Monday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 389

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth.
I have come to bring not peace but the sword.
For I have come to set
a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother....

Can't we all just get along?

The plaintive cry is so appealing and sounds so reasonable. But neither the speaker, nor those who take it up as their cry for peace suppose how much it demands of everyone. 

No, we cannot get along with each other because everyone demands of everyone more than anyone can give. Supposing that we can get along assumes that you can give me what I need if only you weren't so selfish, unthinking, and unreasonable. It supposes that I have given you enough already, and more than you deserve. 

The plaintive cry supposes there is no God who answers the cry of the poor, the sadness of the lonely, or the disappointment of the ambitious. It supposes God shares no elation with the mother of a newborn child, nor the delight of the father who sees his son walk for the first time. It supposes God doesn't care in the least.

It does not remember that, the Lord's 

"heart was moved with pity at the sight of the crowds, because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd."

It dismisses the following words of Saint Matthew:

"Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest."

In today's gospel Jesus makes an unexpected, perhaps cryptic response, to our perplexity, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth." 

Hearing that we might remember the Lord's mission as a stumbling stone, 

“Behold, I am laying a stone in Zion

that will make people stumble

and a rock that will make them fall,

and whoever believes in him shall not be put to shame. (Romans 9:33; Is 28:16; 1 Pt 2:6–8)

We cannot just get along because that is never enough for us, nor does it satisfy the destiny God has given us. We want only a smooth, easy, predictable path to security, prosperity, and peace to no where.  

We must welcome the laborers sent to gather the scattered sheep to him; and we must be those same laborers.