23rd Sunday  Old St. Joseph's   Sept 6, 2026   

 When Jesus gathers his followers around him, very often his discussions with them are about real every-day situations.   Healing on the Sabbath, duties as sons and daughters toward parents, diet restrictions, the stance toward women caught in adultery.   And here in today’s gospel Jesus gives us some very wise directions about how to deal with very common and often quite disturbing experiences, the divisions and dissensions that so frequently upset our family life, our work life or our community lives.

Jesus theme today and every day: Reconciliation, bringing persons back together again.   Indeed, reconciling us with his Father in heaven.

The sort of dissension in the example that Jesus uses occurs because one person hurts another with words or actions.   Often, yes, an innocent person is mistreated by another.   Sometimes, however, it takes two to tango.   I remember an incident in my own life when I was teaching in high school.   I was arranging with another teacher a program for a small group of students.  One of them misbehaved in some minor way and my fellow teacher decided that this student did not belong in this program and put him out.   I disagreed with his decision and started yelling at him judging his authority to dismiss the kid.   Jesus asks us to be more judicious.  Yelling was not the best start to reconciliation.    Two offenders here.  

For an offender we are to follow a careful path in seeking reconciliation. Jesus describes three successive strategies to address someone who has offended us.    First, yes, we ask the person to listen to us one-on-one.   Our words must be chosen judiciously and yelling  practically guarantees the need to go to Jesus’ second step.   If one-on-one fails, then Jesus tells us that the discussion between the parties demands some third party to help clarify all the facts of the disagreement.    In my case with my co-teacher this process with a third party brought about an acceptable reconciliation.   We were able to work together even though more time was needed to establish real trust. 

But Jesus also speaks quite wisely about a third step if needed.   That is a broader attempt at reconciliation within a community of people.  Here he speaks of the church, both the office of authority in the church but also the culture of the church community.

In my own example Jesus third step to reconciliation contributed to the establishment of full trust as the relationship was repaired within our daily actions in the broader school community.   So one, two, three:  first reconciliation one-on-one if possible, second with one or two others as witnesses and mediators and third within a community of common purpose.

No one of these three steps to reconciliation, some commentators suggest, can succeed without some basic realization among the parties of the dignity of the other.   Just the other day I was at lunch with a friend who brought a friend with him to the table, a person I did not know.   They related how they had met.   Both were antique and household item dealers who set up their folding tables in flea markets.   Habitually the one I knew took a certain space at a certain weekly market.  But when my friend arrived a little late one morning, another dealer, this one new to the place and unaware of the usual set up had taken what was regularly the space of the one who arrived late.   After a bit of arguing my friend who was harmed suggested a solution.   They rearranged the space so that they each had their separate tables side by side.      They told me the story with smiles because the two of them have been fast friends since that day.  Their common interests, their respect for one another helped them understand the need to agree to a suitable solution.  Each of them honored the role of the other.   Life, sadly, does not always unfold this way.

Family divisions are the ones that most trouble us.   In my own family, my older sister and her husband were together raising five children with lots of happiness until my brother-in-law decided to leave the household and live with another woman.   It shocked the family and deeply troubled the three of the children still living at home.   Fast forward: the marriage was annulled and their father married again.   Fast forward again and a tragedy struck the family, the oldest among my nieces in the family, Lisa, suffered a terrible illness.  It was devastating for some time and she died from it.

Father and mother had to deal with all the complications of care.  This Lisa, in her suffering, became an example of the third party about whom Jesus speaks.   Love shared for her brought the family together.  Since this time and Lisa’s death they all have celebrated family events together.  In no way could they continue alienated. Their reconciliation honors Lisa.

Jesus not only gives instructions on steps to bring about reconciliation, his whole life and death is the work of reconciling all of humanity to his Father.  His execution by the Temple authorities is so appalling that it forces us to see the evil in ourselves and in humanity, forces us to join together to find ways to prevent such sins of all kinds.

Finally Jesus himself practices in his own daily life some such tactics of reconciliation among the disciples.  We remember how James and John privately seek the support of Jesus so that they can get the best seats in the coming kingdom of God.   Jesus makes no promises but simply asks them to follow in his own footsteps.    But the other disciples find out about the self-promotion of James and John.   And want to isolate them from companionship with them.   Here Jesus steps in to suggest better ways for all the disciples to create community among themselves and reconcile their differences.   They are to do this not be lording over each other but rather by serving one another.   Jesus with such a suggestion takes on the role of that third party who assists in reconciling in the midst of dissension.  

Some hostilities between people seem hard to crack, of course, but well it is to practice what Jesus preaches even in situations which seem most difficult.   Simply put, as hard as it can be, let us find ways of serving those from whom we are alienated.  Such acts honor the dignity of both parties.