LENT: Please forgive my mess

A week ago – on Ash Wednesday – my wife accompanied me to a late-afternoon service at our church.  (Those of you who know us personally know that she is recovering from surgery.)  Helping her out of the car at the drive-up to the entrance, I opened and placed her walker in front of her.  The plan was for her to more easily locate a couple open seats near the back of the sanctuary, while I parked the car.

Finding her, I took a seat beside her.  She said something strange…that she had asked a lady sitting on the end seat of an otherwise empty row if she would mind moving over two places.  The lady apparently replied, “You can climb over me.”  In point of fact, my wife could not.

I thought it strange that a fellow worshiper would reply to someone on a walker, asking for a small accommodation, to “step over” them.  Throughout the service, I pondered whether my wife may have misunderstood.  As the service concluded, two eye-witnesses, sitting in the far back row, approached and attested to this.  They were unhappy at the sight of a fellow church goer denying a common courtesy.  “Is this who we are…?!” they asked.

During that same service, the deacon giving a brief homily spoke of the ubiquitous scenario facing many travelers when they check into a hotel, greeted by a sign to the effect, “Please pardon our mess as we undergo reconstruction.” The deacon elaborated on this scenario, reflecting on how we tend to sigh in resignation, wishing we had made reservations elsewhere.  We tend not to have much tolerance for another’s “mess.” Because we are, ya’ know, so perfect.  “Is this who we are…?!”

I find the question deeply troubling and insightful.  Troubling, because in moments of personal crisis, we have so little patience for the “messes” of others; insightful, because this is, indeed, who we are.  We glorify material wealth, yet show distain for the homeless.  The United States ranks fifth among the top ten countries in the world with wealth disparity, as borne out by the annual Gini Index1.  Among the most technologically advanced countries, we rank third.  That’s not third greatest; that is third worst.

“Is this who we are…?!” When Jesus spoke the words, “The poor, you will always have with you…,” He wasn’t stating it rhetorically; He was acknowledging what is, for most of us, an inconvenient truth.  We live within a very ill society…it has always been thus.  The Greek pagan philosopher, Plato, was once recorded as saying, “Be kind to everyone you meet…for we are each fighting a mighty battle.”

Ask yourself these questions in the darkness of your bedroom, alone with your conscience, awash in your own thoughts:  “When was the last time I clothed the naked or fed the hungry?” “When was the last time I offered a smile and a kind word to a stranger?” “When was the last time I offered my seat to another human being obviously struggling with physical, emotional, or psychological ailment?” “When was the last time I forgave somebody’s “mess?”  Only you know…and you, dear reader, know better than anyone the truth.

“Is this who we are…?!”

Peace.  Shalom.

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1 The Gini Index quantifies how evenly income or wealth is distributed with a population.