THURSDAY, May 7

Obsessing about the speck in our neighbor's eye seems to be the sin of choice among Episcopalians and Anglicans these days. The questions of authority and morality on which we disagree are important and often perplexing, and someday we will stop bashing each other over them. But for now (and I write this over a year before publication, so possibly things will have changed by the time these words are read, though I doubt it) the bashing continues.

On the one side are the "ignorant, simplistic, homophobic, fundamentalist, rigid biblical literalists," and on the other are the "revisionist, heretical, radical, relativist, biblically illiterate secular humanists." Whew. It's exhausting just to list the names we call each other.

What if all the accusations are right? What if we are all unfaithful, arrogant, and self-righteous, each in our own way? Then it would seem we should not waste our energy fretting about other people's sins, but focus on the logs in our own eyes that keep us from seeing the face of Jesus in the person on the other side of the theological chasm.

PRAY for the Diocese of West Buganda (Uganda)

Ps 50 * [59, 60] or 114, 115; Wisdom 5:9-23; Colossians 2:8-23

View the daily Lectionary Readings at Satucket.com.
Or view the Bible passages at Biblegateway.com.