Every day of Lent, Bishop Edward Malesic writes a Scripture reflection for the faithful. Follow the bishop on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Click HERE for the readings.
A friend of mine, who is a Christian believer, once engaged in a conversation with a man sitting next to her eating at a bar. They began to speak about the difficulties of the world and the many problems we face. Then the man said to her, “You know the real cause of the problems in our world? Christianity!” Of course, my friend was stunned.
There are many people who dislike us, even hate us, simply because we believe in Jesus, and we work to bring about the Kingdom that he proclaimed. I don’t always blame them. A few individual baptized Christians have done some awful things in the name of Christ, including some priests and bishops. No doubt about it. Yet, our collective Church has done much more good than harm. We have built hospitals, orphanages, shelters, hunger centers, schools and universities, parishes that are centers of worship, service, and education, etc. We have brought spiritual healing and physical comfort to millions, even billions of people for twenty centuries. With Jesus we could say to the man at the bar, “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of these are you trying to stone me?”
But the man’s statement to my friend does make us pause and look inwardly to ourselves. Are we good examples of Christian belief?
As we come nearer to the end of Lent, have we allowed Jesus to work his good in us – have we helped the poor, defended life from conception to death, taken the side of the downtrodden and the lonely, worked against racism and other forms of injustice, and prayed – really prayed – to know God’s will in our complex world and then prayed – really prayed – to have the courage to say and do what is right and holy?