Killing The Truth
The other night, I dreamt of complicity—a good friend and colleague had been pronounced innocent of murder yet I knew otherwise. She killed someone and I killed the truth by saying nothing.
I was just speaking with a fellow minister/healer from another country who described an important priest there who brought in a lot of money for the Church; most there knew he regularly pursued same-gender sex, yet even the bishop gave him a ‘pass’ because of his usefulness.
Are we all a little complicit? Certainly we are all divided by a duplicitous Church: shepherds who race after lone lambs in order to consume them, fathers who seduce spiritual daughters under silky vestments, bishops who see but don’t say, a man who pontificates over ‘child sacrifice’ yet whose sword is soft with unsanctified mercy, so much so that we struggle to trust his rhetoric.
Yet my divided heart toward the Church benefits no-one. My rant may just amplify the voice of the accuser himself; he is good at saying for the sake of slaying even the righteous.
Perhaps we should pray. I awaken these days after bad dreams and recall the mess we are in, yes we. I am one of the faithful, with as much say as anyone before God. Prayer knows no hierarchy. Or if there is one, it seems from Scripture to be inverted, as if God Himself prefers little ones who cry out for mercy (Matt. 18: 31, 32; LK 10:21) over the wise and strong.
I don’t know many big leaders, just weak people who trust God. And become mighty in faith, ‘routing foreign armies’ (Heb. 11:34). Mary herself sang of the One who ‘brings down rulers from their thrones and lifts up the humble’ (LK 1:52).
Lent is a time of deliberately humbling ourselves before the One. I pray that He might take us down in order to lift us up as we ask Him to initiate in all members a clear call to repentance. For those who resist Him and persist in hypocrisy, I ask for Him to use our prayers like stones of David and to slay giants.
I can wake up numb to the divided Church and further dull myself in a host of sins. I then become like the ones I accuse. Or I can pray. Will you join us this Lent (which starts Ash Wednesday the 6th) as we cry out for a Church that is at once chaste and fruitful through undivided devotion to Jesus and each other? We shall do our little part through a 6-part Lenten prayer series. May prayer make a way through duplicity and complicity!
‘Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up.’ (J 4:9, 10)
Please take time to watch our new video and become ‘Chaste Together.’
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