Mercy

“Show us mercy, Son of David.”    --Matthew 9:27

 Show us mercy, Son of David

   for we are blind and do not know the way forward.

Show us mercy, Son of David

  for darkness envelops us today.

Show us mercy, Son of David

   when we use scripture to justify sin and excuse our callousness.

Show us mercy, Son of David

   when our blindness is so deep

   that we call the bad good

   and the good bad.

Show us mercy, Son of David

   when we do not see the log in our own eye.

Show us mercy, that we may learn mercy,

   that we may love mercy,

   that we may show mercy

      to the hungry and the hurting,

      to the sick and the homeless,

      to the prisoner and the outcast,

      to the privileged and the proud.

Show us mercy, Son of David

   until we become mercy.

We Are Our Times

“The times are bad! The times are troublesome!” This is what humans say. But we are our times. Let us live well and our times will be good. Such as we are, such are our times. ---Augustine of Hippo

This quote in today’s liturgy for Common Prayer could not be more appropriate, and yet, its author, Augustine of Hippo, lived from 354-430, in a time and place far removed from us. To read this quote in the aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting, and in a world that seems increasingly filled with violence and tension, I realize that there really isn’t any such thing as “the good old days.”

We are our times. . . Such as we are, such are our times. What we tolerate in ourselves grows. What we excuse in ourselves overtakes us. We are often quick to speak of what Satan is doing in the world. But evil isn’t simply “out there.” To blame evil on Satan keeps us from taking responsibility for our part in the perpetuation of evil.

The desert abbas and ammas, those early Christians who have much to teach us today, understood that spiritual growth and transformation happen only as we battle the demons within ourselves. The capacity for any kind of evil lives in each one of us. Why do you think Jesus stated that calling someone a fool was the same as murdering them? What we carry inside, what we allow within us is what determines the state of the times in which we live.

When we fail to understand our own capacity for evil, the seed of evil grows within us. What begins as a thought eventually is acted out through words or deeds—our judgment of someone who is different from us, our unwillingness to act for the common good because it will cost us something to do so, our sense of superiority over others—so the seed grows into a weed that we fail to even recognize as such.

Recognizing our capacity for evil is not the same as saying we are bad or saying “I’m only human.” These excuse us from taking the hard road of growth. Excusing our evil is like running a weed eater over weeds—it does not eliminate them but instead strengthens the unseen roots, causing the weeds to come back stronger than before.

Teresa of Avila understood that spiritual growth was not always easy or pleasant. In her book on spiritual growth, The Interior Castle, she uses the metaphor of a castle for the spiritual journey. She notes that when many people encounter the snakes and bugs of the basement, they turn away rather than persist through what is unpleasant within themselves. It is helpful to have a spiritual companion who will accompany us through the stages of growth, encouraging and challenging us. I have found spiritual direction a safe and grace-filled place to look at the parts of myself I’d rather ignore.

We may not have pulled the trigger in Las Vegas, but we have all wished ill for another. When we can acknowledge that, and see it for the evil it is, our world will begin to change. Such as we are, such are our times.

Deliverance

Exodus 6:5-8

Lord, I have lived under burdens,

making bricks without straw, taking on

impossible tasks, struggling under demands

too great for me. I have forgotten

who I am,

who you created me to be, falling

instead into a shape ill-fitting my soul.

I have not lived as your chosen,

but have chosen instead to enslave myself

to an image not mine to live.

You saw my predicament.

You heard the cry of my soul, even before

I was aware that my soul was crying.

You delivered me with signs and wonders,

feeding my starved soul with love, with community,

with your presence and peace.

My soul is taking the shape of your chosen, the shape

you dreamed for it.

Who I am is seen and known and I am learning to listen

to my soul’s whispered truth.

Your faith in me is making me well.

I live to sing your praise with my life!

Lament

Psalm 22

My God, my God

have you left us all alone?

have you turned away from our anguish?

Do you not see what is happening?

Snarling dogs pounce on the weak—

besting the aged for food,

tearing families apart,

trampling the gentle,

attacking the poor.

When they lose a crumb from their enormous loaf

the rich blame the hungry for their “loss.”

They trust might and weapons, feeding on these

until they are glutted,

while compassion and mercy fade into oblivion.

But the new day reminds me that you are constant.

You have not abandoned us. It is we

who have abandoned you, trusting in wealth and weapons,

in power and possessions, and not in your ways,

which work like yeast, steady, unseen.

Expand our hope, grow our compassion,

crowd out our fear, fill us with love

until we sing praise,

until our lives ring true,

until we resist evil.

Confession

Isaiah 40

God, whose way leads through

wilderness, whose desert path

uproots us out of ordinary time,

forgive us when we choose

complacency over change,

ease over transformation,

numbness over attentiveness.

We prefer the false security of

easy answers, blame and prejudice

rather than the disciplines of

understanding, patience and

accountability.

Hold us in the desert long enough

to clear our vision, change our hearts,

gentle our judgments.

Hold us accountable even as you

hold us in your hand.

Flatten our mountains of pride.

Raise the ones we have despised.

Make our desert sojourn fruitful—

harsh enough to soften us, to turn

us to you in utter dependency,

so we will know that you show

your power in gentleness,

your strength in compassion,

your greatness in proximity.

Bare Minimum

Some who were present on that occasion told Jesus about the Galileans whom Pilate had killed while they were offering sacrifices. He replied, “Do you think the suffering of these Galileans proves that they were more sinful than all the other Galileans? No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did. What about those twelve people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them? Do you think that they were more guilty of wrongdoing than everyone else who lives in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did.”

Jesus told this parable: “A man owned a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it and found none. He said to his gardener, ‘Look, I’ve come looking for fruit on this fig tree for the past three years, and I’ve never found any. Cut it down! Why should it continue depleting the soil’s nutrients?’ The gardener responded, ‘Lord, give it one more year, and I will dig around it and give it fertilizer. Maybe it will produce fruit next year; if not, then you can cut it down.’” Luke 13:1-9

As people told Jesus about those murdered by Pilate, I wonder if they expected to hear that their death was tied to some sin on their part. Jesus’ response about the people killed by a tower leads me to believe that might have been their motive. Instead Jesus tells them that there is no difference in the ones who died and the ones who are listening to Jesus teach. He takes the spotlight off these victims and places it on those standing before him.

We are likely to ponder such matters as well. We want to know how God is going to treat others or we try to link disaster and other tragedies to sinfulness, instead of reacting with love and compassion or looking inward at our own lives. We want to be thought of as “good people” and may use our lack of exposure to difficulty as a sign that we are favored over others.

But Jesus demonstrates that being “good” is not the same as bearing fruit. He tells them (and us) to change our hearts and lives, and goes on to demonstrate what he means with a parable, where our “goodness” is likened to a fruitless fig tree that does nothing but soak up the Word and produces nothing from it. It takes the nutrients but does nothing with them. Am I guilty of going through the motions of being a “good Christian” while at the same time judging and criticizing and living unmindfully of others and of God?

But then Jesus, the gardener, comes and offers us another chance. Yet it is a chance with conditions. Jesus takes the law and prophets and applies them to us, in terms we cannot squirm out from under. It’s not enough to follow the law. We are to love others as ourselves. The prophetic word was not only for those to whom it was originally addressed. It is for us as well. We are told that it is blessed to be poor, to love our enemies, to give without reserve, to forgive without keeping score. We bear fruit not by doing the minimum required. All that does is produce the tree. We bear fruit by self-sacrifice, generosity, compassion and love. When we are focused on the bare minimum, we don’t bear fruit. It is by going beyond the minimum, by not even considering the minimum as a “good” standard, that we bear fruit.

Expectations

If expectations were rocks, I’d have a sack so full, it would be straining at the seams! Sadly, it’s not the expectations of others that fill my sack, but my own expectations of myself. I overcommit and overschedule. I tell myself to go slow while at the same time adding another item to my to-do list. I expect to get things right and get things done—perfectly (or close to it) and on time.

Thankfully, God’s expectations of me are not as demanding. I’ve been preparing this week’s Sunday school lesson, and it is reminding me of that. Psalm 103 puts it in perspective: For he knows how weak we are; he remembers we are only dust. My own unrealistic expectations and resulting failures are met by God, not with condemnation, but with grace and love.

God is not into finger pointing and guilt trips. While we in our weakness make ourselves and others feel guilty and inadequate about shortcomings and failures, God never does. Jesus’ sacrifice proves that God is a God of grace, not guilt. Guilt separates us from God, causing us to focus on our unworthiness instead of the infinite, unending love God has for us. God is so in love with us that nothing we do can separate us from his love. Nothing.

I don’t think I should abuse God’s love by saying it doesn’t matter how poorly I follow the example of Jesus. A healthy awareness of my “dustiness” is a good thing, but not as a club to beat myself up with. That’s the reason for repentance and God’s forgiveness. Out of my gratitude for that forgiveness, I want to turn away from those behaviors that are incongruent with what I say I believe, yet always with the knowledge that growing in Christlikeness is a lifelong journey—a journey full of stumbling on the rocks of expectations.