How do we handle enmity in our community? How do we find union amidst division? While we work to stay in community with one another, we can learn from today’s liturgy and find a message of hopefulness toward building solidarity. 

As we meet today’s first reading, we find a condemnation of shepherds who mislead and scatter their sheep in the Jeremiah verses, followed by a depiction in the Responsorial Psalm of the peace and respite found as a sheep in the Lord’s flock. The Jeremiah scripture is filled with righteous anger – not only does the Lord chastise those who lead his sheep astray, but he promises swift punishment for their evil. In contrast, later in these verses as in the Responsorial Psalm, there is gentleness for the remnant of his flock. He promises to bring us back to our meadow, where we shall know security, where we shall “increase and multiply.”

We may find it all too easy to relate to the scattered flock – many of us live far from our closest friends or family, surrounded every day by strangers. The very infrastructures of our daily lives in our 9-5 jobs, our commutes via car, our overpriced housing options, may make connection with one another feel increasingly difficult, not to mention the substitution of in-person socializing with social media. Nor, by this point, do we imagine that this isolation is accidental or apolitical – in the visage of state oppression we see the shepherds doing evil, scattering us intentionally, keeping us from building stronger communities and a robust sense of togetherness by overworking and exploiting us in our 9-5 jobs, by creating transit infrastructures that isolate both the car commuters and the over-policed residents of the neighborhoods in the shadow of the highway overpasses alike. We are led astray and scattered by force-fed ‘culture war’ narratives, when in reality it is a class war waged upon us – and we are turned against so-called ‘ignorant’ rural working class Americans with whom we have far more in common than even the most allegedly ‘progressive’ political candidates and ‘queer-friendly’ celebrity billionaires. 

The latter verses in this Jeremiah passage as well as the Responsorial Psalm offer us some hope, however. These verses assure us that we will be gathered together again and we shall know peace. Admittedly, this can be difficult to imagine at times, but it does make me reflect on when I do feel union with others. When do we feel a tangible sense of peace and solidarity that keeps the grimness of alienation at bay – and how do we work to make this less of a rarity? 

We may find some guidance in the second reading. In these verses in Ephesians, Paul addresses the church in Ephesus, reminding them that they have been brought together by their faith in Christ who brings them peace by bringing down “the dividing wall of enmity,” by “abolishing the law with its commandments and legal chains.” 

I read this passage, and while I feel all too familiar with the “dividing wall of enmity” described, I linger on the images of the peace the people of Ephesus feel through faith. Faith, truth, and mutual recognition of what binds us is what keeps us steadfast in one another. I desire so deeply to feel a sureness among my neighbors, to know that we have each other’s backs, to know that we can and will care for one another and stand firm together even when enmity is sown among us.  

The latter verses in John say “My sheep hear my voice… I know them, and they follow me.” Let us take this admonishment to listen to truth, to our shared truths, to hear one another’s stories and see our own stories in those of our neighbors. To truly listen is to be curious, and to be curious is to be open to transformation. It is through connection with one another that we can know transformation and change, and once we are changed by one another we become inextricably bound in solidarity. So let us hear this liturgy and have openness to receiving it. 

Reflections on love and solidarity by James Baldwin

“We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.” – James Baldwin

“The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love – whether we call it friendship or family or romance – is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for one another.” – James Baldwin

When I read the news several months ago about these dockworkers’ refusal to handle military cargo bound for Israel, I was moved to tears. I didn’t even know at the time that the union has a longstanding history of supporting Palestinian liberation, as well as standing in solidarity with the people in South Africa who also fought against apartheid in the 1980s. 

Soldiers, programmers, and engineers, along with so many of us, have long-relied on the excuse that they are ‘just doing their jobs’ while being actors in carrying out a genocide. Many of us may feel helpless or like there is nothing we can do when our jobs entail perpetuating marginalization, gentrification, or violence, but the proud action and willful inaction of Local 10 embodies a different narrative: ‘just doing your job’ can be dictated by our terms. We are not helpless, we are not weak, and the lives we lead every day can be a testament to the truths we carry in our hearts, and they can strengthen the bonds we have with one another in our neighborhoods and beyond – from Turtle Island to Gaza, from every river to every sea.