In this Sunday's reading from Romans (7:15-25a), it sounds as if Paul were at an AA meeting: "Hi, my name is Paul, and I'm a sinner." He says, "I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do." Admitting our faults does not come easy. In an age where "image is everything", we want nothing more than to pose a posture of "everything is fine" to others. This facade of faultlessness can even creep into the church, where programs, committees, and people can be held to impossible standards. The church could use some of Paul's AA-like humility, and be a place where we can be real, rather than pretending. "I can't hold it together anymore." "My life is out of control." or "I need help." These simple but difficult admissions that none of us is faultless become the crack that lets God's mercy work its way inside. This is what AA's sixth step is about: allowing God to remove our defects of character. Thanks be to God that when we admit our faults, God comes all the more closer to us, and we rejoice with Paul that Jesus "rescues us from this body of death"!
What faults are you struggling to let show? How does naming them bring God closer to you and others?
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