Living with Mercy and Grace

Background: The lectionary readings for Sunday, February 23 include Genesis 45:3-11, 15, where Joseph is merciful to his brothers who threw him into a pit and sold him into slavery, and Luke 6:27-38, where Jesus tells his disciples to love your enemies, as part of his Sermon on the Plain. This is a quick homily I gave at the Wednesday Healing Service at Christ Church Easton, as these are both readings I think we need to discuss more.

Living with Mercy and Grace

Jesus’s teaching today is a continuation of the “Blessings and Woes” or Beatitudes that Patrick talked about last week. Let’s remember that Luke’s version of the Beatitudes is different than the one we find in Matthew’s Gospel, both in nuanced ways and in that Matthew shows Jesus going up a mountain to teach, whereas Luke has Jesus going down to a level place. Matthew’s version is often referred to as the Sermon on the Mount; this speech in Luke is often called the Sermon on the Plain. That’s an intentional setting for Luke, who shows Jesus among the people, not above them, lifting up the poor, and being visited by shepherds, not wise men.

After Jesus has bowled the disciples over by calling the poor, the hungry, and those who weep “blessed,” now he’s gone totally off his rocker telling them to love their enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who abuse you.

If we think Jesus is just speaking theoretically, no, he gives examples: if someone hits you on the cheek, give them the other one too; if someone takes your coat, give them your shirt as well; give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes your stuff, don’t ask for it back.

Then Jesus drops a version of what we call the Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

How do you want to be treated? With love? With kindness? Then treat people that way. That’s a teaching we can get behind. We get something out of that, we think about how we want to be treated, which of course is to be treated well.

What about mercy? Hhhmmm… there is something to that. If only we had a case study, an example, something from the Old Testament maybe, to refer to…

Oh wait, we’ve got Joseph and his brothers from our Genesis reading. Joseph’s story is well known, even turned into a musical. Joseph was a dreamer and favored by his father; his brothers were jealous, decided to kill him, thought better of it, threw him into a pit; then got the bright idea to sell him into slavery; they took his robe or coat and put blood all over it and took it to their father, who assumed Joseph had been killed by wild animals.

From being a slave, Joseph works his way up to becoming the Pharoah’s top advisor in Egypt. He is able to see the tough times coming, store up food in times of famine; and in our reading today, his brothers come before him, in need. Joseph has all the power and can do with them whatever he wants. How many Hollywood movies would have this scene being sweet revenge, just retribution. But it’s not.

Joseph is merciful. And then some. The brothers don’t ask for forgiveness, they don’t fall down at his feet. It’s Joseph who initiates it:

“I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life… God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors”… And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them.”

It’s okay. You didn’t know what you were doing. But God did. This is where I was supposed to end up, so I could save us. It had nothing to do with how his brothers acted; it had everything to do with who Joseph was and how he acted.

Joseph was merciful. Even when he had every right to get back at them. And he showed mercy in a way that let his brothers save face.

Fr. Richard Rohr from the Center for Action and Contemplation website.

Franciscan and best-selling author Richard Rohr in talking about today’s Gospel reading gives us a thought that connects both readings. He says that Jesus doesn’t forgive in a way that makes him look good and sinners look bad. Jesus doesn’t say look how great I am and how sinful you are.

Rohr writes:

“Forgiveness is loyalty to the truth of who you are. To forgive someone is to recognize who they are, to admit and affirm who they are, and to know that their best selves will be brought out only in the presence of an accepting and believing person. Forgiveness is basically the act of believing in another person and not allowing that person to be destroyed by self-hatred. Forgiveness involves helping people uncover their self-worth, which is usually crusted over by their own self-hatred.

“This is a way of forgiving people that does not make you look goodbut makes them look good. That’s the way God forgives us. In the act of forgiveness, God gives us back our dignity and self-worth. God is loyal to the truth of who we are. God affirms that we are good persons who have sinned. God asserts that we aren’t bad.”

Joseph doesn’t wait for his brothers to grovel and plead. He jumps right out and says, don’t be angry with yourselves. This isn’t your fault. God needed me here to help.

Let’s move back to the Gospel. Jesus says, loving people that already love you? You want credit for that? Doing good to those who do good to you? Giving to those who you expect to get something back from? That’s not love, it’s business. We’ve got plenty of that going around.

“But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

Jesus is a teacher whose actions back up his words. If the disciples, or if we think, yeah Jesus, that sounds great and all, but mercy isn’t how the world works. Jesus’s response, with his life, is to show mercy and to love those he encounters, to walk himself straight to Jerusalem, into the hands of those who will persecute and execute him and as he is dying on the cross, being mocked by the thieves on either side of him, as Luke tells it, one thief wises up and says, “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

And Jesus replies, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Mercy. Forgiveness. Right up to his death. And in his Resurrection, does Jesus ask for retribution? Does God want justice? No. Again, and again, and again, God shows mercy. Jesus forgives.

And it’s love that wins.

This is from The SALT Project’s weekly commentary, which brings it together beautifully:

“And what do we call this kind of love, this completely free, above-and-beyond, gratuitous giving? We call it “grace.” We may think of grace primarily as the unmerited, saving love of God — and well we should, Jesus says, for God “is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” But at the same time, this is exactly the love Jesus calls us to live out, not as gods or angels but as “children of the Most High,” human beings created in God’s image: “Be merciful, just as God is merciful” When we love this way, we embody the imago Dei (the image of God). This is the love we were made for.

Making Space for Hope

“In the beginning…” seems like a solid place to start. It’s how both Genesis and the Gospel According to John get going. Genesis opens with “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” and John with “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

That’s not an accident or coincidence–John knew Genesis and sends the reader back to it in our minds, at the same time revealing something new to us.

A number of churches use a common lectionary, a common set of readings, so that the readings are prescribed and the same for a given day, and they change each year, rotating through a three-year cycle. This year, on Christmas Eve, we read/heard the birth story from Luke, the one that Linus used when explaining the meaning of Christmas to Charlie Brown. And on Sunday, Dec. 28, the first Sunday following Christmas, we read/heard the “In the beginning” prologue of John’s Gospel. If you are curious, here are the readings laid out for the Christmas season.

A number of years ago, I sat down to read the New Testament on my own, to see what the fuss was about. It was all fascinating (it must have done something, I work for a church now) but it was the beginning of John’s Gospel that gave me goose bumps–it sent me somewhere in the way that poetry and Scripture is designed to do. And as timing would have it, at Christ Church Easton, we currently have three classes in the middle of a chapter-by-chapter study of John’s Gospel. As we listened to yesterday’s reading, I found myself wishing everybody there had the perspective of a slow read and discussion of the Gospels, making them relevant, making them personal, giving you more to reflect on, and opening you up.

Scripture is one thing, inspired words meant to point us to something bigger–to God, to community, to each other. What we do with Scripture, how we relate it and relate to it is equally as important. In his sermons and discussions, Fr. Bill Ortt has been pointing us toward hope.

Earlier this month, Fr. Bill talked about how it getting dark so early in the evenings affects him, throws him into a funk, and that a slight, almost imperceptible turning point, the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year,is a game-changer for him. That after that day, he knew that each day after it was light out for just a little bit longer. The change is “imperceptible, but real,” he said.

“Learning to find the signs of hope is my spiritual discipline during this season. As long as there is any light in the world, there is hope.”

Fr. Bill Ortt

The Christmas season is a thin place, a place where the Holy Spirit is close and also a place where memories, heartache, pain, family, stress–you name it, are all right there. For me, it’s a time where my emotions and my psyche are on a roller coaster–from high highs to low lows and back again.

Yesterday, Fr. Bill walked us through connections from Genesis to John. He walked us through the creation narrative:

“…the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light;” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness…” (Genesis 1:2-4)

The biblical Hebrew word for chaos, the formless void is “Tohu wa-bohu,” which is a word that has stuck with me since first hearing it a few years ago. So when dealing with this chaos, this formless void, this tohu wa-bohu, the first thing God does is shine light on it. The second thing He does is create space, separates light from darkness, day from night. This is key.

And it’s something we can do as well, when faced with chaos–we can shine a light on it, and create space around it. Fr. Bill points out that “chaos is the condition for new creation.” Shine a light, make space, create/start something new. God can help us use the chaos in our lives to begin something new.

“Allowing for this new creation that He will make in our hearts and our lives. It’s the same truth, the same love, the same hope for us today in our lives as it was then. It’s something we can see, feel, and know; that we might become what God intends us to be: just children on earth.”

Fr. Bill

This isn’t always easy. I saw friends on Christmas Eve who are going through their first holidays without a family member who was a huge light in their lives, and in the life of our community. Yesterday a friend was found dead in his car, who leaves behind a young son. There is pain and heartbreak everywhere we look. And sometimes it’s too much.

And at the same time, there are weddings, births, people in communities reaching out to help others. There are days getting longer. There are chances. There is light. There is hope. This morning, as I sat down to write about hope, there was an e-mail in my inbox with the subject, “The Wild Hope,” from the Frederick Buechner Center. As often happens with me, Buechner’s words give voice to my mind and my heart. So we will finish with him:

“TO LOOK AT THE last great self-portraits of Rembrandt or to read Pascal or hear Bach’s B-minor Mass is to know beyond the need for further evidence that if God is anywhere, he is with them, as he is also with the man behind the meat counter, the woman who scrubs floors at Roosevelt Memorial, the high-school math teacher who explains fractions to the bewildered child. And the step from “God with them” to Emmanuel, “God with us,” may not be as great as it seems. What keeps the wild hope of Christmas alive year after year in a world notorious for dashing all hopes is the haunting dream that the child who was born that day may yet be born again even in us and our own snowbound, snowblind longing for him.” – From “A Room Called Remember.”

Space for Grace

Tohu wa-bohu. It’s fun to say. Like an incantation you would chant while waving a magic wand over a hat. Tohu wa-bohu. It’s a Hebrew phrase from the Book of Genesis, describing the state of the Universe before God created order. “Formless void,” and “primordial chaos” are two of the translations I enjoy the most.

It’s a phrase Fr. Bill Ortt has unpacked in a couple different small groups at Christ Church Easton of late. He used it to point out that the first things that God created, in addition to light, were time and space. These were the ordering principles of the Universe. To get rid of the chaos, it was light, time, and space.

The image above is William Blake’s “Ancient of Days,” in which God creates order out of chaos. Blake is depicting God putting his orderly stamp on the Tohu wa-bohu. It’s an image I am familiar with: it’s on my left shoulder, the first tattoo I ever got, when I was 25, after my first encounter with Blake in Dr. Gillin’s British Romanticism class at Washington College. Funny to come back to it in a new way, almost 20 years later.

There is something to that need for order. When we want to calm the chaos in our own lives, we need to shine a light on things and create time and space. When things get hectic, there is a blueprint that goes back to the beginning.

I’ve been reading Anne Lamott’s “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith.” I like Lamott for her honesty, humor, compassion; for her irreverent reverence; for her willingness and ability to shine the light on herself and laugh and make us laugh at what she finds; for her willingness to wrestle God and surrender; and for her unique and personal path and walk of faith.

Both in reading her and for some time before, I have had the notion of “grace” on my mind. Here is how Lamott looks at it:

It is unearned love–the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It’s the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.

There is so much there that I like. Grace is what is left when we have nothing else. It’s what is there when we are on empty. It’s foundational. It’s also not something we have alone, or by ourselves. Grace connects us to God and to each other. Sometimes that is a tough lesson to learn for those of us who are hermits by nature.

Here is another way she puts it, “Man is broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.” Let’s play that out to bricks and mortar. A single brick only gets you so far. With a bunch of bricks, you can have a sidewalk, patio, house, etc. But the key to putting bricks together is mortar. And you have to make space for the mortar to join them together and make them stronger.

You have to make space for grace. If we get so busy with our lives, or so self-absorbed that we can’t see or feel grace, we are the bricks without mortar. We are the ones deluding ourselves that we can do it on our own.

We are broken. We live by mending. The grace of God is glue. We need to make space for grace.