A homily for the Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 10, 2023
Ez 33:7-9, Rom 13:8-10, Mt 18:15-20
When I was in my late teens and early 20s, in the last quarter of the 20th century, I was a high-paid babysitter, maybe the highest-paid in New Jersey. It had little to do with me or some spectacular talent I may have had, and pretty much everything to do with my clientele.
I looked after the children of many one-percenters who knew the family whose name was on the side of the trucks of the construction company I worked for during my college summer breaks. Whose owner was one of my dad’s best friends. Thus, I was vouched for. And to them, I was William. Never Bill or Billy or Will or Willy.
Wow, that was a long trip for a setup. I hope that made sense.
Often on a Friday evening, because I usually didn’t have a date, this family or that — folks whose last names appeared on four-lane highway signs or were graved in granite multiple places — would book me to entertain and otherwise tuck in their preschoolers. The gigs usually lasted from about 5:30 until dawn.
As children of considerable means, many of the kids were … how can I put this charitably? … spoiled brats.
Through the grace of God, I found a passable level of patience, and even the most persnickety scion followed me like a child of Hamelin.
One Friday, 4-year-old Tommy got our sandwiches out of the fridge and I poured the 7-Up. Tommy finished first, and when I asked him to put his soda tumbler in the sink, he angrily replied, “No way!” and slammed his fist on the kitchen island’s countertop.
The top was wobbly, it turned out, and at that point I was wearing a blend of a No. 2 sub and 8 ounces of lemon-lime fizz. I forget what came over me at that moment, but I grabbed Tommy by the ankle and hoisted him upside-down. He wriggled and wiggled and screamed, “You’re fired! William, I’m telling on you! You’re fired! Go home!”
I reminded him that he couldn’t fire me, that I wasn’t going home, and that he needed to apologize to me before I would lower him. He reverted to “No way!” and my arm gave out before he did. He bolted off, and I started cleaning the mess.
A couple of minutes passed, and then I felt a plush towel at my elbow. A contrite Tommy helped me clean myself, the kitchen and himself.
I read to him, we watched Johnny Carson, and he fell asleep snuggled under my left arm.
His folks and older sister returned around 4 a.m. As I was getting ready to leave, I reported that I’d had to discipline Tommy but that everything worked out fine. His mother was livid; his father shushed her and faux sternly said he’d take care of the matter.
He slipped me an extra $100 and asked, “Same time next Friday?”
I believe that, at their core, everyone wants to do the right thing. Maybe not all the time, but pretty close. And if that’s what everybody wants, then what everyone needs is someone to show them or at least tell them what the right thing is, and maybe how to do it.
Do we have to be told the way an adult tells a 4-year-old? Let’s hope not.
Is it our place to butt in and tell someone they’re being wicked, as Ezekiel puts it? Sometimes. And sometimes becomes always if someone is being bullied or abused. In those situations, MYOB doesn’t apply.
In the very first book of the Bible — Genesis 4:9 — we learn the right thing from someone who did the absolutely wrong thing:
Then the Lord asked Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He answered, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Excuse me, Cain: The answer is yes, yes you are your brother’s keeper.
Just as all of us are, (mumble mumble mumble) millennia later.
Our role as keepers of our sisters and brothers, as lovers of our neighbors, is twofold. We must support and protect our fellow pilgrims on the journey of life, and we must gently but firmly nudge them back onto the straight path whenever they start to stray.
Hmmm…
Maybe two-and-a-half-fold, because we also should accept critical guidance in the spirit it’s given to us, so long as it’s given in a spirit of familial love. God will always provide sincere people to guide us, if we let him and let them.
Yes, we want to do the right thing. And the more we do the right thing, and the more often we do it, then the notion of doing anything else will be totally foreign to us.
And we’ll have the strength and wisdom to do the right thing for our sisters and brothers because we know that Jesus is there with us.
