Division Is to Be Expected

Dear Friends,

For the past three weeks, a good number of our parishioners have engaged in a discussion of Brian McLaren’s compelling and timely book, Do I stay Christian? In the book, McLaren addresses the deep concerns felt by many of us who wrestle with the hurt, denial, distortions and divisions that have plagued Christianity not only in recent years, but for hundreds of years.

And yet the truth is, Jesus’ very first followers were steeped in a world that was fraught with opposition and dissent. His disciples were no strangers to the discord that arises when individuals or communities or nations clash over ideas and ways of life that are extremely important to them. Jesus knew that following him would mean rejecting religious, communal, and family structures that might have provided comfort and stability, but did so at the price of justice and equity.

So, it shouldn’t surprise us as much as it does when we read in today’s gospel Jesus’ unsettling words to the crowds who flock to him: “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!   As I pondered Jesus’ intent in juxtaposing the promise of peace with the reality of “no peace,” I came across a poem that helped me reconcile this paradox, by writer Steven Garnass-Holmes.  

There is only one thing,

and we are all part of it.

One God, one Creation, one Spirit, one Body.

We care for the poor,

 include the outcast,

forgive those who hurt us,

and love our enemies

because they are us.

All is one.

This is disturbing to those who are afraid,

who are self-enclosed,

who want to be better than—

that is, separate from—others.

They will oppose those who preach unity,

those who celebrate our oneness.

If you proclaim the gospel of uniting love

they will turn against you,

they will divide “us” from “them.”

This division is to be expected.

Don't let it discourage you.

Forgive them, for we are still one.

You have touched the nerve.

In that touch, by grace, in time,

in the fullness of time,

healing will come. 

May it be so,

Amelie+