8th Sunday OT - Filling In For Father… by Erin O’Leary
Today is the last Sunday before Lent begins. We get a good reminder from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians about the fact that God has given us victory over the death of sin through the gift of Jesus.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives us a sterner message. He calls us to stop thinking about the faults of others until we have resolved our own. He reminds us good people have a store of goodness in their hearts to share which will show in their actions and words. Just as in last week’s Gospel, Jesus is recognizing that we humans have “wooden beams” of sin we need to remove. This sounds like a big task.
If we go back closer to the beginning of today’s Gospel, we get a hopeful reminder: “…but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher.” We are Jesus’ disciples and we can be like him. We can have an abundant store of goodness in our hearts and treat others as he would- with love, mercy, patience and kindness. All we need to do is to be fully trained by Christ.
Lent is a time of reflection and “training” for us as disciples of Jesus. It is our chance to look for and remove our “planks” and change our hearts to store up goodness. It is a chance to reflect on the fact that the victory of Christ over sin and death came with sacrifice, reflection and suffering first.
We might say this week’s Gospel asks us to have some radical integrity and to look into our own eyes and hearts for what we need to change. As humans, we know it is easy to notice what someone else is doing wrong or needs to change. It takes courage and effort to be honest about what we ourselves need to do to be better disciples and more like our teacher, Jesus.
What kind of “training” will you take up this Lent? Will you take time for personal prayer and spiritual reading? Work to give extra time and patience to family or friends? End a negative habit? Or try to make sure that your words and actions come from that store of goodness in your heart as you work to be like Jesus, our loving teacher?