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A Note from Pastor Leslie
With the signs up all over town, I think it’s time to admit that it is election season, and this one isn’t likely to let up until after the big election in the fall. But with that particular season comes a little confession time. I love it when I find something online that artfully, or wittily, or forcefully, or snarkily reinforces what I believe. I find great joy when a news article (or a “news” article) perfectly articulates the scattered thoughts in my head. I smugly appreciate running across what I am sure is the smoking gun to prove me “right” (and, of course, someone else “wrong”). I feel fairly confident confessing this as I feel fairly confident I am not the only one for whom this is accurate. In fact, if my social media is any indication, more people than not might find their own place in my little camp. We like to not feel alone. We like to find our opinions justified. We like to win arguments, even if they only occur in our minds. We like to think we are right.
In the church, though, it is not enough to admit it when we come face-to-face with our sins. In Old Testament Hebrew, repentance shows up as two different words: nacham, which means “to feel sorrow” and shuv, which means “to turn around”. I think we often get the first part of repentance right. We feel sorry for what we have done. We confess. We promise to try better next time. But, according to our faith, that is not enough. Repentance requires action. It requires turning. Turning a complete 180 degrees so we are facing in the opposite direction from where we started.
In the fourth chapter of his letter to the church at Ephesus, Paul writes:
14 We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. 15 But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
And so, my friends, holding Paul’s words close by, I am committing to feel sorrow for times I have gloated (even just in my head) over an argument supported and turning around, speaking the truth in love, not simply to make that truth a little easier to hear, but holding that truth to a litmus test of whether it “promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.” And I invite you to join me. What a difference we could make!
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