3rd  Sunday C, 2007.
The first reading relates a happy day in the history of Israel.
The people were coming home after 70 years of deportation.
They had rebuilt the Temple and they were holding the first divine worship there for 3 generations.
They were listening to the word of God and many of them were moved to tears.
Ezra the priest was giving the sense and the people understood what was read.

Five hundred years later Jesus read the word of God in the synagogue, giving the sense and the people were moved to anger.
They could not accept a local boy suddenly knowing more than themselves.
In their anger they drove him away, they wanted to kill him.

This can happen in families and communities as well.
Some learn and develop, growing and changing
which is resented by those who stay as they are and this leads to division.
Jesus prayed for unity when he said: ‘Holy Father, keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they may be one like us.’
He also predicted that his teaching may for a while cause division in families.

We need to be tolerant of other people’s pace of development, we must give people room to grow or let them stay as they are.
Tolerance is essential to Christianity as well Christian Unity.
As we pray for the unity of all Christians we must remember that our own attitude towards people who think differently from us has a strong influence on whether we have unity or division.

So I suggest that for a couple of minutes we ask ourselves where we stand with regard to tolerating people who are different from us.