Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent

Lectionary: 231

Come now, let us set things right,
says the LORD:
Though your sins be like scarlet,
they may become white as snow;
Though they be crimson red,
they may become white as wool.
If you are willing, and obey,
you shall eat the good things of the land;
But if you refuse and resist,
the sword shall consume you:
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken!

In today’s gospel Jesus describes a church with an inverted hierarchy; that is, a church whose leaders act as servants to its members. This sounds practical and doable. Given a reasonably good start, successive generations of bishops and priests should be able to find and select candidates who are eager to serve. The membership should expect and demand that kind of leadership, weeding out those who don’t fit.

Hard experience has shown the actual practice requires more than a good start and due diligence. We also need large dollops of the Holy Spirit. Just as the Vow of Poverty has sometimes generated fabulously wealthy monasteries and friaries, a church of servant leaders may be crippled by avarice.  

Democracies deal with this problem by developing parties who criticize one another. They continually suspect their opponents' motives and detect hidden agendas in their opponents’ plans. Historically the Church encouraged vowed communities to act as critics within the leadership, pitting religious against diocesan clergy, and vice versa. Pope Innocent II saw that potential in Saint Francis’ community of “little brothers.” The system managed imperfectly until the Reformation when the rise of nationalism spawned widespread rebellion against Rome. Unfortunately the new generation of Protestant churches and sects proved to be just as fallible as the traditional Church.

Today it is easy for the Christian to surround herself with people like herself. We have created homogenized suburbs of look-alike, think-alike, vote-alike agreeable people – who don’t know their own neighbors. Religious differences are compromised by a conspiracy of silence. We select news media that agree with our views from the thousands of radio, cable and Internet options. We can even avoid conflict by marrying someone of the same sex! In such an environment who will tell you your faults?  Certainly not the political and spiritual leaders we elect and support. 

Even the time honored examination of conscience too much resembles the fox guarding the hen house. 

History, if it demonstrates anything, shows we can devise no foolproof system of checks and balances, loyal opposition, or self-critiquing leadership. Sin runs far deeper than any system we can devise. It is, to borrow an expression from Alcoholics Anonymous, “cunning, baffling and powerful.”

Individually we must continually seek God’s guidance, be suspicious of our own motives and receptive to the criticism and opposition of others. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults.”

Lent is a good time to ponder this cul-de-sac.  Where do we go from here? Who will point out our sins and help us turn back to God?

Come now, let us set things right, says the LORD: Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; Though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool.