1 Cor 11:17-26, 33 / Lk 7:1-10
Scholars tell us that from the beginning of recorded history, only a handful of years were marked by worldwide peace. Peace has played only a bit-part on the stage of history, and yet peace is what every human heart longs for. As St. Paul reminds us today, even the early Christian communities had to struggle mightily to find it and then sustain it.
Wherever two or more people are gathered, eventual conflict is inevitable. You prefer red, he prefers blue. You like it lean, she likes fat. I like it cool, they like it warm. Who will prevail? Who will get their way? The issue becomes all the more pointed when the questions at hand are more than mere matters of taste. How does one divide a matter of principle democratically down the middle?
That brings us to the very crux of one of the greatest challenges of living as Christians: Learning how to manage disagreements on matters about which there are deep feelings, without letting those feelings turn to hatred and warlike plotting.
This is no easy accomplishment, and it can come about only if we learn to look at one another through God’s eyes, and to say to ourselves, “This is a brother or a sister, beloved of God, and with the same deep longings as my own for love, peace, and harmony. I have no choice. I simply must find a way of living with him and building peace with her.”
And that’s our vocation: To become makers and builders of peace. To do that is to become like God himself.
