Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord? – from the Baptismal Covenant
Everybody has a favorite sin – an error we fall into at the drop of a hat, easy as sliding off a slippery log. Mine is thinking about how awful certain other groups of people are and getting “righteously indignant” about people they hurt.
Dividing the world into “good” and “evil” is a way of dichotomizing that gets me in trouble every single time. It leads to “resisting evil” either by fighting the bad guys or by fighting what they believe in, which generally results in me becoming what I hate.
In her Ash Wednesday sermon Bonnie talked about sin as separation – separation from ourselves, from one another, and from God. The word “diabolic” literally means “dividing” or “fragmenting”. Sin has to do with being cut off and isolated. We resist evil by examining our own hearts. We repent and return through prayer, reconciling with one another, and living into who we most deeply are.
Examining our hearts is not as easy as it might at first look appear. We harbor many desires and opinions, quite a few of which are not very well thought out and often conflict with the others. Christian community can help us ferret these out.
In community we are reminded of God’s longing for us. The dream of God is that we be true to ourselves, that we enjoy our relationships with one another, and that we live into our love affair with God. Our church can encourage us. A good sermon, an insight in our studies together or a pithy discussion can help us come home to ourselves in relationship with God and others.
The challenge of our friends can also be very helpful. Someone might say to me, “that doesn’t sound like you,” or “where did you get that idea from?” If I am open enough, I can echo that question and learn from it, exploring, “where did I get that idea from?”
If our church community is healthy – diverse enough – it will also contain people with whom we don’t get along. These good souls might push my buttons, maybe make me feel defensive or uncertain. They are my best guides to repentance and return because, unlike my friends, they do not see me in the glowing light of affection. If I can get beyond my outrage, if I can move past feeling wounded by them, I can often find priceless jewels of insight in what they have to say about and to me.
Most importantly, it is in Christian community that we experience the sacrament of our essential connectedness: Holy Communion. We bring our isolation to the table of Christ and reaffirm that we truly are One Body. This reminder of the most basic truth of our nature nourishes us from our brains to our toes.
Thank you for being my community.
