02-20-24

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
February 20, 2024
How easy is it to tell someone who is in a very comfortable rut or feeling trapped by addiction that it is time for a new beginning? Actually, it is very easy to tell them, but much more challenging to be heard with both compassion and seriousness. I feel as if some of Jesus’ parables were hidden tough love wrapped in what felt like a cute fable. Though not necessarily a parable, I think of Jesus using the removal of the speck from a neighbor’s eye without paying attention to the log in the eye of the one obsessed with the speck. The whole thing is sort of ridiculous on the surface. As far as I know, there have been no known cases of people having logs stuck in their eyes. People were probably chuckling at the thought, even if they sort of understood the point. Yet a lot of folks read themselves into the story as the person with the speck in the eye that everyone else with logs in their eyes seemed consumed by. But because it is a story that is both humorous and a bit quirky, you remember it. And there is the day when it sort of confronts you as you notice a symbolic log of hypocrisy protruding from your own eye. Ugh! Yet because the story did the confronting in a rather gentle and nonjudgmental way, it has the power to actually bring about change. Where a new beginning is needed, it often begins with a story that has been teasing the heart and mind for quite some time.

Use whatever means necessary, God, to bring about a recognition of my need for a new beginning… though using a gentle story is preferable. Amen.