In today’s first reading, Eldad and Medad found themselves on the outside looking in. They were stuck back in the camp and did not enter the tent. This aggravated their colleagues who wanted to keep them on the outside.

But then, Moses told them all to chill.

Replay the same story several centuries later when Jesus’ apostles were criticizing some of his followers who were not part of their specific group. They weren’t part of the inner circle.

Jesus told them all to chill.

Which reminds me of the wise words my high school teacher – Xaverian Brother Paul Feeney – once said when a student asked him to make sense out of the fact that there are so many different world religions, so many different ways of pursuing divinity. The teacher gave a classic response along the lines of this: “We must respect all of these different traditions but we hold that the one, true God revealed himself through his son, to the believers who formed what we currently describe as Christianity.” That’s a classic textbook answer to the question.

Good enough, but the persistent student continued his line of questioning by pointing out that there are many flavors of Christianity, many varieties, and many different ways to practice this faith… all of them stemming from the same, one true son of God. What are we to make of that, the student wondered?

I’ll never forget how Brother Paul responded to the class next. This was not a textbook answer. He said: “If I handed every one of you a different set of sunglasses, some with gray lenses, some brown, some pink, others amber, rose, green, or orange… and asked you to look up at the sun, I could ask you what you see. Some of you would say, I can see it clearly, the sun is gray. Others would say, no it is a brown one, still others would argue that the sun is pink, amber, rose, green, or orange. The differences between the colors in the lenses do matter… but not if it makes us forget that we are all still looking up at the very same sun.”

There may well be something in our nature that wants, maybe needs, to segment, to discriminate between those who are out at the camp versus those who are inside the tent. The inner circle versus those on the outside. Perhaps this makes us feel good, or right, or safe. In any event, it seems to be a very human thing to do.

There are a lot of things that make us see the world differently from each other… that is, through different colored lenses. Our personal histories, experiences, and the opportunities and challenges we face all contribute to this reality. And these differences are often good. Good… as long as they don’t prevent us from realizing that we are all bound together in fellowship, as children of God, and members of the same family.

In terms of the matter of spreading the Good News of Christ, something you and I are called to do, I am hearing clearly from today’s readings and from the reactions of both Moses and Jesus, that we would do well to remember that, although the differences in how we see the world matters, if that ends up preventing us from remembering that we are all looking up at the same sun, then that can result in divisions between us. Damaging, hurtful divisions.

Remember that Jesus, when he was praying to his father, once said: “Let them be one, just as you and I are one.” 

We can choose to focus on the things that differentiate us… or we can choose to be bound together by the things that unite us… together… as brothers and sisters who sometimes wander, sometimes get lost, sometimes fall down… but who always seek the beauty and warmth of the same bright sun.