Homily

It has been almost 15 years since my cholecystectomy, when a surgeon, almost against my will, removed my gall bladder. And yet, despite what many feared, against great odds and bordering on the edge of the semi-miraculous, I am still alive. :-) Yes, the surgeon cut into me, not once, but with four(!) separate incisions. The largest cut was this big—no, it was this big—a gaping hole, held together by a few simple stitches, and I knew that for the next several days, I would have to walk very carefully so that something else did not fall out.

When I woke up after the operation, I looked at this largest incision, and it was black and blue and stitched together over a field of antiseptic yellow stain, with a little bit of blood that had leaked out, and I have to tell you that the sight made me feel a little queasy. During the next several days, I tried to look at it as little as possible, not only because it physically looked ugly, but it also reminded me that I could never again be the man I used to be. :-) But mostly because it was an ugly wound. Hated looking at it.

And the same can be true of the wounds caused by our sins. We hate looking at them because they are ugly, and they remind us that we're not the persons we ought to be. We are not whole and completely healthy.

There is another aspect to post-surgery wounds. After several days, you get more used to seeing this cut, and before you know it, you are posting pictures of your scars on your Facebook. You get used to it. You accept it. It becomes a wound that is part of your life, and as time goes on, you pay it less and less attention. Now, it becomes a part of the "normal” you, the everyday who-you-are. And the same thing can be true with some of our sins. They may have looked fairly ugly to us at some point in the past, but we can find that using very little effort, we can get used to them, and especially those faults that have wounded us in regular and frequent ways. We learn to adapt ourselves to their presence in our lives, and like scars from surgery, after a while, we barely notice they are there. While we can quickly recognize the wounds and scars that mark other people because of their sins, and while we are generally very sensitive to the wounds we receive from the sins of other people, we can become remarkably comfortable with the sins that we have become used to committing. If I robbed a "7-11,” I'd feel very guilty, but if I lie to get out of trouble, that's not so bad. I would never curse in public, but if I allow myself to be jealous of other people, that's not so bad. I would never hit my spouse, but hanging on to grudges for past hurts—that's not so bad. Everybody does that.

Just a reminder: it's in our hands. It's really in our own hands. Other people can point out our sins—they have and they will—but they cannot change us. It's in our hands, and with our repentance, along with Christ's forgiveness and grace, we can work for genuine change in our lives. Lent is a great opportunity for change. Just like a fresh wound, we may not like looking at our faults because they are not attractive. In fact, they're nasty and ugly. But with repentance and grace, they can be healed. We can be healed. Christ is our true physician.

It may also be that we have accepted certain sins as just a normal part of our daily lives, and we've become so used to them that we barely even notice they are there. And then we settle, as we walk through this life, with just getting by rather than reaching out for the divine life we were meant to receive at baptism.

Now it’s also true there are some sins we struggle against and sometimes it seems we will never overcome them. Don’t despair. That struggle can be the source of much grace even if we don’t think we are winning. Even then, trust in the Lord.

And, on a different point, because our lives are filled with so many routines and habits it can be difficult to see how we can live better than we are right now. Lent is a great season for reassessment and making changes. By changing our diet, by putting in more prayer, and even by coming to some extra services at church, these things can help us see better where we ought to be going and how it is that we will get there.

It's in our hands to examine our failings and choose to do better. It's in our hands to improve the course of life. And if we hold those hands up in prayer, fasting, and repentance, it is Christ our Lord who will grant us what we need to be made whole and healthy.