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A daily Lenten e-mail with lessons of hope and courage, inspired by a variety of resources to encourage us in these confusing and turbulent times from St. Luke’s Church, Lebanon.

Saturday - Fifth Week in Lent

Many who seek to understand the way human systems work think that all institutions are at risk, by their very nature, of eventually discounting their original mission. Self-preservation becomes the priority — no matter how earnest and selfless the mission of the institution may have been at its outset. This is known as mission-drift.

Mission-drift like this is so representative of “the old order.” But what will help us move into such a “new order”? What empowers us to be like the earliest Christians who, with God’s grace, took on the enormous and dangerous task of transformation?

In To Love as God Loves, Roberta Bondi asks us to consider that humility can make all the difference. Joyful humility, which is not the same as seeing ourselves in an inferior position, may actually empower us to live the conviction that all human beings are beloved of God. The evidence is clear: we are all limited in our frailties, our physical conditions, our emotional needs, and our tendency to sin. And yet, each of us has unique struggles that only God is able legitimately to judge, since only God is perfect. Joyful humility recognizes that even in the midst of our weakness and imperfection, God’s love for us never dies. It means that we are accepted and encouraged, not judged, by God. What a relief that can be for most of us.

It becomes evident that humility is essential to our ability to live by Jesus’ two great commandments. It is joyful humility that makes love of God, self and neighbor even possible. Only when we are honest about and with ourselves, can we understand God’s love for us and so respond in love. When we come to understand ourselves honestly, we develop a genuine love of self that empowers us to “be there” for others – to love our neighbor as ourselves.