Readings for Lent
2C:
Philippians 3:17-4:1; Collect [BCP 218]
March 7. 2004
The Rev. Karen Siegfriedt
St. Jude the Apostle Episcopal Church, Cupertino,
CA
The door of mercy has hinges. It may be shut and then locked with the unyielding conviction that retributive justice must prevail. Or the door of mercy can be swung wide open as a gesture of healing and new possibilities. The choice is always ours! Today I want to talk about mercy. I will use the opening collect and today's epistle as my texts.
In the middle of the first century, Paul wrote a letter to a newly formed Christian community in Philippi which was located in what is now called northern Greece. Paul was in prison when he wrote the letter yet "joy" was its prevailing note. Unlike the congregation in Corinth (which was very dysfunctional), the congregation in Philippi was living out the gospel of Christ. Of course, they were beginners, & Paul was advising them how to live the Christian faith. In today's reading, Paul is encouraging the Philippians to stay on track. He warns them that there are many out there taking other paths, choosing other goals, and trying to get the Philippians to go along with them. What these outsiders want, is easy street! They have forgotten that the way of the cross is an integral part of the Christian lifestyle. This way of the cross is not a religion of good feelings but rather is a call to imitate Christ: To love as he loved; to give as he gave; to move beyond the self and serve others; to hold fast to the truth; and to use one's passions for the glory of God rather than to simply feed self-indulgent appetites.
Christ is the blueprint for Christian behavior. Following this blueprint is what it means to become a disciple. And while most of us in 21st century America will not be crucified for standing up for our deepest convictions, we will be called upon to live in a way that reflects the mercy of God.
Mercy is compassion or forbearance shown to another person or an offender. It may include clemency or kindness extended to someone in place of strictness or severity. While translated by many words, the Holy Scriptures frequently express mercy as loving-kindness. When we speak of God's mercy, the Hebrew word hesed or loving-kindness is at the top of the list.
When God's grace takes over our lives, loving-kindness permeates our decision making process. Out of this posture of loving-kindness, acts of mercy become possible. For instance, loving-kindness motivates people to render aid to the sick, the suffering, and the poor. We call this activity of reaching out to others, acts of mercy. Loving-kindness often illicits feelings of emotion which motivate people to reach out in pity or compassion. We call this merciful feeling, sympathy. Loving-kindness can also motivate people to give offenders a little slack by lessening the punishment or wiping the slate clean. We call this posture of mercy, forgiveness or clemency.
The most poignant memory of forgiveness that I experienced as a young adult was in Nashville TN. I was studying chemical engineering technology and working one day/week as a nurse. My take home pay was $56/wk. I had borrowed my friend's car to go to the grocery store. After putting my groceries in the trunk, I backed out of the parking space. Not being familiar with driving such a big car, I cut my wheels too soon and hit the rear fender of the car next to me. I jumped out of the car to survey the damage. My heart sank as I remembered that my friend had not paid her car insurance. Questions ran through my mind: How much does it cost to repair a dented fender? How am I going to pay this bill with my $56/wk? What am I going to do?
I took out a pencil and paper, wrote down my phone number and the words "I hit your car", and then drove home. A few hours later, the owner of the car called me. He asked me what the note was all about. I explained to him that I accidentally hit his car and that I was sorry. He told me to stay on the line while he went out to examine the damage. When he came back, he said: "Don't worry about it. It's not that bad." Mercy had been shown to me. I did not deserve the mercy because I was guilty of the offense. However, in a posture of loving-kindness, he was willing to absorb the injury that I had committed in order to free me from a great burden.
Fourteen years later, I found myself sitting in the parking lot of a Lutheran Church in Los Gatos. A man had come to drop off his daughter and was in a hurry to move on. He backed out of his parking place and miscalculated the distance. My car jerked forward as I heard a big thump. As I got out of my car, I could see great distress on this man's face. I looked at my bumper, smiled, and said: "Don't worry it. It's not that bad." The cycle of mercy was passed on.
Our hope for a better life on earth is proportional to our ability to have loving-kindness and mercy. Francis Bacon once said: "A man who studies revenge keeps his own wounds, green." The ground of forgiveness, compassion, and mercy, is fertile ground. From this fertile ground comes a different future. Mercy is one way to break a cycle or pattern of harmful behavior that is passed down within a community or from one generation to the next. Let's compare this principle of mercy to the principle of karma and retributive justice.
Karma is a principle which plays an integral part in Far Eastern philosophy and religion. Karma refers to the ethical consequences of a person's good or bad actions (thoughts, word, and deed) that determine the fate of his/her future or next existence. In other words, if you screw up now, you are going to have to pay the price later. If you do what is right in the present, you will reap the rewards in the future. This kind of philosophy appeals to our sense of justice.
When we speak of justice in this sense, we are usually referring to retributive justice. Retributive justice is the punishing or rewarding of an individual or nation based on their "just deserts." When we speak of God's justice, I think we need to be careful not to narrow “justice” to the act of punishing and rewarding. God is much more interested in distributive justice.
Distributive justice is a justice grounded on the fair distribution of privileges and goods which serves the best interests of the greater society. We know that when resources are fairly distributed, more people are able to live in dignity. When people are brought up in an environment of dignity, there is less despair and fewer acts of aggression that fuel the cycle of violence. Mercy is one way to break the cycle of violence. Reacting to violence with violence does little to break the cycle of violence. Mercy is a Christian principle that says no to the fate of karma and yes to new possibilities. Remember, God's mercy is always a little stronger than God's justice. And if we are to be disciples of Christ, our mercy needs to be a little stronger than our notion of retributive justice.
So where do we go from here? How do we receive the grace to transform our hearts from an earthly desire of wanting justice to prevail to a heavenly desire of showing loving-kindness and mercy? This kind of transformation does not happen by human will alone. Grace is the power of God working in us that can do far more than we can ever do by using our ego-strength alone. Transformation of the human heart does not happen without grace. So how do set ourselves up to experience the power of God's grace? We set ourselves up to experience grace through the practice of the spiritual disciplines.
Let me give you an image of the relationship between the spiritual disciplines and the action of grace. Imagine yourself sitting out in the middle of a lake in a sailboat. The wind comes and goes where it will, yet when caught by the sail, it has the power to propel the sailboat forward. We can't control the wind but we can position our sail to catch the wind. If you do not know how to position the sail, the sailboat will either stay put or will go off course in a direction that you do not want to go. This same thing happens in the spiritual life. We can stay put, go off course, or position ourselves to capture the wind of the Holy Spirit to direct and transform or hearts. The spiritual disciplines are postures, in the life of a Christian, that teach us how to hoist our sail and direct it so that the grace of God can move us forward. If you want to learn more about grace and the spiritual disciplines, please come to the Lenten Forums on Wednesdays. But in the meantime, here are a few acts of mercy that you might want to practice in the following week. Choose the one that touches you the most.
"O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy. Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen" [Collect of the Day]
| Updated 3/7/04 |
|