Friday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time
(I Corinthians 1:17-25; Matthew 25:1-13)
Once an oriental with no knowledge of Christianity walked
into a church in Italy. He was taken
aback by the crucifix hanging over the altar.
He asked, “What did that man do to be hung like that?” In the First
Letter to the Corinthians St. Paul launches a plea for unity within the
community from a similar amazement over the crucifixion.
Paul writes that he preached the paradoxical power of Christ
crucified. Not considering himself an
accomplished preacher, he says that it was the wonder of the message that won
converts. That message was, of course,
that Christ gave his life to arrest the world from the grasp of sin. Others preached to the Corinthians with more
eloquence -- he writes -- but it was the common message that attracted people
to believe. Paul will exhort the
Corinthians to stop claiming factions like “I am a Paul Christian” or “I am a
Peter Christian” and to settle on the fact that all follow of the one who loved
to the extreme.
Sounds right, but how do we reconcile this message with the
reality of divisions within Christianity today?
Not only are there many distinctive Christian groups – Catholics,
Orthodox, Protestants, and Evangelicals. But also, within each group there is
further alienation – liberals and conservatives, charismatics and social
justice types, to name a couple. For unity
we must return to Christ crucified. His sacrificial
love shows us how to tolerate and even accept as brothers and sisters different
types of Christians. We must never sacrifice
truth for the sake of unity. But we must
refrain from bigotry and demonization out of love of Christ.
