We are responsible for each other
Homily for the Twenty-Third Sunday – 6 September 2026
There was once a great monastery, a centre of prayer that drew visitors from far and wide. Then something went wrong. The monks began arguing, envying, gossiping about each other, and one by one they drifted away, until only five old men were left, rattling around in echoing corridors, waiting for the community to die. Deep in the nearby woods lived a rabbi known for his wisdom, and in desperation the abbot went to him and begged for any advice that might save what remained. The rabbi thought for a long moment and said simply, “The Messiah is among you.” That was all.
The abbot hurried home turning the words over. He told the remaining monks, “One of us is the Messiah.” And from that day something shifted. Each began to wonder: could it be him? The one who snored in choir? The one who was always late? On the off chance that any one of them might be the Messiah, they started treating each other with an entirely new respect. The bickering stopped.
Word spread of a new spirit in the place, and pilgrims began to return. Young men asked to join. Within a few years, the dying monastery was thriving again - because five old men decided to believe that the person beside them mattered infinitely.
This story could just as easily be told about a parish, a diocese, a family or a workplace that starts to decline through infighting, jealousy and gossip. Imagine what would change if we actually believed that the Messiah is among us - that Christ is present in the person next to us, however irritating or wrong they may be.
Well, this Sunday we are told exactly that.
Jesus is profoundly present when we are gathered in his name. This Sunday's Gospel is common-sense, practical teaching on handling the conflict that inevitably arises in Christian communities. You could say Jesus is giving his disciples, and us, a course in conflict management - and it is a course with wide application, in our families, our parishes, our dioceses and our places of work.
Wherever people live and work closely together, resentments build and someone eventually causes harm to someone else. Turning a blind eye is not a Christian option. Consider how we respond to situations and people who have gone astray. Do we simply give up, or retreat into a “mind our own business” attitude? The point of today’s Gospel is that we don't get to just write other people off. We are responsible for each other.
In the words of the book of Genesis, we are our brother's keeper, we are our sister's keeper. That phrase - we are responsible for each other - is not just a nice sentiment. It comes directly out of our first reading. God says to Ezekiel: “I have appointed you as watchman for the house of Israel. If you do not speak to warn the wicked man to turn from his ways, that wicked man shall surely die, but his blood I will require at your hand.” Ezekiel is told, in the plainest terms, that he will be held to account if he sees someone heading for disaster and says nothing.
Apart from the primary responsibility to show pastoral care and concern, there is a need to speak the truth into people’s lives, even when uncomfortable. This necessarily involves correction and the call to conversion. All of us, as the baptized, have been made watchmen and watchwomen for the house of the Church and for the world around us.
We are responsible for each other precisely because God has appointed us, each one, as sentries for one another. The process of correction which Jesus outlines in the Gospel is based on persuasion and mercy, not punishment for its own sake.
Three levels of escalation deal with someone causing harm in the community, each giving that person, at the lowest possible level, the chance to acknowledge responsibility so that their dignity is protected. Stage one is to go to the person alone, between the two of you. Stage two is to bring one or two others, echoing the Jewish Law that an accusation must rest on the evidence of two or three witnesses. Stage three is to bring the matter before the whole community, and only then, if the person still refuses to listen, should they be treated differently.
Picture how this plays out. In a family, it means speaking directly to the brother, the daughter, or the spouse who has hurt us, rather than complaining about them to everyone else at the dinner table. In a parish, it means going quietly to the parishioner concerned, rather than letting resentment spread as gossip in the car park after Mass.
In a diocese, it means bishops, priests and lay leaders raising hard truths honestly and directly with one another, not through whispered complaint. In a workplace, it means going to the colleague concerned before going to everyone else, and escalating to management only once that conversation has failed.
In every setting, the same principle holds: we owe each other the dignity of being spoken to directly, not about. The reference to treating an unrepentant person “like a pagan or a tax collector” is worth a second look, because it can carry a nice twist. As it stands, Jesus is naming a category of people the community has the right to exclude. But Jesus himself showed special care for pagans and tax collectors - not least St Matthew, a former tax collector himself, who is recording these very words.
It is not unreasonable to hear in this teaching a call to keep reaching out, even to those excluded. Correction, in the Godsense, is never an end in itself; it is meant to be corrective and restorative, to bring the person back to their senses.
This three-stage process is sometimes called fraternal correction. It must never be easy or comfortable to carry out. None of us enjoys having our faults pointed out to us, and if we find pleasure in correcting someone else, that is a bad sign. Correction must never come from wounded pride or revenge; we should feel something of the pain and embarrassment of the one being corrected, and our intention must be to truly help them.
Jesus is clear that public correction is an absolute last resort - quietly seeking reconciliation is far more effective, and far more respectful of the dignity of the one who needs to hear a hard truth. St Paul, in the second reading, speaks of the primacy of love: love fulfils the whole of the Law.
This is a reminder of the spirit behind everything else - Ezekiel's call to speak the truth, and the Gospel's call to heal conflict rightly. The only legitimate motive for intervening in someone else's life is love for them. We should also carry within ourselves a built-in caution: it is always easier to see the faults of others than our own.
Jesus's teaching about removing the plank from our own eye before pointing at the splinter in someone else's eye applies here too. The Gospel command to judge mercifully must stay uppermost in our minds.
Imagine what our families, parishes, dioceses and workplaces would look like if we actually lived this out - if we went directly to the person concerned and spoke to them first, instead of talking about them behind their backs. The Christian journey is not a solo flight; we travel it together, as fellow pilgrims. We are their keeper, and they are ours.
In this same Gospel passage, Jesus also gives us a beautiful image of the Christian community: he promises that where two or three are gathered in his name, he is there among them.
Our spiritual life is lived in community - in the family of God, expressed concretely in our own families, parishes, dioceses and even our workplaces. We have a responsibility for one another there. When we gather, when we accompany each other, pray together, and form and correct each other in love, the Messiah truly is among us.
