It is so easy- so easy to see the sins of the other guy, and yet be blind to our own weaknesses. We see other people gossiping; other people cheating; and other people misbehaving. But we gloss over our gossiping or cheating or acting up; and worse yet, we quickly and conveniently forget what we have done.<\/p>\n
In fact all those habits and patterns of life that we settle into can sometimes be so obviously imperfect to another person, and yet, we become blind to them. We learn to live with them- even grow into them. For example, all of us know that we should eat the proper foods to be healthy and keep our proper weight. And yet which of us is above commenting that so and so is fat; or so and so is skinny, as we consume our third donut over Sunday coffee and donuts. We should take a good hard look at ourselves, not others.<\/p>\n
Why do we dwell on other people\u2019s faults? Is it because it makes us feel better about ourselves? Is it because it distracts attention away from our own faults? And yet, it is a good image of ourselves that we all need. Paul hits the nail on the head this morning when he says: \u201cAll of us will need to give an accounting of our own behavior before God when we meet him\u201d. We won\u2019t have an opportunity to say: \u201cWell what about John, isn\u2019t he a lot worse\u201d; No, the attention will be on your own sins.<\/p>\n
You know, today\u2019s Gospel makes an important point about all this- that there is more rejoicing in heaven about a repentant sinner than about a righteous person. It is not so much that God and his angels and saints won\u2019t rejoice over a truly righteous person; but more that \u201crighteous\u201d is in the eye of the beholder. You and I, the average beholders, do a pretty good job at recognizing sinners; and maybe not so good a job in detecting the righteous. How so? Well, a repentant sinner in today\u2019s society can be persecuted beyond belief.<\/p>\n
Let me give some examples: \u201cHe was an alcoholic\u201d; \u201cShe had an affair\u201d; \u201cHe lied on his application\u201d. And yet, such a person may have repented of his sins and may be in much better standing with God than those who cast judgment.<\/p>\n
Paul says \u201cWhether we are alive or dead, we must live our lives for the Lord if we are to enter the Kingdom of God.\u201d And that task is worthy of 100% of our time. We really don\u2019t have the time for being our neighbor\u2019s conscience. We need all the time we can get to make things right with God, because we are all sinners.<\/p>\n
Soon, we will enter the season of Advent to prepare for the coming of Christ. That includes the coming of the Christ Child, yes- but it also includes the second coming of Christ. That could be any time for any of us. So, let\u2019s get real about our own sinfulness. Turn and look at yourself in the mirror. What is it that you are hiding? What is it that you are missing about yourself? What is it that you are kidding yourself about? Because when you stand before God, what will you say about all of that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thursday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time Rom 14: 7-12; Lk 15: 1-10 Dc. Larry Brockman It is so easy- so easy to see the sins of the other guy, and yet be blind to our own weaknesses. We see other people gossiping; other people cheating; and other people misbehaving. But we gloss over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[378],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":794,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions\/794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}