Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
These are days of living on edge. The smallest thing can set people off! It is not merely about our inability to have civilized conversations about politics and religion. There are deep and conflicting differences running right through our nation and Church. We are one nation and one church with two irreconcilably differing ideologies and visions. The Church particularly, has never been closer to a schism in recent times.
As if God was deeply disturbed about the situation, Catholics across the globe are hearing the same passage from Paul’s letter to the Philippians only within a space of two weeks. “If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing” (Phil 21-2). Prior to today, this passage was addressed to the Church on September 14, on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.
“If there is…” Paul uses the conditional “if” not because Paul doubts that the Philippians lacked in encouragement, solace, love, participation, compassion, and mercy. The conditional “if” did not mean that Paul regretted that the Philippians were not of “the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, and thinking one thing.” Rather, precisely because the Philippians do experience these things, and because they live in unity that Paul pushed them toward perfection. “Fulfill my Joy,” he says, “by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing” (Phil 2:2).
However, Paul was not merely making a passionate appeal to preserve the unity. He was also giving them practical ways to accomplish it. Believers can keep the unity if they do nothing out of selfishness or vainglory; if they humbly regard others as more important than themselves; and, if each looks out not for his own interests, but also for those of others” (Phil 2:3-4).
Paul goes one step further. Not only does he make a call for perfect unity and give them practical ways to accomplish it, but also sets up a model whom they must imitate. This model is none other than Jesus Christ. The key to Christian unity is to the “have the same attitude that is in Jesus Christ” (Phil 2:5). The rest of this ancient Christian hymn extols Christs humility, his obedience, and his willingness to be radically available to God for the sake of human redemption.
Whether the Church will return to unity from the brink of schism and whether our nation will be healed of its racial, economic, political, and social divide is yet to be seen. One thing is clear – that if healing must take place and if unity must return, we must necessarily and uncompromisingly have “the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5) Christ Jesus is the answer to our malaise.
Are we game?
- Fr. Satish Joseph