Counting Pills

Loving everyone in the Church like Jesus does

09/10/2023

Mt 18:15-20 Jesus said to his disciples: "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that 'every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, amen, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

Sometimes I join my parents for breakfast on Friday mornings when I am in Springdale. My father has a funny little routine at the end of his morning meal. He has to take a potpourri of pills for various health issues. But before he takes them, he makes sure to count them carefully so he takes the right number. Of course, my mom, a retired nurse, has already carefully sorted them into the pill dispenser labelled for each day of the week.

There are 12 pills my father takes of all colors, shapes, and sizes. First he counts them by four’s and makes sure there are 3 sets of four. Then he counts them by six’s and thus there are two sets of six’s. And finally he counts them by two’s so there are naturally six pairs of pills. But every time it always equals 12 total pills, so he knows he’s taking the right number.

One morning while watching this almost religious routine, I remarked: “Hey, dad, your 12 pills are like the 12 apostles! I bet that really big one that is hard to swallow is Judas!” And my father answered: “Yes, probably so. But Jesus loved Judas too.” I thought, “Wow, dad, you are exactly right: Jesus loved Judas too.” My father was not preaching to the choir, he was preaching to the preacher! It was a lesson I needed to hear, and I think we all do.

In the gospel today, Jesus is teaching his disciples how to love each other, even how to love Judas, as he did, and even chose him as an apostle. He tells them how to correct each other, called fraternal correction; how to pray for things in common; and finally how to gather in Jesus’ name for worship, called the Eucharist. Jesus concludes: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

Just like my father gathers his pills together in small groups, but loves them all (even the Judas pill), so Jesus loves each of us when we gather together in his name and celebrate the Eucharist. You see, all of Matthew chapter 18 is about the Church, and how we are called to live in a society of potential saints while still being sinners. And the advice Jesus gave 2,000 years ago is urgently needed today. Let me give you an example.

Last week I had a zoom call with a couple currently living in Belgium. The girl is from Fort Smith, but the boy is from Belgium, and they had lots of questions about Catholicism. Specifically, they wondered why the Church in Belgium seemed so liberal while the Church in Fort Smith seemed so conservative. We talked through several issues but my main advice was to check the Catechism of the Catholic Church, whenever they had a doubt or question.

That book is the benchmark for what Catholics believe, regardless of their country or culture. That is, Arkansans might think the Judas pill is the Church in Belgium (too progressive), whereas they might think the Judas pill is the Church in Arkansas (too traditional). But we have to love everyone in the Church, and swallow the Judas pill just like Jesus did and just like my dad does, too.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I worry about the Church and what is going on inside the Church, and who I think are the enemies outside trying to destroy the Church. When I do, I reread a passage from Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. It is a rather lengthy excerpt, but I think it will bring you a great deal of peace, like it does to me.

Lewis wrote: “Compared with the development of man on this planet, the diffusion of Christianity over the human race seems to go like a flash of lightning, for two thousand years is almost nothing in the history of the universe. (Never forget that we are all still ‘early Christians.’ The present wicked and wasteful divisions between us are, let us hope, a disease of infancy: we are still teething.” By the way, I love that image of a baby teething with its chew toy. Even in 2023, Christianity has only just begun to blossom.

Lewis continues, and this is the relevant part for us: “The outer world, no doubt, thinks just the opposite. It thinks we are dying of old age. But it has thought that very often before. Again and again, it has thought Christianity was dying, dying by persecutions from without and corruption from within, by the rise of Mohammedanism, the rise of the physical sciences, the rise of great anti-Christian revolutionary movements.” He is thinking here of Nazism and Communism.

“But every time the world has been disappointed. Its first disappointment was over the crucifixion. The Man [Jesus] came to life again. In a sense, that has been happening ever since. They keep on killing the thing [the Church] that he started: and each time, just as they are patting down the earth on its grave, they suddenly hear that is still alive and broken out in some new place” (pp. 221-22).

In other words, Jesus promised in Mt 16:18, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld will not prevail against it.” And that was not an empty promise: Jesus will protect and provide for his Church because the Church is really his Bride.

And if you are still worried about the proliferation of Judas pills in the Church, remember what Pope St. John XXIII did. Every night after doing all he could for the Church, he prayed: “Lord, this is your Church. I am going to bed.” And then the pope got up the next morning and counted his pills.

Praised be Jesus Christ!