Today Paul tries to heal the factionalism in the community of Corinth over allegiances - members of the community forming groups according to who brought them into the Church. The people of Corinth were acting on our typical cultural cues - align according to leaders and keep your cash secret!

In the Gospel today, the people again do the same thing - act on their cultural cues. Jesus is healing people; of course, the people of the town do not want Jesus to leave. They want to honour the healer and keep Him available for others in THEIR village.

But Jesus is called for the many and not exclusively for this one group, and He tells them He must move on. He does not simply join one synagogue, the custom of the day, but is called to visit them all - to spread the Gospel to all.

The Church reminds us that it embraces all cultures - indeed, there is much in a culture that is holy and good and expressive of God. On the other hand, we are also reminded that our faith stands for sin judgement and challenge over all cultures also - that, like ourselves, culture, which is a human product, can also be sinful.