Much of my job teaching ethics to students is to get them to see that ethics isn't really about the big stuff. They think ethics is about the really big horrible cases, the stuff that makes it in the news, the stuff that requires a definite right/wrong position - things like what you think about abortion, stem cell research, and so forth.

 

Of course the big horrible cases matter - but by the time we get to the point that a serious crime has been committed, ethics isn't really the question. The real question is, what were all the small steps that happened along the way that got us to this point?

 

Lent is a time when the church thinks about big broad gestures - prayer, fasting, giving. And maybe the first week, all that seems easy, just about as easy as my students mistakenly think ethics is.

 

But by the second and third weeks, things don't look quite so easy.  The small stuff - the everyday stuff - starts getting in the way. Gave up coffee? By habit you find yourself by the office coffee pot because that's where all your office mates hang out too... Pledged to get up and pray early in the morning? But you worked late last night and really needed the extra fifteen minutes to snooze. Said you'd give up angry words? Works till it doesn't... 

 

In today's gospel (Matthew 5:20-26), Jesus helps us get a sense of the things that prevent us from "entering the kingdom of heaven." "You shall not kill" is a big piece - a commandment that seems obvious to us. Okay, most of us don't kill and we don't have to worry about that too much - do we?

 

But then Jesus lets us know that's not all there is. It isn't enough simply not to kill. We have to get into the small, seemingly less important junk in our lives - like our anger at others - to see that even anger is harmful for us. Jesus suggests that there's a link between the things we get angry over, and the ways that anger escalates into full-blown violence, even to the point of killing a person. Anger is a slippery slope of temptation, in other words. Jesus counsels us to repair our relationships wherever we can, even relationships with our opponents.

 

Well, that's much harder to do most of the time than avoiding killing another person!

 

The small stuff in our lives may sometimes seem insignificant, but it actually may have greater power to destroy us. Notice in the first reading (Ezekiel 18:21-28) that God says that a virtuous man, one who has followed all the laws, can still do something evil. Even one evil thing (no matter how small, apparently - the text does not say) can make God forget all the good we have done. 

 

The good news for us is that God also says in that passage that he just as easily welcomes the person who was doing evil but turns away from doing those evil things.

 

As we live out our Lent in the coming weeks, may we become more aware of the way even small things can disrupt our relationship with God and turn us toward doing evil. Today, let us pray for God's help in clearing out the small bits of clutter in our lives and rejoice in the good news that God welcomes us on our return journey to him.

 

- Jana M. Bennett