One of the hardest things I find to do in life is to correct someone with the right tone. It often happens that when someone does something wrong, we get annoyed and emotional. Some people decide to remain quiet, shutting up their mouths and pretending to show that nothing wrong has happened. Others play the ostrich – burying their head in the sand. For some people, they just burst into condemning and blaming the wrongdoer with all the warnings of not to do the same in future. Which position do you usually take?
Through baptism we assume serious responsibility for our fellow believers. Suppose a son or daughter, friend or acquaintance, relative, neighbor, even parent or teacher, does “something wrong,” whether sin of commission or omission, what do you do? Jesus instructs his disciples about relationships among members of the church. He outlines a four-step process of confrontation, negotiation, adjudication and excommunication. He tells us how to mend a broken relationship within the Christian fellowship by using this four-step process
1) Confrontation: The worst thing that we can do about a wrong done to us, is to brood about it, because it can poison the whole mind and life, until we can think of nothing else but our sense of personal injury. Don’t gossip either. Hence the first step proposed by Jesus to the one who has been wronged is to meet the offender in person, and point out lovingly, but in all seriousness, the harm he has done. This first stage is meant for the two people concerned to solve the issue among themselves. If it works out at that level, that is the ideal situation. “You have won back your brother.” This process calls for courage, a proper knowledge of how to dialogue in a meaningful and diplomatic way, sensitivity and above all love.
2) Negotiation: Suppose the first step does not resolve the situation and the person refuses to admit wrong, continuing in behavior, bad for him or her as well as others. This creates a problem, for example, among young persons whose friend steals or shoplifts, uses drugs or drinks excessively, hangs around with a bad crowd, or plans to run away. Here the second step is to take one or two other members of the church along with the wronged person to speak to the wrongdoer and to act as confirming witnesses. The taking of the witnesses is not meant to be a way of proving to a man that he has committed an offence. It is meant to help the process of reconciliation by emphasizing and explaining calmly the gravity of the situation. Nowadays that means involving a qualified third party – counselor, teacher, priest or physician. The Rabbis had a wise saying, “Judge not alone, for none may judge alone except God.”
3) Adjudication: If the negotiation step too does not resolve the situation, the third step is to have the whole church or community of believers confront the wrongdoer. The case is brought to the Christian fellowship because troubles are never amicably settled by going to the court of law, and it is in an atmosphere of Christian prayer, Christian love and Christian fellowship that personal relationships may be righted in the light of love. Besides, in matters of honor and shame, the community is the final arbiter.
4) Excommunication: If the offender chooses to disregard the believing community’s judgment, the consequence is “excommunication.” It means that if none of the three steps brings resolution of the situation, then the wrongdoer should be treated like “a Gentile or a tax collector.” That is, the wrongdoer should be put out of the church with the hope that temporary alienation alone may bring the erring person to repentance and change. The sinner is expelled because every obvious case of unrepented sin denies the Gospel’s power and the Church’s mission of reconciling sinners to God and to the community. But the excommunication should be carried out with genuine grief (1 Cor 5:2), not vindictive glee over another’s “fall” or self-righteous pride.
We have a duty to correct one another, but we must not commit sin while doing so. We should not even humiliate the person we are reproving. And we must not do it in anger for that only hardens the heart of the person that is reproved. We should not even remain silent for that can be taken that we approve of what has happened. In that case, we bear part of the responsibility of the wrong done.