No room for jealousy

With our fallen human nature, we fall victim to the evil tendency of trying to control the Spirit of God by our intolerance.  Our own arrogance insists that another is not qualified to speak on justice or morality because of his/her lower educational qualifications, low-grade lifestyle, humble social background or race.  As a society, we also tend to question people’s legitimacy – especially when they challenge us.  Mohandas Gandhi, a Hindu leader in India, challenged the colonial rule of the British Empire over India with his principles of peace and non-violence.  But the intolerant British Empire, initially dismissing him as a “silly, half-naked fakir,” tried to silence him by imprisonment.  But later they found, to their horror, that the entire nation was behind him in its fight for freedom from colonial rule.  Nelson Mandela was ignored by the minority ruling class and was jailed for many for years as a radical because of his option for the poor and the oppressed in South Africa.  Dorothy Day was imprisoned in the U. S.  for her beliefs and was accused of being a Communist.  Martin Luther King Jr. challenged a nation and its policy of discrimination.  He was continually under surveillance by the FBI and was accused of inciting sedition and of being unpatriotic.  There are Christians who still look on believers belonging to non-Christian religions and on members of Christian denominations different from their own as heretics and semi-pagans.  In today’s gospel, Jesus gives his disciples a lesson in Christian tolerance along with a warning against jealousy and scandal.