A Catholic priest, an Episcopalian priest, a Lutheran minister, and a Baptist minister went on a hunting trip together. One night at the hunting cabin, they decided to confess their worst sins to each other. The Catholic priest said, “My sin is alcohol. One time a month I binge drink.” The Episcopalian priest said, “My sin is greed. I only put a nickel in the collection basket.” The Lutheran minister said, “My sin is gluttony. Once in a while, I get in my car and go to a faraway town and go through the drive-up window and order four half-pounders and a bucket of fries.” And the Baptist minister said, “My sin is gossip, and I can’t wait to get back from this trip.”
Just like the four clerics in the story, we all have sins and faults that are our Achilles heals. Try as we may to avoid thinking about our sins and faults by keeping extremely busy or by finding all sorts of things to distract us, they are always there. It is impossible to runaway from them. These personal sins and faults are attached to us like our shadows, so much so, that many spiritual writers refer to the dark side of sin in human life they call it our shadow self. As faithful disciples of Jesus, we are called to be self-aware of our shadow self, knowing full well that every day we are in need of conversion. This is why we begin Mass acknowledging our brokenness and our need for healing before God and one another.
The scriptural readings today remind us that we do not live in isolation. We live in community with others. Our relationship with others is vitally important for our spiritual and emotional health. We may like to think that the affect of our personal sins and faults only affect us adversely. The reality is that our personal sins and faults have a ripple effect that impacts the lives of all with whom we are in relationship. Because of this God requires us to personally be accountable for them. We are held accountable to our family and neighbors. We are held accountable to our Church and our civic communities. And, ultimately, we are held accountable to God.
As we hear in all three readings, God’s expectation for us is to live lives of accountability. In the reading from the prophet Ezekial and the Gospel, we are told that if necessary, we are called by God to intervene with another person if that person’s sins and faults are destroying not only the person, but the lives of the people with whom the person is in relationship. Ezekial goes so far as to say that if we remain silent and do not confront the person who is self-destructing, we will be held accountable by God for that person’s demise. There will be times in our lives, when we must confront another person about his or her sins and faults. There will be times in our lives when we will be on the receiving end when others confront us about our sins and faults.
The accountability God requires of us is not based in vindictiveness or revenge, it is based on the law of Divine love. If we truly love one another, and want the best for those we love, we will confront them about those things in their lives that are destructive. Conversely, if they truly love us, they will confront us about that which is destructive in our own lives. As St. Paul writes to us today, “The commandments, ‘you shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,’ and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this saying, namely, ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Loves does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.’”
Perhaps the best process in which conversion is lived out is in the 12 steps used by Alcoholics Anonymous, Alanon and many other 12 step groups. These 12 steps are: 1) We admit we are powerless over whatever behavior or sin we have and that our lives have become unmanageable. 2) We come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. 3) We make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God. 4) We make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5) We admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6) We are entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7) We humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings. 8) We make a list of all persons we have harmed, and become willing to make amends to all of them. 9) We make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10) We continue to take a personal inventory and when we are wrong promptly admit it. 11) We seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understand God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out. 12) Having received a spiritual awakening as the result of these 12 steps, we try to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Like the Catholic priest, the Episcopalian priest, the Lutheran minister, and the Baptist minister in the opening story, we all have sins and faults, something or perhaps many things in our lives that may be destructive not only to ourselves but to others as well. In humbly acknowledging these faults to ourselves, to our neighbors, to our community, and to God, we will find mercy, healing, wholeness and love.
