08.22.2020 Homily

What we're reading is really an instruction for any one of us who has responsibility over a community, or over the work of others. It's really an instruction about what it is to be in the Christian spirit, a leader.

He tells Peter, "You have the power to bind and to loose." The leader is expected to focus on what we call the common good. That what holds all of us together, what all of us share together, that that be promoted, that that be advanced. And yet each and every one of us and every person in the operation or the organization is different, and so perhaps the needs of that person are different. And so perhaps the responsibility of the leader is different for each one.

As I grew up as a child, it became clear to me and my siblings that we weren't all treated the same. And that was very difficult for children and adolescents to accept. There were some things I needed and the others didn't need. And there were things that they needed and I didn't need. And so we were treated in different ways, and well, we knew it wasn't fair. And so you know if you're 10 or 12 or 15 or 18 years old, you're so insistent that things be fair. And my father was a very wise man. He said, "You aren't all the same. And to the ability I have, I will give to each of you what you need.”

That's what binding and loosing is about. Whether you're a parent, whether you're a teacher in a classroom, whether you're the manager in a business, whether you're a civil leader, whether you're the governor of the state, your job is to commit to the common good. To hold that community together. To be an instrument of unity within the family, on the job site, in the classroom, in the state or the city, that those who are leaders are to promote the unity of the community.

And that's what Peter is called to do. He's called to make sure that the church lives in unity with each other, in peace with each other. And that's what binding and loosing is about. He needs to know what to say is essential that we all agree with. And he needs to know what is non-essential and we have great freedom in that regard.

And that's different. And that's sometimes very hard to figure out--what is essential and what is not essential. That's hard to figure out in a classroom. It's hard to figure out in a business. It's hard to figure out for the mayor of a city or the governor of a state. It's hard to figure out what is essential for the good of a community. And that's what we must mandate and make sure happens. And everything else, everything else that is not essential, there's got to be freedom for that. Because people are different. 

Now, when people are frightened, they want to make everything the same. That I don't like what's going on, and so I'm going to legislate that we all walk lock-step this way. And that's not leadership. That may be dictatorship, but it's not leadership. The leadership would be to hold first the common good of the community and to advance that, recognizing that some things must be held and lots of it must be given to freedom. But in everything there must be charity. And in everything, the love of one's neighbor must govern it all.

So, as we pray today, we pray for the church. That the leadership of the church may know well what Jesus is calling us to. In 2005, shortly before Joseph Ratzinger became Pope, when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, he preached on this topic in St. Peter's Basilica and he talked about the binding and the loosing of leadership. And he said, "You know, some communities do this very well and other communities don't." He said, "For instance, us, Roman Catholics, we know how to bind, we've learned how to bind, we're experts on binding. We have no idea how to loose. We have no idea how to grant freedom. We have no idea how to respect the liberty.” 

“Then you sit on the other side, you've got the Episcopalians. And they know how to loose, they know how to open up everything, they know how to provide no guidelines. So they are good at loosing, but they don't know how to bind." And he said, "The secret is to bind and to loose, and to do that focusing on the good, the good of a community." 

So that's what we pray for, pray for that in ourselves, and we pray for that in the church this evening,