Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
It’s easy to get caught up in joy and jubilation—or darkness and despair.
It’s easy to get comfortable and think politicians will lead us into
the land of milk and honey—or think they will take us to Armageddon.
It’s easy to believe we can rest now because order has been restored to our country—or believe that a dangerous time is descending upon us.
The hard part, regardless of where your thoughts fall, is keeping focused on Christ. That is not to say that we should not be advocating our neighbors and for religious freedom. Many have died for the Lord and doubtless many more will in the time humanity has left on the earth. Christians are not passive. We are activists, rabble rousers, those who comfort the afflicted and at times afflict the comfortable. But above all else, we are united in faith. We may be registered with a political party (or not) or we may have taken a million social media quizzes so we know that this is the ‘70s song that summarizes our life or this literary classic is our theme or this color defines us. But above all, we are His. Some of those we find most difficult to love, whether or not we have ever met them, also are His.
In today’s first reading from 1 Corinthians 1, Paul notes that the community to which he is writing has begun to divide itself by boasting of whom conducted their baptisms. “Is Christ divided?” he asks. That is no mere rhetorical question. For if our answer is the obvious—no, of course He isn’t—then it becomes part of our spiritual journey to treat all those we encounter as brothers and sisters, rather than as others.
