Beginning to Begin

If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creature; the old things passed away… – 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NASB 1995) 

In the early church, some bishops believed that baptized Christians who committed Big Sins (like fraud, fornication, apostasy and murder) were not Christians at all. Baptism supposedly made you a totally new creature, so if you were still sinning like an old creature, something was badly wrong. So they excommunicated you, with no way back into the church.  

Unsurprisingly, despite the tough penalties, the baptized kept on sinning, even though they weren’t supposed to, didn’t want to, and tried hard not to. It wasn’t long before church leaders realized that a church composed of only the perfect was doomed to extinction.  

They began re-thinking baptism. Instead of a one-shot transformation, they saw it as a life-long unfolding, a gift that re-creates us over time, a font of continual growth and change. And because people grow and change better in community than alone, they devised new rituals of pardon and reinstatement for all. 

Christians still aren’t perfect. None of us can stop sinning once and for all, even if we try to, even if we want to, even if we want to want to—not even the great St. Teresa of Avila.  

She once came upon a moving image of the suffering Christ. Falling to her knees, she determined not to get up until he healed her moral carelessness, which she believed was wounding him. Some pious biographers claim she was totally converted on the spot. But Teresa knew better. She wrote, “From that moment on, I began to begin getting better.”  

There’s no perfection, instant or otherwise. There’s only the good news that grace is in endless supply, that beginning to begin is a holy path, and that all the way to God is God. 

Prayer
Help me to want to want to, O God, and to begin to begin. Amen.

Small Group Discussion

About the Author
Mary Luti is a long time seminary educator and pastor, author of Teresa of Avila’s Way and numerous articles, and founding member of The Daughters of Abraham, a national network of interfaith women’s book groups.