Better Than Boxing

Leonard Defrance, Men Fighting (c. 1790)

After grade school, I had the privilege of attending an all boys Catholic high school, which had the imaginative name of… Catholic High School for Boys. Despite the dull name, it was –and still is – a remarkable school, in large part because of its remarkable principal. When I arrived there, Fr. George Tribou had been the principal for more than 30 years; he had taught my father and my uncles and now he was teaching me. He was a living legend, both as a great teacher and as a strict disciplinarian. We heard stories about the creative punishments he would sometimes give out for guys who were acting out. Not all of them would go over well today; for example, if you were caught smoking in the parking lot, he’d make you smoke the whole pack of cigarettes until you were just about sick.

I remember one year there were two guys a grade or two above us that kept getting into fights. They were friends, of a sort, who were also kind of rivals and couldn’t help but end up antagonizing each other. Throughout the fall, Fr. Tribou tried different things to calm them down, to help them get along, but nothing seemed to work. Finally, by the beginning of the spring, he had had enough. He announced that that afternoon, classes would be shortened by 30 minutes and the entire school would end the day end the gym. When we got there, we found a boxing ring set up, and the two troublemakers in the middle. They had huge, oversized boxing gloves on – the kind that would allow them to swing as hard as they liked and not cause any real damage. The sight of them fighting was pretty ridiculous, and by the end of their ten rounds, they were laughing along with the rest of us.

Because we are people of free will and independent minds, it’s inevitable that we will at times find ourselves in conflict with one another. How we deal with those conflicts largely depends on their context and on the willingness of each person to sort through them. Most times, we won’t be able to solve our differences by slugging it out with someone, nor should we. We have to find more creative avenues for solving our conflicts.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus is clear that he wants us as his followers to see our conflicts with one other as redefined in light of him. Our Christian discipleship guides the way in which we handle – and are willing to handle – conflicts with others. Most of Jesus’s teachings about how we are to treat others deals first with recognizing our own faults – seeing “the plank” in our own eye rather than “the splinter” in another’s. Sometimes, the analogy is even more dire – that we should settle with our opponent on the way to court lest we be handed over to the judge and then to the jailer. Jesus is clear that the Christian first approaches any conflict with an eye to themselves – what have I done that needs forgiveness, where am I at fault, where do I need to be reconciled?

In today’s Gospel (Mt 18:15-20), however, Jesus speaks what to do in the other situation – if we are the injured party. First, we have to remember how much he speaks about the importance of forgiveness. “How many times do I have to forgive?” Peter asks this question to Jesus, just as we might ask it of ourselves about a person who keeps committing offense against us. “Not seven times,” Jesus answers, “but seventy times seven.” That is, an innumerable amount of times – we forgive as often as someone sincerely asks.

Sometimes though, when another hurts us, they don’t ask for forgiveness. This is the situation addressed today by Jesus and I think it’s one that we would do well to take to heart. Jesus’s direction, of course, is not to pick up boxing gloves and slug it out with the one who has hurt us. Rather, he says that we should humbly approach the person individually and make them aware of the fact they have hurt us. Notice that Jesus does not say we should approach them to accuse them, or to make them feel bad, or to let them know how angry we are about what they’ve done. Instead, first, we’re interested only in making them aware that they have hurt us in some way.

Hopefully, that alleviates the situation. As Jesus says, “if he listens to you, you have won over your brother.” We exist as part of a family – a human family, but especially with fellow Christians in the family of God – and seeing others as fellow members of our families, as brothers and sisters, can help us remember that we should be willing to dialogue and understanding. If speaking in private doesn’t work, then we can look at bringing the matter to others, first to a few, then even to the larger community, to help the person who has wronged us see their offense. The aim through all of this is not to shame the person but to help them realize the sin they have committed, not just against us but against God.

Sadly, even this at times doesn’t always work, and Jesus envisions this scenario too. There are times when we must unfortunately treat others as “a Gentile and a tax collector.” Jews of the time would have understood these words as advice to be are wary of such people, to avoid interacting with them too much, but also to always be ready to forgive and accept them again if they repent. Forgiveness does not mean we have to let ourselves be hurt again and again; we can and must be on guard around those who have hurt us and especially those who have not recognized they have done so. But for the Christian person, we never write anyone off – we never say anyone is beyond forgiveness, not ours and not God’s.

Friends, the way of loving and of forgiving that Jesus invites us to is ultimately the way God loves and forgives us. While it might feel good to slug it out with someone who has hurt us, either literally or figuratively, it doesn’t accomplish much in the end. My old principal, Fr. Tribou, knew that – what those two guys couldn’t settle with boxing gloves they got over via laughter of the ridiculousness of their own hardheadedness. We too should be people who are openly seeking harmony – with God, with ourselves, and with each other. Remembering our own faults, being ready to forgive, addressing someone in private who has wronged us – these are the mature ways the Christian disciple handles conflict. So don’t harden your heart against the person who has hurt you – but pray for them, talk to them, if possible, and love them enough to forgive them. Because Jesus loves you in the exact same way.