Owning It

The politician who points out the supposed failing of an opponent while ignoring his own faults is all too familiar.  Activists point to outsiders for the woes suffered by their community but rarely look to their own shortcomings.  The child says it was the fault of somebody else.  There's a reason that the Parson Weems tale of a young George Washington remains popular: the idea of someone taking responsibility for this wrongdoing is refreshing and all too rare.

Jesus knew about this.  The Authorized Version of  Matthew 7.5 has him saying, "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye."  (There are probably more accurate, or at least timely, translations but frankly to me the KJV sounds better).  The beam is a log, the mote a speck of dust.  Two thousand years on Jesus' admonition is still spot on.  Lent is a great time for us to heed him, to acknowledge the motes in our own eyes, and to then remove them.

One of the reason organized religion, and especially Christianity, is in such ill repute is because we're busy pointing out someone else's faults.  One way we can redeem the reputation of our faith is to repent for our own sins and let God worry about those committed by other people.  We need to own our sins and then address them.  We surely have enough of them.