They shall be my people...

 

In both Ezekiel (Ezekiel 37:21-28) and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:10-13), we hear God promising to gather the scattered remnants of Israel; and in his Gospel, John, interpreting the high priest’s comments, sees Jesus gathering “into one the dispersed children of God” (John 11:45-56).  In all of these passages it’s God who acts.  Plainly we can’t do it ourselves.  Humans divide.  It’s God who unifies.  What we need to hear and understand is that unity is what God wants.  Though we can’t do it ourselves, we certainly can impede it, and we desperately need to understand how doing that would be completely contrary to God’s will.

In my reflection today, I think of the ways we divide – all variants of “us” and “them”: white and black, immigrant and native-born, gay and straight, rich and poor, Protestant and Catholic, liberal and conservative, clerical and lay, vaxxers and non-vaxxers, maskers and non-maskers. . . the list is endless.  These kinds of divisions are ingrained in our psyches – in our biology even.  That’s why what Jesus has done is to make something totally new – totally different.

This isn’t to suggest that these distinctions are trivial, nor that we can abolish them by willing it.  But they're not as important as the equality and unity of the new creation, which has to be given precedence whenever there seems to be conflict with the new creating that God is doing.   It's important to remember that we humans use these divisions for dominance.   But there’s no dominance in the new creation.  There is, instead, only self-giving.  As Paul wrote: “Neither Jew or Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female” (Galatians 3:28).  And Jesus, in His prayer to the Father at the last supper, asked God that: “they may be one, as you Father and I are one – so that the world may believe you sent me….” (John 17:21-26)

“So that the world may believe. . .”  Division doesn’t manifest God.  We, as Church, do not show God’s presence so long as we are divided.  Next week we’ll celebrate – not just remember, but actually relive – that new creating.  It is well to keep this emphasis on unity uppermost in our minds and hearts as we approach that holy day.