A Communal Effort

First Sunday of Lent – B

We can get overly focused on individual sin and personal salvation during Lent. Yet one of the biggest lessons learned from last year’s Lent is that our well-being is intimately tied to the well-being of others. Healing must be a communal effort. Slowly we began to understand that when one member of the body suffers, all suffer with it.

The effects of our individual transgressions are often magnified by systemic corruption that brings harm to others we may not even know. In the same way, every personal choice to not only turn away from sin but also work for the good influences and strengthens the entire body. God’s grace that enables us to bring healing can go viral if we share it by our own repentance.

In today’s readings, God makes a covenant of salvation not with one person or one family but with an entire race and beyond, with all of creation—a covenant between God and the earth. Though we may sin by our individual acts, we are not alone in our struggle against evil.

Even Jesus was not alone as he faced his own temptations. God saves a people so that each member of the body may find strength in the other and rejoice in the salvation of all.

This post was first published in “GIA Quarterly: A Liturgical Music Journal.”

Image credit: Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.

Read more reflections on the Sunday readings here:

• Restraint and Generosity
• Going Further
• Can we be salt and light?
• Who is advocating for those in need?
• Bonded to Christ’s Mission