Fellow Citizens

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
Eph 2:19–22
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Fellow Citizens
            We love to be individuals, to stand out apart from the crowd, and to distinguish ourselves. We want to know who the best is, the most talented, the most athletic, and the most popular, especially when we think it is us. All this is in an attempt to be the favorite of our peers, our coworkers, or our social group. The problem is that to be recognized as the best and the most worthy, we have to divide ourselves. We must pit one against another. We must stand alone. And when we stand alone in this way, the spotlight is on us and not where it should be, the cross. We ignore the pain of separation we felt before we were brought into God’s family and mask our loneliness. This is nothing new; notions of favoritism divided the earliest Christian churches and still affect our churches today. Here, St. Paul urges all of us to remember who we were apart from Christ and to rejoice in what Christ has made us to be: His one Body. May the Lord, forgive our prejudices and teach us to see His Son in every Christian.