Divisions and Outcasts

The texts in the Roman Catholic Lectionary today have themes of discord and delight. The Book of Isaiah tells of a time when the faithful will see the delight of the Lord shine on people and place thought forgotten or outside the concern of Israel. The psalmist praises the Lord who fills his life with strength and confidence. He petitions the Lord to for the privilege of being in the House of the Lord all the days of his life and exhorts that people need to wait for the action of the Divine. Paul writes to the Corinthians about the apparent divisions in the followers of Christ. There are those who follow one or another leader and Paul that “there should be no divisions among you, but that you should be united in the same mind and the same purpose.” As the annual time of prayer for Christian Unity concludes, the unity of Christianity is a relevant question. What path of action, what time of waiting, what prophesy can we make about the life of the Body of Christ? The Body inherits the Promise to Abraham, the Exodus with Moses, the exile of Isaiah and continues to move as Jesus indicates in the Gospel from Matthew to bring the marginalized by location (i.e. “Galilee of the Gentiles”) or occupation (fishermen) to their synagogues and to healing and membership in the Body. The unity in the Body is the work of the Divine and the indwelling Spirit of Greek, Jew, free, slave, male and female respond in a unity of recognition of the Father which then as now includes all tribes and nations in the delight of the Divine.