God has created everything that exists. All that God has created is good and depends on him. In God’s creative design, he has also created a richness and vastness of diversity that is amazing and beyond our comprehension. Just taking a walk each evening around the lake here at the seminary, I have experienced in each evening such beauty and wonder, especially with the cloud formations at play while the sun is setting.
On our planet, God has brought forth a richness and diversity of natural wonders, animals, and peoples as well. In the natural order that God has created, there is such a range of uniqueness while at the same interconnectedness. And yet, with the fall of our first parents and humanity, sin, and suffering has entered the world and not only disordered but set off kilter God’s natural order and brought about dis unity.
Pope St. John Paul II highlights our fallen nature in his encyclical, The Gospel of Life, line 36 in which he writes: “man not only deforms the image of God in his own person, but is tempted to offenses against it in others as well, replacing relationships of communion by attitudes of distrust, indifference, hostility and murderous hatred. When God is not acknowledged as God, the profound meaning of man is betrayed and communion between people is compromised.”
Our Gospel today from Luke briefly touches on this compromised nature and falling for the temptation toward division and Jesus’ response. Most Samaritans and Judeans were not seeking inroads regarding how to bridge their divides. They at best tolerated from a distance and at worst killed each other.
This lack of compassion toward one another is displayed when the Samaritans refused to provide hospitality toward Jesus when they found out he and his disciples were going to Jerusalem, the city of the Temple for the Judeans. The Samaritans worshipped not at Mt. Zion, but Mt. Gerizim.
Each group also believed that they were the true Israelites. There were other causes to fuel the division as well and James and John seemed to have them on the front of their minds when they responded by asking Jesus “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?” The brothers were recalling how Elijah did just that (see 2 Kings 1:10 and 12) and seeking permission from Jesus to do the same. Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they journeyed to another village (Luke 9:54-56).
Jesus would have none of it. His face was set toward Jerusalem where he would not call down fire or a legion of angels to destroy the Romans or the Jewish high council. He was heading to the holy city to give his life for them, for the Samaritans, and for all of humanity, past, present, and future. Jesus, the Son of God, became man to save humanity, to save you and me. He came close to unite those places in our human hearts that divides us.
Jesus rebukes the Sons of Thunder, impulsive and self-seeking, James and John while at the same time trusting in them and seeing their promise, which they both would fulfill.
Jesus sees our promise as well. In what ways are we resisting Jesus’ invitation to work toward building up the kingdom of God, even in small ways, by keeping others who we may deem as different at arm’s length? May we ask the same Holy Spirit, who touched and transformed James and John’s hearts at Pentecost, to move our hearts and bring about greater healing within so that we may not only embrace the wonder of God’s beautiful gift of diversity in creation and humanity but to also think, speak, and act in ways that help bring about better unity where there may be division in our places of influence.
Photo: Rosary walk, St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, Boynton Beach, FL
Spiritual Stepping Stones 