We Could All Use a Little Mercy Now

          Mary Gauthier is a recovering alcoholic and a writer of songs.  Her voice has the gravelly earthiness you might expect from someone who has abused herself because of her life choices.  From her experiences, and in recovery, she has much wisdom to share.  Since she has been on the down and out, seamy side of life, she has great empathy for those who are still there.  She does not judge, and through her songs invites us to look at the beaten down with eyes of grace.

          One of my favorite songs she sings is “Mercy Now.”  She sings about her father and the unfairness he has experienced.  She sings about her brother and his demons.  In every verse she ponders the struggles of people, and society in general, as we try to make a way through this world.  And she concludes that “we all could use some mercy now.”

          I stumbled across a local TV broadcast of a nearby preaching service yesterday.  I stayed tuned just long enough to hear the preacher rant and rave against everything and everybody he didn’t agree with and consign them all to hell before I changed the channel.  It took him less than 2 minutes to condemn the world around him. 

I felt the need to apologize to all the non-Christians in the world for this particular preacher’s un-Christ-like demeanor.  I don’t doubt that there is judgment coming.  In some form or fashion, I believe God will set right what is wrong, and perhaps there is some pain and even punishment to come.  But what disturbed me most about this particular preacher was that he didn’t seem the least bit heartbroken about that possibility.  Perhaps he has forgotten what the scripture says, that God takes “no delight in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23; 33:11).”

As I understand Jesus and his crucifixion, his death is to be understood as a mercy for sinners.  “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).”  And as Jesus says further, “Be ye merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful (Luke 6:36).”  So, if God is merciful, understands our need for mercy, and is willing to offer it in such a costly way, it seems as if God’s messengers (and preachers) should also bathe their words in the waters of mercy as well.

As Mother Teresa has reportedly said, “Be kind, most people are having a hard time.”

We all could use a little mercy now.

                                                                             God’s Peace,

                                                                                   Mark

                                                    

Unconditional

          What sets Jesus apart from the rest of humanity was his capacity to love unconditionally.  This is (along with some additional points), indeed, why we Christians say he was the Son of God.  Jesus loved in a way the rest of us only occasionally do, thus there was something fundamentally different about him --- he was Other than we are. 

He had compassion for the crowds.  He showed kindness to the prostitute.  He offered hospitality to the tax collector as well as the poor.  He showed no favoritism among those of different social strata.  He loved all equally, and fully, with no conditions, no strings attached.  Even as he was crucified he loved them all – loved us all – pronouncing no curses on his persecutors.

          One caveat here:  Jesus did reserve some choice words of judgment for folks who were self-righteously religious.  The 23^rd Chapter of Matthew’s Gospel offers us a stark picture of Jesus as one who could not condone the hypocrisy of the overly-religious Pharisees of his own day.  He was appalled at the way they made their religion not a joy but a burden on the people.  I suspect Jesus was upset because these semi-professional religious folks were implying that God’s love was conditional.  One telling quote is verse 15, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”

          My colleague, Rich Irwin, once said to me that he keeps that verse handy as a reminder that his ministry to people is not to trip them up in have-to’s, ought-to’s, and musts, but to release them for joyful living. 

          As a pastor I must remind myself daily to love people for who they are, not for what they can do for me, or even for what they can do for the church.  That we are loved unconditionally, as Jesus loved, is at the heart of the Christian message, and to love in that way is the essence of Christian discipleship.  Everything else is just decoration.

          Obedience to certain principles of morality and ethics is helpful, of course, but I believe we find our true, authentic selves, not by following principles (no matter how high-sounding), but by responding to being loved unconditionally. 

          Theologian Douglas Adams likens it to his experience of his grandparents.  Parents expect their children to toe the line, to follow the rules, which is all well and good.  But when children fail to measure up, as happens to all of us, grandparents will take them in their arms and love them in spite of their shortcomings.  And when any of us are loved in this way it sets us free to be our best selves.  When we believe there is nothing we can do that will prevent us from being loved, then we are liberated to attempt living at its best, and fullest. 

          God loves, unconditionally, every one of us.  That is the message that Jesus incarnates.  There is nothing we can do to make God love us more than God already does, AND there is nothing we can do to make God love us any less.  Go, therefore, and live . . . and love.  That’s why God made you.  This is the way Jesus saves you.       

Belief: It's Not What You Know

          Early Christianity was not without its controversies and divisions, no less than today.  The apostle Paul’s writings to the Corinthians make this clear.  The disagreements continued into the centuries to come.  One early school of Christian thought came to be known as the “gnostics.”  Among their teachings was the notion that only a select few had access to the necessary knowledge, or “gnosis,” that would gain them salvation or escape from this physical world.

          In time, the gnostics were considered a sect that did not represent the core of Christian teaching, or “orthodoxy.”  However, there are remnants of Gnosticism that linger on.  One of the values of learning the disputes in ancient church history is the way those same issues arise among the people of God even today.  What’s new is old.

          There is a version of Christianity that suggests that you have to believe in certain precepts in order to attain salvation.  They may be the four spiritual laws, or twelve abiding principles, or seven habits, etc., but what they have in common is a presumption that agreement with these precepts leads to salvation.  Salvation becomes a head game, a matter of what you know, or what you think.  And if you don’t think like I do, or know what I know, then you are lost.

          Those last few sentences should sound familiar because they describe the practice of many contemporary Christians; and it is a modern manifestation of Gnosticism.  Almost every church has a few gnostics.  And some of them can be rather virulent. 

          There are passages in the New Testament of the Bible that seem to lean in a gnostic direction, as Paul’s words to the church at Colossae:  “I became [the church’s] servant according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints (Colossians 1:25).”   However, in context, the mystery that Paul is revealing is never intended for a select few but for all the world.  Paul is constantly crossing both geographical and socio-ethnic boundaries to reveal this mystery to all.  And the “mystery” is not so much a body of knowledge as it is a witness to the living presence of Christ available to every believer.

          Belief, then, is not about WHAT you know, but WHO you know.  Or rather, the assurance that you are KNOWN by a God who loves you enough to be with you in your darkest hour, even in the midst of suffering and death.  The essence of Christian belief is not a body of knowledge that sets you apart from everyone else, but the revelation that God loves the world so much that God enters into the worst aspects of the human condition in order to redeem, reconcile, and make new.

          The problem with modern versions of Gnosticism is that they still make salvation into something that believer has to do (or think).  But in orthodox Christianity, the source of salvation is always in what God has already done.  So, salvation is not about thinking the right thoughts, or even believing the right things.  Salvation is about trusting the love God has for us.  The apostle Paul writes to the Corinthian church, " if I understand all mysteries and all knowledge . . . but do not have love, I am nothing (1 Cor. 13:2)."

          I am reminded of the words spoken by priest, Blackie Ryan, in a novel by Andrew Greeley.  Father Ryan says that he doesn’t believe everything the church teaches but what he does believe in, he does so with all his heart.  I invite you not so much to agree with every doctrine of the church (though don’t be so hasty to dismiss it all), but to trust with all your heart the love that God has for all humanity, and thus, for you.  It’s not what you know, it’s Who knows you.