Mercy Incarnate and Personified

For the tenth day of Christmas, something from John Paul II's wonderful Encyclical on the Mercy of God:

Although God “dwells in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:16), he speaks to man by means of the whole universe: “ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20). This indirect and imperfect knowledge, achieved by the intellect seeking God by means of creatures through visible world, falls short of “vision of the Father”” “no one has ever seen God,” writes Saint John, in order to stress the truth that “the only Son , who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known” (John 1:18). This “making known” reveals god in the most profound mystery of his being, one and three, surrounded by “unapproachable light.” Nevertheless, through this “making known”  by Christ we know God above all in his relationship of love for man: “philanthropy” (Titus 3:4). It is precisely here that “his invisible nature”: becomes in a special way “visible,” incomparably more visible than through all the other “things that have been made”: it becomes visible in Christ and through Christ, through his actions and words, and finally through his death on the cross and his resurrection.

In this way, in Christ and through Christ, God also becomes visible in his mercy; that is to say, there is emphasized that attribute of the divinity which the Old Testament, using various concepts and terms, already defined as “mercy.” Christ confers on the whole Old Testament tradition about God’s mercy a definitive meaning. Not only does he speak of it, and explain it by the use of comparisons and parables, but above all he himself makes it incarnate and personifies it. He himself, in a certain sense, is mercy. To the person who sees it in him–and finds it in him–God becomes “visible” in a particular way as the Father “who is rich in mercy” (Ephesians 2:4).

. . . .

The truth revealed in Christ, about God the “Father of mercies” (2 Corinthians  1:3) enables us to “see” him as particularly close to man especially when man is suffering, when he is under threat at the very heart of his existence and dignity.

The Eleventh Day of Christmas: Like Fire in Iron

First Day of Christmas: How God Brings HisLove to Bear

The Way of the Cross = the Way of Mercy & Forgiveness

There is no lesson Christ loves better to drive home, than this disconcerting fact of our common human fragility: which, when we have truly grasped it, kills resentment and puts indulgent pity in its place. Let the man, the group, the nation that is without sin cast the first stone. God’s forgiveness means the compassionate recognition of the weakness and instability of man; how often we cannot help it, how truly there is in us a ‘root and ground in sin,’ an implicit rebellion against the Holy, a tendency away from love and peace. And this requires of us the constant compassionate recognition of our fellow-creatures’ instability and weakness; of the fact that they too cannot help it. If the Christian penitent dares to ask that his many departures from the Christian norm, his impatience, gloom, self-occupation, unloving prejudices, reckless tongue, feverish desires, with all the damage they have caused to Christ’s Body, are indeed to be set aside, because – in spite of all – he longs for God and Eternal Life; then he too must set aside and forgive all that impatience, selfishness, bitter and foolish speech, sudden yieldings to base impulse in others have caused him to endure. Hardness is the one impossible thing. Harshness to others in those who ask and need the mercy of God sets up a conflict at the very heart of personality and shuts the door upon grace. And that which is true of the individual soul, is true of the community; the penitent nation seeking the path of life must also conform to the law of charity.

This principle applied in its fullness makes a demand on our generosity which only a purified and self-oblivious love can hope to meet. For every soul that appeals for God’s forgiveness is required to move over to His side, and share the compassionate understanding, the unmeasured pity, with which He looks on human frailty and sin. So difficulty is this to the proud and assertive creature, that it comes very near the end of our education in prayer. Indeed, the Christian doctrine of forgiveness is so drastic and so difficult, where there is a real and deep injury to forgive, that only those living in the Spirit, in union with the Cross, can dare to base their claim on it.

- from Abba by Evelyn Underhill

What is a Merciful Heart?

If following Jesus isn't making you more merciful, it might not be Jesus you are following.

Jesus said, "But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
- Matthew 9:13
(He was quoting the Old Testament prophet, Hosea - Hosea 6:6).

Here is something from Isaac of Ninevah (died c. 700 AD), also known as Isaac the Syrian:

What is a merciful heart? It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation, for humanity, for the birds, for the animals, for demons, and for all that exists. By the recollection of them the eyes of a merciful person pour forth tears in abundance. By the strong and vehement mercy that grips such a person’s heart, and by such great compassion, the heart is humbled and one cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in any in creation. For this reason, such a person offers up tearful prayer continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm her or him, that they be protected and receive mercy. And in like manner such a person prays for the family of reptiles because of the great compassion that burns without measure in a heart that is in the likeness of God.

The person who is genuinely charitable not only gives charity out of his own possessions, but gladly tolerates injustice from others and forgives them. Whoever lays down his soul for his brother acts generously, rather than the person who demonstrates his generosity by his gifts.

God is not One who requites evil, but who sets evil right.

Paradise is the love of God, wherein is the enjoyment of all blessedness.

The person who lives in love reaps the fruit of life from God, and while yet in this world, even now breathes the air of the resurrection.

In love did God bring the world into existence; in love is God going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of the One who has performed all these things; in love will the whole course of the governance of creation be finally comprised.

(Taken from Glory to God in All Things)

Of Mercy and Banana Peels

A Sermon on Luke 18:9-14

I suspect that Jesus would have liked slapstick comedy. You know, the Laurel and Hardy sort of humor. You remember. Laurel will be eating a banana and throw the peel on the ground. And you know, as soon as you see Hardy walking up the road what’s going to happen. It’s the pratfall, the trip, the rug pulled out from under your feet, the banana peel in the way. Jesus seems to have a predilection for that sort of thing, continually pulling the rug out from under our feet or tossing banana peels in our path.

His parables are often like banana peels tossed on the pathway to moral self-satisfaction. This morning’s parable, in particular, is such a banana peel. It’s a familiar story – the Pharisee and the Tax Collector praying at the temple. In fact, it’s so familiar it has lost some of its edge for us. We already know who is the good guy and who the bad guy. Jesus’ original hearers would not have been so sure.

The Pharisees were not known as necessarily self-righteous or righteous in any way other than the way we all hope to be righteous. The Pharisees were lay people who had a passion for seeking after God’s heart, for living according to the Torah – for living faithfully so that all Israel might be redeemed. Tax Collectors, on the other hand, everyone knew and no one liked. Even under the best of circumstances few people are excited when they see a tax collector coming. But in a time when you are occupied and oppressed by a foreign nation, tax collectors are even worse. Not only are they taking some of your money away to run the government, but the government they are taking money to run is a foreign occupier. Tax collectors would have been seen as the collaborators. The last thing you would want your son to grow up to be would be a tax collector.

And so in the parable we have the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. The Pharisee prays to God, recounting all the good things that he has done – good things that everybody would have recognized as good things. He fasts. He tithes. He is a regular worshipper. All the things that we hope to be ourselves. Of course, as he is praying and recounting all the good things, he has one eye open to those around him. The Pharisee prays with peripheral vision, looking to either side at those who might not quite measure up to his standards: all the rogues, the prostitutes, thieves, adulterers, and, maybe even especially, this tax collector (we all know what sorts of people they are). The Pharisee is confident that he is on the right track, that he is dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s.

The Tax Collector, on the other hand, as everyone would have known, is all undotted i's and uncrossed t's. And he knows it. He prays the only honest prayer he can pray, “God have mercy on me, a sinner.”

The Pharisee is a moral, upright person. He is on the straight and narrow. But it is on that straight and narrow that Jesus tosses his banana peel, and the Pharisee who has every reason to think that he is right with God slips on the peel and falls. Meanwhile, the Tax Collector who has every reason to think that he is out of sorts with God goes home justified.

And I suspect those who heard Jesus tell this parable slipped on the banana peel as well. What kind of a morally uplifting story is that? Not the kind of story you want to tell your children. They might take it seriously. The just person is condemned and the contemptible person is justified? Jesus doesn’t even suggest that the Tax Collector went home to live differently. He only throws himself on God’s mercy.

The point is not that being a tax collecting collaborator is a matter of indifference to Jesus. The point is that the Pharisee is in as much need of God’s mercy as is the Tax Collector. As are we all. And, of course, we all get that now. Don’t we?

There is a third person implied in this parable. This person is praying as well, and watching both the Pharisee and the tax collector. We are the third person. If we’re not careful, there is a banana peel in our path as well. How often do we observe the Pharisee and say, “Thank you God that I am not self righteous, like that Pharisee"? We all slip on the banana peel sooner or later. We measure ourselves against others. Whether it is the righteous and the unrighteous, the holy or the unholy, the mature or the immature, the sophisticated or the unsophisticated, the just and the unjust, we all fall into the trap of keeping score. Thank God I am not like that liberal. Thank God I am not like that conservative. Thank God I am not like that fundamentalist. One way or another, we are usually pretty sure that we are the ones who get it. We are the ones who are superior. We are the ones who are on the side of the angels.

Again and again Jesus tosses a banana peel on our path to moral superiority, our own exalted opinion of ourselves. We are reminded that we don’t know as much as we think we do. We are reminded that we are not as good as we like to think we are. We are reminded that our perspective is not God’s. We are reminded that we often slip into our own version of Phariseism. We slip and land on our backsides. By God's grace we are humbled and reminded, yet again, that our only honest prayer is, “God, have mercy on me a sinner.” In fact the only prayer that is anything other than stammering, and the only deed that is anything other than stumbling, is the one that begins and ends with, “Have mercy on me, a sinner.”

You may have heard the story of the man who dies and goes to the pearly gates where he is met by St. Peter.

Peter says, “Before you get in, you have to pass this little test. You have to make sure you have scored enough points to get in. You have to get one hundred points.”

The man thinks that should not be too hard because he has, after all, led a very good life. So he says to St. Peter, “Well, first of all, I was married for 57 years to one woman and was faithful from the very beginning until the very end.

Peter says, “That’s impressive. That’s one point.”

Then the man says, “Well, I also was a regular at church, Sunday in and Sunday out."

Peter gives him another point.

The man tries again, “I tithed.”

Peter says, “Well, that’s pretty good, too. That’s another three points.”

“Did I tell you that I also volunteered for the youth group for five years? Do you know how many lock-ins that is?”

“Four points.”

The points are not adding up very fast.

The man begins to despair. He says, “Well, how about this? How about this? I prayed regularly, and in lots of different ways. I did centering prayer. I did lectio divina. I even prayed in tongues! I led prayer workshops!”

St. Peter says, “Impressive. Another two points.”

Finally, the man beats his breast in despair and cries out, “At this rate the only way that I’ll get into Heaven is by the mercy of God!”

Peter smiles and says “One hundred points!”

The first word for Christians is grace and the last word for Christians is grace; and every day, along the way, is grace, grace, grace. That’s not good news for the Pharisee in us who wants to keep score. It is very good news for the Tax Collector in us who can only pray, “God have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Watch out for those banana peels.