{"id":3277,"date":"2024-09-29T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-29T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/?p=3277"},"modified":"2024-09-28T18:12:57","modified_gmt":"2024-09-28T18:12:57","slug":"expanding-the-boundaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/2024\/09\/29\/expanding-the-boundaries\/uncategorized\/3277\/","title":{"rendered":"Expanding the boundaries."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Artur Kornakov<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We are communal beings, despite the individualistic tone of our society we flourish in relationship and in community. Although it has an intensely intimate aspect our faith is a communal one. As St Benedict reminds us we travel to Christ and eternal life \u201caltogether\u201d, not alone.

All this is profoundly life giving, but today\u2019s gospel points out that it also has a downside that we need to be aware of. When it stops being all inclusive community can descend into tribalism. If shifts from being a space where all are welcome, and there is only \u201cus\u201d to being a separatist space divided into \u201cus and them\u201d.

In today\u2019s gospel, the disciples fall into this tribal trap. Shocked by seeing an outsider casting out demons in Jesus\u2019 name they try to stop him, and then complain to Jesus. His response is unexpected. Instead of anger he replies:

\u201cYou must not stop him: no one who works a miracle in my name is likely to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us.\u201d<\/em>

Unlike his disciples Jesus is able to be open and inclusive, trusting the good intentions of the man\u2019s intentions. He is able to see a bigger picture than the disciples, and reaches out, not to criticise the man, but to enlarge the disciples understanding of community and belonging.

In our challenging times when tribalism is on the increase we too are challenged by Jesus to expand our ideal of community until there is no \u201cthem and us\u201d, but just an all inclusive us, journeying together towards the God of love.

What boundaries is Christ challenging you to expand today?
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We are communal beings, despite the individualistic tone of our society we flourish in relationship and in community. Although it has an intensely intimate aspect our faith is a communal one. As St Benedict reminds us we travel to Christ and eternal life \u201caltogether\u201d, not alone. All this is profoundly life giving, but today\u2019s gospel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,494,544,239,271,537,246,1],"tags":[380,28,701,18,53,223,124,376,448,6,8,33,229,13,29,15,10,26],"class_list":["post-3277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-benedictine-spirituality","category-christ","category-discernment","category-gospel","category-lectio-divina","category-liturgy","category-scripture","category-uncategorized","tag-belonging","tag-benedictine","tag-boundaries","tag-challenge","tag-christ","tag-christlike","tag-community","tag-disciples","tag-discipleship","tag-gospel","tag-hope","tag-kingdom","tag-kingdomvalues","tag-lectiodivina","tag-love","tag-newlife","tag-trust","tag-welcome"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3277"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3283,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3277\/revisions\/3283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}