From the Rector…
Sin is a lot easier to get into than it is to get out of.
Last week as we were winding up our vacation in Vegas and checking out of our hotel, Steve got an email saying that our flight had been delayed for more than four hours. We quickly realized that would cause us to miss our connecting flight home. As we were already headed to the airport, we went the counter to talk with the gate agent.
We really weren’t that upset, after all it was 6:30am and this meant that we were going to get another day in Vegas. The gate agent, however, was not in a particularly congenial mood. After telling us he had just gotten to work and didn’t know anything about any delayed flights, we pulled up our tickets on our phone and showed him the delay. He became more helpful but not less grumpy. He did confirm that we would miss our connecting flight and the earliest we could get out of Dallas was 9am the next morning. I asked if there was a red eye headed to Dallas that night as I did not relish the idea of spending the night in Dallas. He did not offer much in the way of hope—telling us that most of the flights were full and that there were only two flights to Montgomery from Dallas the next day. Even after his dour predictions, he found us a flight and we were all set to fly out at midnight and get home by noon the next day. We headed back to the hotel—a full day with no agenda ahead.
As easy as it had been to get to Sin City, it seemed that we were a little more than challenged to get out. I think there is something to that notion of ease in getting caught up in a sinful life and the challenges and struggles it takes to release sin’s hold on us and find reconciliation and redemption. I don’t think most people wake up in the morning and make an intentional plan to do something sinful. Instead, I think we get a little lost or distracted in life and discover that at some point we have gone off the rails and need to find our way back. That can often be a challenging journey as we have to wrestle with some hard truths about ourselves and our motivations. We may even have to do some penitential work—asking forgiveness of others or taking some action in which to achieve a sense of absolution. Rarely is it enough for us to simply say, I have sinned or I am a sinner and feel some sense of immediate redemption—there is work involved and our willingness to do that work is part of our journey to salvation.
Though the work is rarely easy, there is often a sense of fulfillment or a weight that is lifted from our shoulders when we our able to confess our sins and enter into the penitent life. Confession alone becomes a way of release from the prison of our shame and guilty. Couple that with our willingness to engage the penitent life and you have an opportunity to know true repentance and joy. The trouble is that few of us are willing to admit our wrongs and even less of us are willing to embrace those we have harmed from a place of humility. We are slow to apologize to others because our pride gets in our way. What we don’t realize is that the rifts that divide us in our relationships with one another become the rifts that divide us from our relationship with God.
When we are divided from one another, we are divided from God. Sadly, division has become an easy trap to fall into in the modern world. Connecting is much more challenging and takes a lot more work. But in the end, even if we have to take the red eye, we can get there. We can find redemption in our relationships. We can come back home to God.
Steve and I, after a slow start, really enjoyed our bonus day in Vegas and finally made it home. It was a fantastic trip and a great celebration of our thirtieth anniversary. And even though we had a tremendous amount of fun, I’m not sure I will be headed back to Sin City any time soon—it was way too challenging to get back.
Light and Life,
Candice+