Eighth Sunday after Pentecost; The Holy Priest-Martyr Hermolaus and those with him (286-305); Holy Venerable-Martyr Parasceve
1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 14:14-22
Read 1 Corinthians 1:10-18
The human body is truly amazing. The more scientists learn about the amazing functions and purposes of the various organs the more questions they have. All those complex systems doing very different things from each other all working together to make- you! More often than not we don’t even notice what our bodies are doing until something is wrong and we feel pain. But even pain has a purpose. Our nerves tell us that something needs fixing. Now imagine that your liver decided it was fed up with cleaning your blood, or your lungs decided they were ‘done’ with processing oxygen and caused a ‘division’ in your body. We have a word for that: cancer.
St. Paul today appeals to the Christians in Corinth not to let cancer grow among them. Instead of being united in one mind and judgement, that of Christ, they were quarrelling among themselves and preferred to be associated with particular Apostles instead of with the Church. Just like how cancer disrupts the internal workings of the body, schism (σχίσμα), or the divisions between members causes the inner work of the Church to suffer. But it goes further than this. A cancerous body cannot carry out functions within the world either. In other words, internal divisions cause evangelism to suffer. People looking in from the outside at the hope we claim to possess can come away wondering why we are so divided and doubt the gospel.
This does not mean that disagreements in the Church should be ignored or whitewashed, which would only lead to other problems! But it does mean that in dealing with problems we proceed in a loving way. Firstly, keep in mind that the battle for holiness consists in living in the present moment and making decisions which affect the present moment. The battle for sanctity is at one time both harder and more practical than worrying or fighting about things which are not our responsibility and or that we cannot control. Our Lord loves us and sees our struggle. He knows what we can manage and what we should manage. Secondly, let us approach legitimate disagreements with charity. Our ‘cancel culture’ encourages us to become morally outraged and shut down dialogue, usually through a process of writing the other person off instead of engaging with what they said. It is much easier to become upset and offended by what someone says (or what we think they said) than it is to understand them. Don’t fall into these cancerous temptations but pray for the protection though accepting the cross of authentic love which leads to true Christian unity!