E Pluribus Unum

3^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle A

Is 8:23-9:3-1

Ps 27:1,4,13-14

1 Cor 1:10-13, 17

Mt 4: 12-23

The United States of America. One Nation, Under God, Indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for All. E Pluribus Unum – Out of Many, One.

There is strength in numbers. There is power in unity. This has been proven time and again. The 13 colonies ditched the Articles of Confederation and joined together under the Constitution because there are some things that can only be done by a unified nation. National defense, consistency in laws, a strong economy.

People always come together under common beliefs, values, and goals. That is not a coincidence. That is one way we as human beings image God. One God, three divine persons. There are many parts, but one body in Christ. A house divided against itself cannot stand. One bread, one body, one cup of blessing.

We hear today the prophecy of Isaiah regarding Zebulun and Naphtali, how the people in darkness have seen the light. You may recall that when the Israelites left Egypt and settled in the promised land, they did so according to their tribes – the 12 tribes of Israel. 10 settled in the northern part of the land and 2 settled in the south. King David was the first to unify the tribes into one nation, however, after his reign the kingdom split into two, Israel in the North and Judah in the south, each with their own kings.

The Assyrians invaded the Northern kingdom of Israel in 721 BC and carried the 10 tribes there off into captivity. One reason Assyria was able to do this is because Israel and Judah were no longer unified, and therefore were weakened. The remnant that remained in Israel intermarried and assimilated over time with various foreign groups. Two of those tribes were Zebulun and Naphtali.

Unity and purity of belief have always been two of the most important values of the Jewish people. They have worked very hard to maintain their particular identity as God’s chosen people by not intermarrying and assimilating into the cultures they have inhabited. Those who did were considered unclean and were to be avoided and even shunned. That is why the people who lived in Zebulun and Naphtali were considered to be in darkness. They had been cut off from the unified nation, they had defiled themselves by assimilating. They were impure and were therefore were without hope. They were considered Gentiles, not Jews.

That area is also known as Galilee. And it was no coincidence that Jesus chose to live there, chose to begin his ministry there, laid the foundations of his church in the apostles there. Jesus did not simply desire that his church be unified with him in all things, he actually said that he and the church are one in the same thing. He prayed, “that all of them may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You. May they also be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.”  And he left us the greatest sign and creator of unity in all of history, the Eucharist.

But maintaining unity is difficult. We hear St. Paul say today,

I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that all of you agree in what you say,
and that there be no divisions among you,
but that you be united in the same mind and in the same purpose.

From the very beginning of the Church there have been divisions. We hear today that the Corinthians were already taking sides, this one following Apollos, this other one Cephas, and yet another Paul. And it’s a natural thing to do. We do it ourselves. We prefer this priest or that, this pope or that, this politician or that. And I think that we follow them because they agree with us. Their worldview parallels ours, and that makes us feel justified and important.

Human beings have always joined themselves in factions, usually based upon what we feel best serves our interests. We naturally are attracted to people and movements that coincide with and reinforce our own beliefs. Ironically, in this way when we group ourselves with others we do it for completely selfish reasons. It really isn’t about the group, it is about us.

And I think the most destructive thing about this tribalism is that typically it moves beyond just identifying with a specific group to vilifying and demonizing people outside the group, who do not agree with our worldview. Factionalism often leads to arrogance and discrimination and closemindedness. It can ultimately lead to violence astonishingly quickly.

So, St. Paul is understandably frustrated. Didn’t they get it? It wasn’t about a human being’s thoughts or teachings or eloquence. It was about Jesus. It is about God. The one person who can truthfully claim that it is all about him is Jesus. The deeper your understanding of your discipleship, the more you become like Jesus and the more he becomes the center of your life.

It’s like a cup of water. It can only hold so much. If you fill it with something else the water must be displaced. The more we let Jesus fill our souls the less space we ourselves will take up.

I think that’s what the apostles experienced when Jesus called them by the seashore. Their lives were filled with the cares and simple joys of their everyday lives. Like us, they were focused on themselves, even though they were devoutly religious people. Their belief in God was very important to them, but it wasn’t everything. They needed to make more room in their lives for God.

Jesus had one consistent message throughout his earthly ministry – “Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand.” Sometimes he referred to the Kingdom of Heaven, like today. Either way, the message is the same, for them and for us. I think we all too often think of God as being somewhere else. God is in heaven, a place we have some foggy idea of. Every now and then we are aware of God’s presence in our world; when we reach out to him in our distress, when we thank him for something wonderful that has been given to us, when we see the beauty around us in nature and in one another. For most of us, we move through awareness and unawareness of God.

Jesus is telling us something different today. He is saying that God is not somewhere else, he is here. And he is immanent, here at this very time in our lives and active in history. There are some people who view God almost like a celestial watchmaker. He has fashioned an unimaginably complex universe, set it in motion, and then lets it run by itself with no continuing interference from him.

But the reality of the incarnation – God become man – refutes that belief. Our king is so involved in our lives, in every area and fiber of our lives that he chose to become one of us. He is intimately a part of who we are and who we are destined to be. We are fully human when we rally around our king. We are fulfilling our destiny when we subjugate our will to His.

Jesus urges his disciples to be united around their king. But it’s so much more than just being subjects of the king. No matter how benevolent an earthly king is, there is still always a degree of separation between him and his subjects. Jesus said that our unity with our king is so much deeper, the lines of separation destroyed.

We are unified around our king. He is and should be the center of everything in our lives. It is difficult I think for us to submit to our king. As I said before, we gravitate towards those who agree with us. With God it’s different. We should not rally around our king because he agrees with us but because we agree with him. We are subjects, not the king ourselves. It is easy to forget that sometimes, especially in our self-centered society.

Remember that the beginning of Jesus’ call to us is the word “Repent”. We are to first and foremost get our relationship right with our God. We need to realize that we all have the need to repent, to change, to turn from our sinfulness and re-orient ourselves to God each and every day. And the best way to do that is to participate in the Mass, to partake of the one loaf and the one cup, to become one with Jesus body and blood, soul and divinity. To become Jesus active in the world today. To become what you eat.

Just as Jesus fulfilled the prophecy by bringing the gentiles and the outcasts back into union with the chosen people, he does the same with everyone who seeks him. The kingdom of God is at hand, and it is one kingdom. It is one kingdom of hope and of peace, and it is achievable and real.

Leave behind your tribe. Leave behind your faction. Leave behind anything and everything that causes division and strife in your church and in your life, and switch your allegiance to the King.

That is the one path to being truly happy in this life and in the kingdom to come.