Excerpt from Romans 3:21-26

"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Reflection by Martin B. Copenhaver

I have always had a messy desk.  I used to claim that it was actually more efficient not to spend all of that time filing things away.  I even seemed to take pride in surveying the mountain ranges of papers on my desk and somehow being able to pull out just the right one.  I dubbed my desk a "wilderness of free association." 

Every once in a while I would put everything away, which was never a permanent solution, but more like pruning to allow for further growth.

But, to be honest, I have always felt self-conscious about my messy desk.  All of my colleagues have tidy desks.  If their desks were beds they would have hospital corners.

Then one day a parishioner came into my office, looked at my messy desk and said, "Martin, you've got to get it together!  If you can't hold it together what is the hope for the rest of us?"

Ever since she said that I have made a point of not cleaning my desk.  The mess is a reminder to me, and to anyone who comes into my office, that I don't have it together and that, indeed, none of us does.  And a messy desk is the least of it.  Our lives, in various ways and to varying degrees, are not tidy or properly ordered.  "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," is the way Paul put it.

So I no longer claim that my messy desk is more efficient.  I don't call it a wilderness of free association.  Now I think of it as a call to confession.

Prayer

God, together let's look together at the mess and if, for whatever reason, I cannot clean it up, hear my prayer of confession…

About the Author Martin B. Copenhaver is Senior Pastor, Wellesley Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Wellesley, Massachusetts. He is the author, with Lillian Daniel, of This Odd and Wondrous Calling: the Public and Private Lives of Two Ministers.