The Church Still Needs Renewal

Loving the Church means being willing to tell the truth about the Church. We know the good. We have prayers which help us speak through grief. We have the sacraments and people whose care has helped us trust God. Some of us also know the lasting hurt of being treated as a problem to solve. We have seen what happens when protecting a church’s reputation becomes more important than protecting a person.

We bring all of this to the Sunday of the Reformers. We give thanks for Christians who called the Church back to the Gospel. We also remember them honestly. Courage in one part of a person’s life does not make every judgment sound. Every generation needs repentance. Our own generation has the same responsibility.

Deuteronomy brings us to the end of Moses’ life. From Mount Nebo, he sees the land promised to the people. He will die before crossing into the land himself. The people mourn him. Scripture honors his extraordinary relationship with God. Then Joshua takes up the responsibility of leadership, and the people’s life with God continues.

Every church leader needs to sit with this passage. We serve for a time. We receive a faith others have lived before us. Eventually, someone else will take up the work. Our children will face questions we have never considered. They will recognize failures we have struggled to see. We ought to prepare them to follow Christ with enough courage to correct us where correction is needed.

As a bishop, I have a responsibility to prepare for a future beyond my control. I hope those who come after us love more faithfully because of what we have taught them. I also hope they have the freedom to learn from our mistakes.

Moses’ unfinished work speaks beyond church leadership. Parents, teachers, and caregivers know the experience of giving themselves without seeing a clear result. Our part matters even when we never see every outcome. God’s faithfulness extends beyond what we finish and beyond our lifetime.

Psalm 90 teaches us to pray within these limits. God has been our dwelling place through every generation. Our days are brief, so we ask for wisdom in how we spend them. The psalm also speaks about human wrongdoing. Even what we have kept hidden is known to God. We bring our whole lives before God, including the parts we would rather leave unexamined.

The Church needs this honesty. Some arguments consume years while people waiting for care grow tired of waiting. A grieving person needs someone willing to listen. A young person needs a Christian adult who will take their questions seriously. Such work deserves our attention. We ask God to establish the work of our hands because we want lasting good to come from the time we have been given.

Paul’s words to the Thessalonians show us what faithful ministry asks of a leader. He recalls preaching despite opposition. He also speaks about how he treated the people. He rejects deceit, flattery, and greed. He describes his care through the tenderness of a mother caring for her children. He and his companions loved the people enough to share their own lives with them.

People should be free to ask a church leader questions without fearing humiliation. They should expect honesty about decisions affecting their community. When someone reports harm, their safety and care deserve our attention. Being a bishop increases my accountability. My title gives me no exemption from the Gospel I preach.

Jesus brings us to the heart of this responsibility when he answers the question about the greatest commandment. Drawing from the Scriptures of Israel, he calls us to love God with our whole heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. These commands already belong to his people’s faith. Jesus places them at the center of how we understand everything else.

Love becomes demanding when someone needs time we had planned to spend elsewhere. Their story challenges an assumption. Their questions require us to listen when we would rather defend our position. Here at Holy Wisdom, welcome must continue after someone enters the room. People deserve friendship and room to be honest. Calling ourselves inclusive leaves us with the same need to recognize our failures and offer apologies.

We also need to speak about the purity tests Christians sometimes impose on one another.

There have been times in our Communion when members struggled with a kind of spiritual imposter syndrome. They worried about whether we were Catholic enough or whether others would recognize our life together as legitimate. These concerns deserve tenderness. People who have experienced rejection often need reassurance. We owe one another patience.

Yet this insecurity sometimes made customs and particular devotions into measures of legitimacy. A familiar practice became proof of faithfulness. Worship which felt unfamiliar raised suspicion. People began judging another Christian’s faith by how closely their prayer resembled their own.

Our traditions deserve to be understood and practiced with care. Prayer before an icon, devotion to the Theotokos, or time with a rosary helps many Christians grow closer to God. These practices deserve respect. So does the person whose devotional life takes another form.

A personal devotion becomes a purity test when we use someone’s participation to decide whether they are Catholic enough. We ask them to treat our preference as a requirement of the faith. A practice intended to support prayer becomes a reason to question someone else’s belonging.

Our faith has substance. We confess Christ. Scripture and the sacraments shape our life together. We owe one another accountability for how we live. We also need to recognize the difference between our shared faith and the customs we personally find reassuring.

Jesus asks about our love of God and neighbor. Paul asks us to consider the honesty and tenderness of our ministry. Familiar religious customs alone leave these questions unanswered. We need to examine how we treat someone who disagrees with us, how we respond to a person asking for help, and whether we admit the harm we have caused.

Setting aside a Sunday for the reform, revival, and renewal of the Church matters to all of us. Our Catholic faith gives us reason to welcome this commemoration. We love the Church and want our life together to be faithful to Christ.

When a practice obscures the Gospel, we need courage to examine the practice. When prayer becomes something we do without paying attention to God, we need the Holy Spirit to revive our faith. Renewal reaches into how we treat the person praying beside us. Those who cherish familiar forms need humility. Those eager for change need humility too. We honor the reformers by allowing the Gospel to question our own common life.

The final part of Matthew’s reading asks us to consider who holds authority over this work. Jesus asks about the Messiah. His questioners answer with the familiar designation of David’s son. Jesus then asks how David also calls the Messiah Lord. The question presses beyond an inherited answer toward the identity of the one standing before them.

We confess Jesus Christ as Lord. The Church belongs to him. Our customs and our proposals for reform remain accountable to him. His life shows us the love he commands. He meets people in their need and confronts religious hypocrisy. He endures rejection and violence. Through his resurrection, we receive hope for renewal beyond our failures. We depend on his grace for the changes we need.

Repentance needs somewhere concrete to begin. Return to a conversation you dismissed too quickly. Offer an apology and allow the other person to speak. Consider whether a devotion you cherish has made you more patient with others or more suspicious of Christians who pray differently. These questions belong to me too.

At the Eucharist, we bring our unfinished lives before Christ. We receive his life given for us and return to the work of loving our neighbors. We have people to care for, wrongs to put right, and a faith to hand on to our children. We owe them enough humility to admit where we have failed and enough courage to change.

Let those who come after us have reason to give thanks for the love they received here. Let them remember a Church where questions were heard, repentance was practiced, and people were cared for.

God of truth and mercy, renew your Church through the Gospel of your Son. Give us courage to face our failures and humility to receive correction. Revive our love for you and for one another. Bless the work entrusted to us and the people who will continue after us. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. amen