Ezekiel 33:7-9; Romans 13:8-10; Matthew 18:15-20
THE AGE OF SELFIE AND THE DANGERS OF INDIFFERENCE
Dear Friends in Christ, we live in an age fascinated by the selfie where the camera turns toward me, my image becomes the centre, my experience becomes the story, and the world is measured by how it affects me. The selfie is not evil per se, the danger however, begins when technology becomes a mentality, a way of living in which “I” becomes larger than “we.” Today’s Liturgical Readings expose this danger.
The biblical roots of this mentality can be contemplated from Genesis. Adam and Eve, after sin, become concerned with themselves. Then the tragedy deepens in Cain. After murdering Abel, Cain asks, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The question is chilling because it attempts to turn responsibility into somebody else’s problem. Cain’s sin is not only that he ki!!ed his brother; it is also that he refused to recognise himself as responsible for his brother. This is where the selfie mentality can become dangerous. It undresses the beauty of our humanity and exposes the nakedness of indifference. We can see suffering without allowing it to disturb us. We can witness injustice, addiction, loneliness, family breakdown, poverty or a young person losing faith, and simply scroll past. We can become spectators of suffering rather than brothers and sisters who respond.
In the First Reading, the Prophet Ezekiel gives us the opposite vocation: “I have appointed you as a watchman.” The watchman cannot say, “It is none of my business.” If danger comes and he refuses to warn, he shares responsibility. Christian love therefore includes courageous correction. Sometimes love must speak a difficult truth, not to humiliate, control or condemn, but to rescue. As the saying goes, “where there is a lack of correction, there is an abundance of corruption. Silence can become an accomplice of evil.
Jesus makes this responsibility concrete in the Gospel. “If your brother sins against you, go and point out the fault.” Notice the tenderness of the command as Jesus says, “your brother,” not “your enemy.” Correction begins with relationship, patience and the desire to win the person back. The goal is restoration, not destruction. And where two or three gather in His name, Christ promises to be present. Christian community is therefore not a collection of isolated individuals but a network of mutual responsibility.
And in the Second Reading, St. Paul gives us the heart of it: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another.” Love fulfils the law because love refuses indifference. Edward Banfield’s study of “amoral familism” helps illuminate the social danger when concern becomes restricted to one’s immediate circle and people lose the capacity to act for the common good. He describes this as an obstacle to collective progress.
Dearest Friends in Christ, the Gospel asks us a disturbing question, who is my brother? The answer is not “only those who belong to me.” Every human person is entrusted to our concern. In the age of selfie, Christ calls us to turn the camera outward, to see, listen, correct, forgive, serve and love. May we move from “me” to “we,” from indifference to responsibility, and from spectatorship to solidarity. Christianity is not merely about looking at ourselves before God; it is learning to see every brother and sister through the eyes of Christ.
Happy Sunday and God bless you all!
©Friar Emmanuel Idakwo OFM Cap.
