A resource for divided communities (Friday After Second Sunday After Trinity, 2 Mamuel 2,1-3,1; 1 John 1,1-2,6)

A resource for divided communities (Friday After Second Sunday After Trinity, 2 Mamuel 2,1-3,1; 1 John 1,1-2,6)
 
The pair of today’s readings is a powerful resource for communities torn by division. They hold a truth-telling mirror to us. In it, we can exactly see, what a serious crisis it is when the distance between mistrust and violence gets dangerously thin. The bitter ‘civil war’ between the house of Saul and the house of David, with its endless victims, must sadden us, when we read it. They recognise where they are, temporarily reconcile, then violence blows them away again. ‘How long shall it be then, ere thou bid the people return from following their brethren? And Joab said, as God liveth, unless tho hadst spoke, surely then in the morning the people had gone up every one from following his brother. So Joab blew the trumpet, and all the people stood still, and pursued after Israel no more.’ It is, however, only a temporary relief. We can see our divisions in this very sad mirror: ‘Now there was long war between the house of Saul and the house of David: but David waxed stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker.’
 
Reading John’s letter gives a permanent relief: we can sense the healing power of medicine stemming from our entering Triune life. It is a healing contrast. Let us contemplate the strength of the fellowship created by Divine Life. ‘We have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.’ The radiance of this medicine immediately separates what is darkened of our hearts, the cause of a community’s inner divisions. ‘God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.’
 
The circling violence in the human heart cannot be stopped by rational reasoning. This is only the power of the Eucharist, the blood of Jesus Christ, which can put a stop to deadly talks and deeds.
 
I just wonder, how the news of our digital age that invade our life, alter our moral profile. Projected onto our faces, into our very eyes, day and night, can the clinical level of mistrust of the powerful politicians (mouthpieces of the violent and oppressive superego of culture) make us captive? Outside the Eucharist, there is no escape from this permanent soul-poisoning. It is almost like living and working in a division-factory.
 
‘My little children, these things I write onto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sense of he whole world.’ It is high time, Christians, to realise what a powerful ability to heal our world we have!
 
15.06.2018