Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The Lord gives us this Sunday a beautiful gospel that can be summarized in two words: community and love. Through those two words we can enter the depth of this gospel and understand what the Lord wants to tell us today. This idea of ‘a community of love’ perhaps are very rare for some people. I know sometimes when I talk about love many of you may not understand me. I hope that the Holy Spirit will reveal this to you and also the meaning of the word ‘community.’
The community is the place that God has chosen to save us each one of us. The community is the place that God has chosen for you and your family to be shown the love of Christ on the cross. When we talk about love, we talk about this unconditional love that Christ has all for men and women. He is always loving you and me; he cannot do otherwise. It would go against his nature.
Jesus says today that if your brother sins against you, go, and tell him his fault and if he does not listen then go with one or two others who can be witnesses. The community according to this gospel helps us to live three things. First, to save the other, if he listens to you, you saved your brother. The community saves. First and foremost, the community is the one that saves because the community is Christ and Christ is the rock that saves us. The psalm says, let us cry sing joyfully to the Lord who is the rock that saves us.
In the Old Testament there was the rock that Moses touched with the rod and from that rock water sprang. It was water that quenched the thirst of the people. Scripture says it was also the rock that followed them throughout their pilgrimage through the desert and helped them to reach the Promised Land. This rock is Christ.
The community saves us because the community is Christ. The community is the Church. It the rock where we are sustained, put on the solid ground of God’s love where I can live my life with joy. This is impressive because this rock has more power than your sins, which is usually what makes you sad. If you are sad today it is because of your sins or because your projects were not fulfilled which is also a sin because it shows that you to want to be god. You manage your whole life like a god and in the end if it is not fulfilled, you are bitter. This is the sin of pride.
This rock is a symbol of God’s love for us. He is that firm rock on which we can build our lives. Lile the parable about the house that was built on rock rather than sand. When troubles come this house will not fall because it is placed solidly on this rock of Christ, which is the community. This is something firm and real that is always there. Even if you are unfaithful, he will remain faithful; that is true love. The word speaks of these two realities today, love and community.
The second word spoken today is love, which never harms others. The fullness of the law is love. You and I cannot correct the brother but if we do not have this rock that saves us. Then you are not going to save him/her, you are going to destroy him. The Lord does not ask for the destruction of the other. He calls us to exhort the other through love as a brother or sister, as if we have been corrected by the Lord. When we are corrected it is synonymous with being saved. When you correct the other, you have saved him.
Our Lord has corrected us when he saved us from original sin. How did he do that? By sending us his son, Jesus Christ who saved us. How beautiful it is that we are called to do the very same thing for our brother or sister. This is what it means to love them. To love them means to correct them which saves them.
To summarize, salvation comes first of all by being in a community where Christ is present, and love is shown by the other who out of love corrects us. The pagans said of the first Christians see how they love each other, look at how they care for one another and how they face death, even violent ones with calm and peace.
A Christian does not correct thinking that he/she is better than the other. There are two ways to correct. One is for me to think that I am better than you and I have to tell you what to do or what is evil. The other way is to correct like another Christ. How did he correct? He gave his life for you and accepted the injustice done to him and it killed him. Christ was perfectly innocent, there was no one more innocent than he. He was the Son of God and did no wrong. He lived his life doing good and got killed for it. They gave him an unfair trial and in a couple of hours sentenced him to death. He did not have a defense attorney and the trial was a joke. What they did to him was totally unfair and he did not open his mouth. He gave his life for those who were killing him. He even excused them and prayed for them when he said, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” This is how Christ corrected us all by loving us to the extreme point of giving his life. This is true love.
Another way that living in a community helps us is when Jesus says where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in their midst. Jesus Christ is not made present to you or me alone but when two or more are gathered in my name, I am there. The community makes Christ present in the midst of sinful people, in the midst of a small town or a big city. Christ did not say where two or three saints are gathered in my name. He does not even say where two or more good men are assembled, nor does he say where two or more good men who recently confessed are gathered.
We are all sinners, some more than others, of course. Some are on the way to conversion; others are already converted a bit more than others. Some will love more than others, and some will be more patient than others. Some will live chastity more than others, or be more faithful than others, or ask for more forgiveness than others. But where two or more are gathered in my name in a community, I am present.
And lastly, if two or more of you agree on something to ask of my Father, he will grant it. The community helps us in three ways: to pray, to save us, and to make Jesus Christ present. So don’t be afraid, the community is a group of brothers and sisters who are united for only one thing: to take us out of slavery and bring us to the Promised Land. Christ is the Promised Land, the place where he is calling us to be today. To live as the Servant of Yahweh, to not resist evil, to have the power to love our enemies, to bless those who persecute us, who slander us. But not responding to evil with evil but responding with love, with the desire to save, to respond with prayer. This is what it means to correct: to do it out of love, to correct by dying to myself. Let us ask for this grace today!