Homily Notes Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time. January 22, 2017
The Call to be a Community
Christianity is a social religion. Christianity is about a relationship with God, but it is also about developing relationships with others. We see that emphasized in the scriptures today.
What was the first thing that Jesus did when he started his public ministry? He started to build a support system for himself. He did that aggressively. When we want something to happen in our lives we can wait for it to take place, then again, we can make it happen. Jesus made community happen. If we study the way that rabbis operated in Biblical times we would notice that disciples usually came to the rabbi. Jesus could have begun his work by teaching where ever he could. Over time there may have been people who would have responded saying, “Can I follow you.” But Jesus was not passive. In any organization, you can ask for volunteers. And then again you can actively recruit. Jesus starting choosing people to be leaders in his religious movement.
Paul did the same thing. When he went out to preach he would go into a new community. He would not just lecture to others hoping that people would become interested. He, like Jesus, would seek talented people to help him. He would then painstakingly knit them into a church. He would appoint elders. He would call certain people to do ministries. Only when the fledgling community seemed well established, did he move on. Starting any organization is a difficult thing. If you do not have the right governance things will not flourish. And if you do not have the right structure thing will not work well either. Saint Paul believed without a church organization the Christian enterprise would fail.
For that reason, he is most distraught about the church he started Corinth. He hears rumors about problems in that church. He senses that all his months of hard work in that community were not going to amount to anything. People were dividing up into camps. Christians were fighting among themselves. Paul understood that great things can be done with a united community while a community divided into factions will self- destruct.
Paul appeals to what unifies the church. What unifies the church is that we all say we are all disciples of Jesus. We do not belong to anyone else. We are not to be part of a clique that happens to be a part of the church community. No, we are all the Body of Christ with Jesus as our head.
Dr. Scott Peck once wrote a book on building community. In that book, Peck pointed to the stages of community. The first stage is pseudo community. We could say that this is where the Christians of Corinth started. When they first became followers of Christ they were enamored with what they found. Perhaps the new Corinthian Christians were struck by intimacy they experienced, by the benefits of belonging to the church, by the newness of it all. But then came chaos. Chaos usually breaks out after a while in any community exercise as Peck says. We begin to see that not everyone in the group is virtuous. No, some people are all too human. Some people in the community grab for power so they can feel important. Factions develop. Things can start to fall apart. After that comes the stage of emptying. At this stage people, must soften their opinions. People need to see that compromise is possible while still maintaining integrity. Individuals can then recommit to the community knowing that it is never going to be perfect, but that everyone’s life is better if we are united to others rather than if we separate ourselves.
No one has to tell us that we are in a period of history where we are deeply divided in our society. The scary part is that some would say that is a good thing. Some would say that, “everyone has to agree with me.” Few people seem to ask what prejudices that they need to let go of, but they almost rejoice in them. At this point in our country there is not the willingness to enter the emptying process. All of this is very dangerous to the fabric of our institutions.
We remember today that Jesus built the Body of Christ. He did not just give us acts of individual worship. He wanted much more than that. He gave us an example of how to construct and live in a church. His disciples did not break apart when he left them but they came together making sacrifices so the mission of Jesus might flourish. We are Jesus’ disciples today. The world around us needs example of how people can love each other. Most of the time loving one another takes an act of the will. We ask over and over if it is worth it? Jesus believed it was. He believed that his disciples, living in loving communities, could transform the world.
Please note this is a rough draft and grammar may not be perfect.