Our pastor took a fairly gentle tack on this challenging gospel reading yesterday, suggesting we might look for things in our life that interfere with having a deeper relationship with God. It was a good approach, as far as it went. Where he stopped short, in my view, is in how drastic we should be in removing those things once we identify them.
My own reflection on this scripture early in the week was rooted in the idea that many of us are like an delicious pie with just a bit of arsenic baked in. We may be "mostly good" people, but often we let that be good enough, unaware of how we are poisoning those we love by not addressing the toxic parts that remain in us. When I entered therapy - both times - it was because I recognized I had something in me that was important enough to take strong action against. I know a couple of husbands who are destroying or poisoning their families in ways they don't recognize and for reasons that seem completely reasonable to them. They're oblivious to the damage they do, and think that the problems in their homes are of everyone else's making. Even when we recognize our own shortcomings accurately, we tend to not have a strong enough hatred for the things that cause chaos in our lives and our families, nor for the things that keep us from walking closely with God.
That said, I guess I'm accusing myself of at still harboring at least a degree of complacency, too . . .
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