Third Sunday of Ordinary Time: A Call To Unity

St. Paul arrived in Corinth to share the Gospel around the year 50 or 51, almost 20 years after Jesus’ death. Corinth was a seaport city and kind of a party town. Yet when St. Paul arrived there and began to preach, amazingly, these wild-children came to belief. But it didn’t all change overnight, and they didn’t cease to have problems.

After leaving Corinth he moved on to other places to continue his work. And as we hear in today’s reading, he kept tabs on this new community, eventually receiving a report that divisions were emerging within the community, people were separating into cliques. So he wrote this letter from which we hear today: ”….brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ….agree in what you say, (let) there be no divisions among you….be united in mind and purpose.”

Part of the problems with the Christians of Corinth was that there were some who deemed themselves superior to and apart from the rest. The tendency toward division is one of the effects of our fallen human nature, a gift to humanity from the devil himself. But if a Christian person is meant to be a model for what humanity is called to be, so should a Christian community be what the human community is called to be. So, do we model what a human community should look like?

When it gets down to it, I suspect that many of us would say that there are those I regard as friends, who share my values, my religious ideologies, my political views, my state in life, those I interact with, those whose children are in the same circles as my children—whose kids are also parish school kids…homeschool kids….public school kids—yes, all those who are within my circles, and then…..there’s everyone else.

Who in this parish, outside your circle of friends, has felt welcomed or appreciated by you in the past month? I know it’s not easy reaching out to people we don’t know. There’s risk of what it may demand. There’s risk that they may not reciprocate any kindness we offer. But I remind us that we are called to be Christian, not ordinary.

And by the way, that obligation to make connections exists, at least in part, for both parties. So, new folks, those who don’t feel connected to anyone here—do your part to reach out. It’s too easy to drift in and out of here, Sunday after Sunday, as an anonymous parishioner.

Division, be it passive or intentional, comes too easily, even among us who share our most fundamental identity—our baptism into the life of Jesus. St. Paul asked the Corinthians and he asks us: “Is Christ divided?” The inferred answer is decisively “No”. Yet we—the baptized, who declare belief in a Church that is one, holy, catholic and apostolic— we don’t live what we profess.

And as I’ve said before, so much of our tendency toward division, especially in society, comes from the fact that we take too much stock in what might best be regarded as our secondary identities. Maybe we get too caught up in defining ourselves by our political affiliation, ethnicity or first language, economic status or educational achievements, perhaps even in whatever way one identifies with any of the letters in LGBTQ, or any other identifiers. All these are secondary identities, whereas our most fundamental identity is that we are children of God, baptized into Christ Jesus—each of us.

          You need only watch the news to see how social currents impel us toward division. But in here, this one Altar in the midst of us all, calls us into unity. With that in mind, there’s a Biblical theologian (Dr. Tim Gray) I greatly enjoy, who pointed out that Christians can easily state why Jesus died. But, as he asked, do we know why Jesus lived, what he wanted to accomplish before his death? Jesus’ words reveal it. The most common topic Jesus addresses is building the kingdom. And that’s precisely why he established a Church, to be an instrument of building the kingdom. And for us to effectively be Church, it infers unity.

          The Church declares that unless there is a genuine reason, missing Sunday Mass is a sin. Why? First, because God said so: God said make the Sabbath holy. Holy, not just relaxing or a catch-up day. Make it holy. Second, because it’s Jesus’ sacrifice on Calvary offered for us. We come join this beautiful prayer and sacrifice he makes for us as a gesture of gratitude and respect. But third, because God calls us into unity. We are not in unity when you don’t come.

Even more, unity through the Eucharist demands we set aside whatever would otherwise divide us, to aspire to become citizens of a different society—the Kingdom. To the extent we desire it and allow it, this one bread that is our Eucharist is to be for us who share in the one baptism of Jesus, the food that changes us, sustains us, but also which unites us, bring us into true communion through him. Please don’t merely come forward to receive it, desire its capacity for unity.

So, what must you leave behind in your attitudes, your biases, your worldliness, your fears and all that fights against unity? Leave it and bring only a heart for him. In that will be what ultimately moves us toward the unity he desires for us.