Numbers 15:22-26: in context

The law makes provision for a particular kind of sin: when the whole congregation errs together, sinning unintentionally against God's commandments without the community realizing it. For such corporate sin, the whole congregation was to offer a sacrifice, and then, the law says, the priest shall make atonement for all the congregation, and they shall be forgiven. The provision recognizes that sin is not only individual but communal, that a whole community can go astray together, and it provides for the forgiveness of the community's sin.

The law's provision for the sin of the whole congregation recognizes something we can overlook: that sin is not only individual but communal. A whole community, a whole people, can go astray together, sharing in a common sin, erring corporately. And God provides for this: atonement for the congregation, so that the whole community may be forgiven. Sin is reckoned not only person by person but also as it belongs to a community that has erred together, and God's mercy extends to the forgiveness of corporate sin as well as individual. This calls us to reckon with communal sin, not only individual. We readily think of sin as individual, a matter between each person and God; and it is that. But Scripture also recognizes corporate sin, the sin a community, a people, a church, a nation shares in together, the wrongs in which we participate as members of a community, the failings of the groups we belong to. And this too must be reckoned with and repented of, not only our individual sins but the communal sins we share in. The great intercessors of Scripture confessed the sin of their people as their own: we have sinned, Daniel prayed, we have done wickedly. You are just, Nehemiah confessed, in all that has come upon us, for we have done wickedly. They reckoned with communal sin and sought its forgiveness. This searches whether we attend only to our individual sins or also to the communal sins we share in. Do we recognize and repent of the sins of the communities we belong to, our people, our church, our nation, the corporate wrongs in which we participate? Or do we attend only to our individual failings, blind to the communal sins we share? The law provided atonement for the sin of the whole congregation, recognizing that communities err together and need forgiveness together. This calls us to reckon with and seek forgiveness for communal sin, not only individual. The congregation's error was atoned for and forgiven together; and we too are called to recognize the corporate sins we share in as members of our communities, to confess them and seek forgiveness for them, not only our individual sins but the communal ones. Sin is both individual and communal; and God provides forgiveness for both. Let us reckon honestly with the sins of the communities we belong to, confessing them and seeking their forgiveness, as the congregation sought atonement for their corporate sin, and as the intercessors of Scripture confessed the sin of their people as their own.

Do I attend only to my individual sins while remaining blind to the communal sins I share in as a member of my people, church, or nation, and can the law's provision of atonement for the sin of the whole congregation, recognizing that communities err together and need forgiveness together, together with the intercessors who confessed their people's sin as their own, move me to reckon honestly with the corporate sins I participate in, confessing them and seeking their forgiveness, not only my individual failings but the communal ones?