Our Lenten Struggle

Every Sunday morning brings a host of things to hold in tension.  This Sunday was no different.  The Bishop was in town, confirmands were to be presented, a chili cookoff awaited judgment, and a vestry meeting stood on the calendar.  What I had not expected was to be told that a resident of Moore County, armed with a gun and a can of gasoline, had been shot and killed at the President’s personal residence in Mar-a-Lago. 

Less than forty hours earlier, I had found myself in a packed auditorium listening to a conversation between The Country Bookshop’s Kimberly Taws and Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential biographer Jon Meacham.  At the heart of their discussion was the urgent need for political civility in an increasingly tumultuous climate. 

Sunday’s event at Mar-a-Lago reminds us that this climate is all too real.  It is not some distant Washington narrative.  It is not confined to large cities, distant borders, or foreign lands.  It is our land.  It is here.  It is our neighbors.

Before we lay blame at the feet of those who attempt acts of political violence, before we scold leaders for damaging rhetoric, before we point fingers at news outlets, social media, or even your overly zealous friend, we owe it to our God, made manifest in Jesus, to admit the ways we ourselves have been complicit in fanning the flames of hatred.

Jesus repeatedly told his followers to love their enemies.  In the presence of a woman accused of adultery, he famously looked upon a vindictive crowd and invited, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”  If we are bold enough to call ourselves Christians, we must acknowledge that the first act of our discipleship is to drop our stones.  They are heavy. Their weight exhausts us. They weaken our spiritual muscles and keep us from moving forward to do the real work God has given us. 

Meacham’s new book, American Struggle: Democracy, Dissent, and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union, dives into our nation’s history.  Through a collection of speeches and writings, he reminds us that our country’s exceptionalism is found not in hiding from the darker chapters of our past, but in bringing our failures into the light: acknowledging our faults, healing our wounds, and renewing our commitment to the conviction that “all men are created equal.”

The season of Lent has long been described as “a time when those who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the church” (Book of Common Prayer, p. 265).  I would argue America’s notorious sin is alive and well in our hatred of “the other.”  It separates us. It diminishes us.  Its weight breaks us. 

Yet this is the season. 

Now is the time to be reconciled.
To confess our sins to God and one another.
To seek forgiveness and restoration. 
Now is the time to return to the fellowship.