Accountability in Community
- davidwperk
- Feb 27, 2024
- 6 min read
Devotional Reflection, Tuesday, February 27, 2024
The week of the second Sunday in Lent
The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D.
Key phrases for reflection from today’s reading:
5:1It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father’s wife. 2And you are arrogant! Should you not rather have mourned, so that he who has done this would have been removed from among you?
. . .
7Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. 8Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
You will find the full text of today’s epistle reading at the end of this reflection.
Daily Office Lectionary readings (BCP, 953)
AM Psalm 61, 62 PM Psalm 68:1-20(21-23)24-36
Gen. 42:1-17; 1 Cor. 5:1-8; Mk 3:19b-35
Today we celebrate the Feast of Frederick Douglass. (See below.)
David’s Reflections
The language of our worship draws heavily on Holy Scripture. The anthem we most often say or sing at the fraction, the breaking of the bread, in Holy Eucharist in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us,” comes from verse 8 of today’s reading. Paul draws on a Jewish practice, that of removing all leaven from a home before Passover and eating the Passover with unleavened bread.
He had planted a new faith community in Corinth and moved on after a couple of years to repeat that process elsewhere. In his absence, this new congregation, all first generation Christians with no mentors and no Christian relatives of the previous generation, fell into all sorts of difficulties. One glaring moral failing involved a man living in an incestuous relationship with his mother or stepmother; surprisingly, he was experiencing the church’s approval.
Paul, in our reading, called for the church to excommunicate this man. He feared that the influence of moral failing of such proportions would infect this new community and undermine its life. Even those outside the church would judge this as unacceptable behavior. Bear in mind that Paul is addressing a faith community gathered in the rather intimate surroundings of a larger home, celebrating worship around a common meal. In such a setting, these kinds of relational aberrations would have a much more profound impact than in a faith community gathering as we normally do in a public building without the home dinner table context.
If we take this text seriously, we obviously cannot ignore people within the Christian community whose lives have become inconsistent with basic Christian values, those who seem caught in evil. We are not necessarily obligated to apply Paul’s solution like one adds ingredients to a recipe—to cookbook a response from another cultural and church setting into our own. (The Book of Common Prayer does provide for the excommunication of someone living in obvious evil or engaged in ongoing conflict with others in the community. See BCP, p. 409.)
What we must do is take seriously the human dilemma. All of us are vulnerable and face the possibility of being caught in evil. In those moments, we need the love, care, and attention of our Christian community. To ignore those who drift away or who have gotten caught in an evil practice is not to love them. And, it is to lose a crucial ingredient in the community glue, accountability.
When we commit to a community, we enjoy the grace of God that flows to us through the community life. And, we become responsible for being channels of that grace to others. To begin absenting ourselves from the community or to come into the grip of evil means we deny the community those gifts of grace that God has been sharing through us. And, it is to be a negative example both within and outside the community. We bear a responsibility to the community and the community bears a responsibility to us, to care for us and seek to restore us. We cannot adopt a “Little Bo Peep” theology, “Leave them alone and they will come home.”
In another place, Paul calls on the church to restore the one overtaken in a fault in the spirit of gentleness, considering ourselves lest we be the next one in that situation (Galatians 6). He addressed two different Christian communities with two different strategies for dealing with the wayward. Does your church have intentional strategies?
If we truly love one another, we cannot remain passive when one or more of us is in difficulty. In fact, we must anticipate that our fellow Christians and we ourselves will stumble and be prepared to respond in loving and caring ways. Jesus is the good shepherd who always seeks the straying and erring. And, we are his children, committed to following him and regathering with him those once gathered who have strayed. (See Matthew 18:6-14 on this.)
We must engage the challenge of making accountability an ingredient in our community glue.
Collect of the Day, The Second Sunday in Lent
O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP, 218)
Collect for Tuesday of Week 2 in Lent
O God, you willed to redeem us from all iniquity by your Son: Deliver us when we are tempted to regard sin without abhorrence, and let the virtue of his passion come between us and our mortal enemy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Lesser Feasts and Fasts, p. 39)
Today we celebrate the Feast of Frederick Douglass, social reformer (died 20 Feb 1895 CE).
Collect of the Feast of Frederick Douglass
Almighty God, we bless your Name for the witness of Frederick Douglass, whose impassioned and reasonable speech moved the hearts of people to a deeper obedience to Christ: Strengthen us also to speak on behalf of those in captivity and tribulation, continuing in the way of Jesus Christ our Liberator; who with you and the Holy Spirit dwells in glory everlasting. Amen
A Collect for Peace
Most holy God, the source of all good desires, all right judgments, and all just works: Give to us, your servants, that peace which the world cannot give, so that our minds may be fixed on the doing of your will, and that we, being delivered from the fear of all enemies, may live in peace and quietness; through the mercies of Christ Jesus our Savior. Amen. (BCP, 123)
For Guidance
O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light rises up in darkness for the godly: Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what you
would have us to do, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices, and that in your light we may see light, and in your straight path may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 832)
A Collect for the Presence of Christ
Lord Jesus, stay with us, for evening is at hand and the day is past; be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and awaken hope, that we may know you as you are revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread. Grant this for the sake of your love. Amen. (BCP, 124)
A Collect for Mission
Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified: Receive our supplications and prayers which we offer before you for all members of your holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (BCP, 100)
Daily Office Epistle, 1 Corinthians 5:1-8
5:1It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father’s wife. 2And you are arrogant! Should you not rather have mourned, so that he who has done this would have been removed from among you?
3 For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present I have already pronounced judgment 4in the name of the Lord Jesus on the man who has done such a thing.* When you are assembled, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5you are to hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.*
6 Your boasting is not a good thing. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. 8Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Daily Offices in The Book of Common Prayer
Morning Prayer, Rite 2, page 75, The Book of Common Prayer
Noonday Prayer, page 103, Book of Common Prayer
Order of Worship for Evening (Vespers), p 109, Book of Common Prayer
Evening Prayer, Rite 2, page 115, Book of Common Prayer
Compline (Night Prayer), page 127, Book of Common Prayer
Daily Devotionals, page 136, Book of Common Prayer
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