matter and inviting us to be a people always willing to learn and always willing to grow.  That’s what our God is like.  That’s what our Church is supposed to be like. 

Let us give thanks to the Lord who is so good. 

Amen