Differences Can Be Good

June 7, 2025  John 21:20-25

“What if I want him to remain until I come? What concern is it of yours? You follow Me.”  John 21:22​

Three times in the gospels the disciples got into a heated debate about which of them would be regarded as the greatest (Luke 9:46-48, Mark 9:33-37, Luke 22:24-30). One of those times was at the Last Supper, immediately after Jesus had pointed out that one of them would betray Him (Luke 22:24-30) – an odd time for such an argument. Another time the mother of James and John interceded with Jesus to get her two sons the highest spots in the kingdom (Matthew 20:20-28). Each of these times Jesus tried to impress upon them that seeking this kind of distinction was a worldly conceit, and that they should be more focused on service. It was a hard lesson to get through. Immediately after being reconciled to Jesus after his three-fold denial, Peter thought it an excellent time to ask Jesus how he measured up against John – ever since Cain and Abel jealousy has been a hard lion to tame.

Not all divisions, however, are bad because not all divisions are born of jealousy.

For instance, in the earliest years of the Church a community of sorts gathered around John, and they had a somewhat different view of Jesus’ teaching than the others – more focused on the Holy Spirit, more attentive to what would become the sacraments of the Church. This alternative view found its way into what would become the Gospel of John. It was different from the other three which had a similar outlook to each other (it is why they are called the synoptic gospels – they “see” things the same way). But the Church decided that different was not necessarily bad, and so the Gospel of John was included in the New Testament.

There was a much bigger division over the ideas of Saul of Tarsus, who had taken on the trade name Paul after his conversion. Saul had been a persecutor of the Church, and even after he changed sides, many of the disciples didn’t trust him, particularly when he began evangelizing Gentiles. He went to Jerusalem to talk with the disciples but apparently only Peter and James would meet with him (cf. Galatians 1:18-19), and none were in favor of his mission to the Gentiles. But Paul did his evangelizing work anyway, and the results were so striking that they finally had to call a meeting in Jerusalem to decide what to do (cf. Acts 15:1-35). It was decided that Paul’s mission should go forward. Thereafter it was said in city after city, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

Around the time of the Edict of Milan (A.D. 313) which made Christianity legal throughout the Roman Empire, and the favored religion of the new Roman Emperor Constantine, there was a rush of people wanting to become members of the Church. Mostly, however, it was because they wanted to find favor with Constantine. Fearing a diminishment of the church’s vigor and purity, some heard that there was a hermit in the wilds of upper Egypt who had gone out to live a solitary life of prayer and battle with demons. They went to join him, and thus St. Anthony of the Desert became the father of Catholic monasticism. It began as a protest against worldliness in the Church, and it is a protest against worldliness to this day. When the western Roman Empire fell in A.D. 476 it was monks – largely Benedictines – who preserved the literary heritage of Greece and Rome, and created the culture of medieval Europe. There is a reason why St. Benedict of Nursia is one of the patron saints of Europe today.

Not all divisions are bad because not all divisions are born of jealousy. Some saints draw lines not because they hate, but because they love so much. They draw lines because they want people to remember and have someplace blessed to return to.

There are people in the Church drawing lines today. Before we suspect that they draw lines because they hate, perhaps we should ask what they love. It is certainly possible that we could be dealing with a new, if somewhat different, St. John, St. Paul, or St. Benedict.