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A couple of years ago, Jim Wallis, the founder and leader of "Sojourners," wrote a valuable editorial for "Huffington Post," which can be found HERE. One of the things Jim said strikes me as particularly appropriate for these last few days of Lent:
I am reminded of how difficult confession, humility, and repentance are in our culture. Humility is something Americans are not particularly good at. Neither are we strong in the areas of self-examination, deep reflection, and repenting for things we have done wrong and then no longer doing them. We tend to believe if people are poor, there really must be something more wrong with them than with those of us who are not. Many white people suspect that if black young men are having trouble with police, it must be because of the things that they are doing more than any problems with the systems we perpetuate.
Jim is right, though, without the honesty of deep self-examination, few of us will have the courage and insight to own what is lurking deep in our souls. Lent may be the only hope we have to save our world and save our souls from the pervasive and toxic attitudes of privilege and entitlement. I’m intensely aware of the need for and the opportunity to do some serious and intense internal work. I fear for what humankind will become if we fail to do that work. I fear for what I will become if I don’t.
We are all a part of the brokenness of the world. Our job is to work every day to also be part of its healing. Lent is an invitation to go willingly into that wilderness of introspection, examination, honesty, confession, and repentance. Only then can we know the redemption and resurrection that already is ours.
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