23rd Sunday 2026
Ezekiel 33:7-9; Romans 13: 8-10; Matthew 18:15-20
“Jesus said to His disciples: ‘If your brother does something wrong, go and have it out with him alone….If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you…..’”
Are you listening, St. Paul? You didn’t obey Our Lord’s instructions, did you? Remember when Peter lost his nerve, and stopped eating with the Gentiles, in order to appease the Jewish converts? What did you do? Not only did you rebuke him in front of everyone; you actually bragged about doing so, when you wrote to the Galatians. What business was it of theirs, anyway?
But that was you, wasn’t it? You could be a gob on a stick, when you put your mind to it. Your disciples in Corinth actually accused you of effectively doing the same as Peter, being strong in your letters, but then backing down when you saw them face to face; losing your nerve, and becoming all meek and mild. Then, in your second letter to them, you threw a tantrum. What was that about?
And what about your travelling companions? How many of those did you fall out with? Even Barnabas, who had smoothed your way to acceptance by the Church, and who was named the leader of your first missionary expedition—do you remember how the pagans in Laodicea called him Zeus, because he was the leader? That wouldn’t do for you, would it? You had to be top dog.
Then there was your arrogance. In that letter to the Galatians, you sneered at the leaders of the Church, saying “Not that their importance matters to me”. Well, it wouldn’t, would it? to misquote Mandy Rice Davies. You were too full of SELF-importance, and you topped it all off with your claims of humility: a touch of the Uriah Heeps, wouldn’t you say?
And yet, you were an amazingly successful evangelist and missionary: there has never been anyone in your league. You gave us the earliest written account of the Eucharist, bearing in mind that your letters were written down before the Gospels, passed down orally, were put into written form. You also wrote sublimely about the Body of Christ as both the Eucharist and the Church.
Sublime too is your explanation of love in your first letter to the Corinthians—the subject also of today’s extract from your letter to the Christians at Rome. That is a remarkable piece of writing, echoing Our Lord’s own words about the two greatest commandments being love of God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love of your neighbour as yourself.
You insist, in this passage, that “all the Commandments… are summed up in this single command: you must love your neighbour as yourself”. (I presume that you are taking the love of God as assumed and taken for granted there.) No getting into a huff and a tangle about graven images and coveting your neighbour’s donkey; and, by the way, they have mistranslated you in one place. “You wrote that “love does not work any harm to your neighbour” which has been rendered as “love…cannot hurt your neighbour”: by no means the same thing. At least five versions of the song “Love hurts” have been recorded: it is very clear, via almost everyone’s experience, that love can cause deep hurt both to you and to the other person—but that hurt can be fruitful, and is very different from doing lasting and destructive harm, if it has been genuine love, and not self-seeking.
So, St. Paul you were areal mixture, weren’t you? “A bag of contradictions” as a priest of this Diocese, now deceased, once described himself. But then again, aren’t we all?
Finally, leaving the subject of St. Paul, it is important that we take to heart those words of Jesus Himself: “where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them”. They mean that, even before Mass begins, Jesus is here, not only in the tabernacle, but also among us as we gather. Because we are here, He is here. This is one of the four ways in which, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal tells us, Jesus is present in the Mass, the others being in His word, in the person of the priest, and especially in the Eucharistic elements when they are consecrated and become His Body and Blood. He is here because we are here, and that can’t be bad.
