Tag Archives: Mercy

What encounters with God’s power are we capable of seeing? (11th Sunday after Pentecost, 8/24/2025)

Leave a reply

Readings (Track 2)

As our first reading reminds us, it’s hard to overestimate the importance of the Sabbath in Jewish faith and practice: “If you refrain from trampling the sabbath, / from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; / if you call the sabbath a delight / and the holy day of the Lord honorable; / if you honor it, not going your own ways, /serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs…”

In the Ten Commandments: “you shall not do any work.” But what counts as work? That question generates considerable interpretive attention. Judging by the rabbinic writings, when it comes to healing, the general principle is “saving life overrules the Sabbath” (b. Yoma 85b), so, for any particular case, is it a question of life or death?[1]

So the synagogue leader’s response is understandable. Were anyone but Jesus involved we might be inclined to agree.

There are a couple ways we might understand Jesus’ response. Jesus asks: “Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water?” This sounds like Jesus’ response when challenged about another healing on the Sabbath: “I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?” (Lk. 6:9) Jesus thinks the meaning, the intention, of the Law is very much worth discussing, and in that discussion the prophet Hosea’s “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matt. 9:13; cf. Hos 6:6) plays a big role. “Very much worth discussing”—which perhaps makes Jesus’ warning that we heard last Sunday a bit more understandable: “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”

Or there’s Jesus’ appropriation of Isaiah at the beginning of his public ministry: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Lk. 4:18-19). If that’s Jesus’ commission, that does shift the interpretation of the Sabbath law. Something new is happening; someone new is onstage.

Whether Jesus’ response is based on giving more weight to texts like Hosea’s or reflective of his now being onstage—or both—in his eyes setting that woman free was profoundly honoring to the Sabbath.

In this morning’s collect we prayed “Grant… that your Church… may show forth your power.” And today’s Gospel gives us multiple ways of thinking about how our merciful God might respond. There is, first and foremost, the healing itself. “Release to the captives.” This daughter of Abraham matters. And her healing: a foretaste of the healings for which we all hope.

Another way our merciful God might respond: Jesus coming among us to ask what our traditions are about. The Sabbath stories were passed down also because the Church faced similar interpretive problems. How should the Gentile believers be received? Which laws apply and how? Jesus’ appeal to Hosea (“I desire mercy, not sacrifice”) remained—remains!—relevant. God’s power: shown forth in our continuing to listen to Jesus’ questions (“I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?”) What questions is Jesus asking us?

Another way our merciful God might respond to the petition in the Collect: the choices that woman continued to make over eighteen long years. Why keep attending synagogue for eighteen years when nothing is happening? But she’s a true daughter of Abraham. If Abraham could continue believing despite being childless for decades she could keep showing up. And then that Sabbath Jesus is there, and her presence allows that Sabbath to be properly celebrated! The faithfulness of so many in our parishes despite chronic infirmity: a precious witness to God’s power.

Then there’s the leader of the synagogue. We heard his response to the healing. He could have played it differently: “Let’s pray together the Hallelujah psalms at the end of the Psalter!” Or: “Jesus, Jacob over there lost an eye a few years back. Can you do something for him?” But how we play it depends on who we are, and—as is not often enough observed—“We see things not as they are but as we are.”[2] The synagogue leader’s responses are limited by who he is at that moment. All he can see is Jesus trampling on the Sabbath.

And this is perhaps where today’s text connects thematically to its immediate surroundings in Luke’s Gospel. The previous verses—like most of last week’s reading—urged repentance. Repentance: not just for them, but an ongoing project for every Christian. Recall our brother Martin Luther and the first of his 95 Theses: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” ‘Repentance,’ or, in common speech, that toxic word ‘change’ (“How many Episcopalians does it take to change a lightbulb?” “Change?”). Our brother John Henry Newman nailed it: To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.[3]

“Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples.” This is where the Holy Spirit needs to roll up the sleeves: what conversations are we capable of having with Jesus? Jesus says or does something unexpected: are we right there with the synagogue ruler? (“Change? Not on my watch!”) That depends on who we are, who we’re becoming. And so we keep coming to the Table asking that the Holy Spirit will continue to do both the work we know needs doing and the necessary work about which we’re clueless: “Sanctify us also that we may faithfully receive this holy Sacrament, and serve you in unity, constancy, and peace; and at the last day bring us with all your saints into the joy of your eternal kingdom.”

[1] See Marcus Mark 1-8, p.248.

[2] Anaïs Nin (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9268209-we-see-things-not-as-they-are-but-as-we, accessed 8/18/2025).

[3] https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_henry_newman_159078, accessed 8/18/2025.

When Mercy meets “Us & Them” (5th Sunday after Pentecost, 7/13/2025)

Leave a reply

Readings (Track 1)

This morning let’s focus on three elements in today’s Gospel. First, the lawyer’s answer to Jesus’ first question: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Second, the lawyer’s second question: “And who is my neighbor?” Third, the final interchange: “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” “The one who showed him mercy.” “Go and do likewise.”

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

In Matthew and Mark this is Jesus’ answer to the question of which commandment is the most important (Matt 22:36ff; Mk 12:28ff). Perhaps the lawyer had been listening to Jesus! What of Jesus’ reply: “do this, and you will live”? Not because life is some sort of external prize tacked onto this commandment, but because love is at the heart of God’s life. In the first letter of John: “God is love” (4:8). If we want to live with the grain of the universe, it doesn’t get more basic than that. We might view the other two elements that we’ll be dealing with as fleshing out this theme.

“But wanting to justify himself, [the lawyer] asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” “Wanting to justify himself,” for the lawyer, like the rest of us, assumes that there’s “us” and “them” (that’s built into our language), and that “neighbor” is “us” or some subset of “us.”

“Us” and “them.” Mostly this works automatically, starting with language. Word choice, accent: after a few words we’ve slotted the speaker as one of us or them. Clothing, personal space, zip code: so many ways of slotting people into us or them.

Speaking of “us” and “them,” what do we make of the argument reflected in this morning’s psalm? The treatment of the weak, the orphan, the humble, the needy, the poor: is it really unjust? Aren’t these “the takers” (in Mitt Romney’s memorable phrasing in 2012) in contrast to “the makers,” who do deserve to be shown favor? As a nation we’re still in the middle of that argument. The weak, the orphan, the humble, the needy, the poor: how do these map onto our “us” and “them”?

“Who is my neighbor?” So Jesus tells a parable in which “neighbor” cuts across our “us/them” boxes. First, the cast of characters: Priest, Levite, Samaritan. As you recall, the Samaritan was the classic “Other;” “Be a good boy / Eat your vegetables or a Samaritan will…” Second, Jesus’ closing: “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

As Jesus reads the Torah, “neighbor” relativizes our “us/them” boxes.

Now, if we pull back the camera, there’s an obvious question. A few weeks back we heard Paul say “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Haven’t we just replaced these us/them contrasts with “Christian and non-Christian” so that we’re back where we started?

A response to that question requires two hands. On the one hand, the NT is clear: saying “yes” to Jesus is fundamental. Last week we heard Paul saying “So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith” (Gal. 6:10). On the other hand, if that “yes” motivates anything other than love, it’s no longer Jesus to whom I’m saying yes.

Consider the limit case, love of enemies. Jesus’ “love your enemies” isn’t simply one element in his teaching; it captures his Father’s modus operandi throughout the Bible.

His Father’s modus operandi: we meet this in today’s first reading from Amos and repeatedly in the coming weeks with the Old Testament lessons from the 8th & 7th century prophets. The Northern Kingdom (Israel) and Southern Kingdom (Judah) are turning their backs on God, trampling on the vulnerable (Psalm 82 again). Those two actions are two sides of the same coin: I turn my back on God and—surprise—I’m no longer in solidarity with all those who bear God’s image, but only with those who bear my image: same skin color, dialect, etc. Anyhow, Israel and Judah: they have made themselves God’s enemies. So for God all the good and easy options are off the table, and God struggles to find a way to stop the madness and to begin laying the foundation for a better future.

And it captures Jesus’ modus operandi. Two weeks ago we heard James and John offering to call down fire on a Samaritan village that—they thought—had not given Jesus a sufficiently enthusiastic reception. So Jesus finds himself for neither the first nor the last time among his enemies.

Any two-bit god can surround themselves with friends; Jesus’ God is constantly seeking out her enemies.

Our Eucharistic Prayer reminds us of this weekly. For example, Prayer A: “to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all” or, again, “Sanctify us…and serve you in unity, constancy, and peace.”

To stay with our liturgy for a moment, every week there’s the Confession and Absolution. So the divide between Christians and non-Christians isn’t between friends and enemies of God. On our good days we Christians are allowing God to continue the life-long work of transforming us from enemies into friends.

In sum, that’s one thing the parable is doing. “Neighbor” messes with our notions of “us” and “them.”

“Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” “The one who showed him mercy.” “Go and do likewise.”

Mercy, compassion. In God’s self-description to Moses in the aftermath of the Golden Calf incident, we hear “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, (  יְהוָ֣ה׀ יְהוָ֔ה אֵ֥ל רַח֖וּם וְחַנּ֑וּן) (Exod. 34:6). It’s worth noticing that that Hebrew word for ‘merciful’ (raḥûm) comes from the word for ‘womb’ (reḥem). And one of the (Greek) verbs for “have compassion” is used in the Gospels exclusively for Jesus and in a couple of Jesus’ parables—like this one, the Samaritan “moved with compassion.”

Compassion, the Gospel writers tell us, is fundamental to how Jesus navigates this world. Like Father, like Son. And this, in turn, shapes the Gospels’ understanding of how we follow Jesus. So, in the parable compassion is the turning point in the story. And if we read the parable as an image of the divine-human history, it is the turning point in that history: this Samaritan God finding us and caring for us on the Jericho road. We hear that turning point in our Eucharistic Prayers. What is the start of Eucharistic Prayer A if not an extended description of compassion?

“Holy and gracious Father: In your infinite love you made us for yourself; and, when we had fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death, you, in your mercy, sent Jesus Christ, your only and eternal Son, to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all.”

The lawyer’s answer rightly focuses on ‘compassion’ (using a different Greek word), and Jesus serves it back to him—and us: “Go and do likewise.” We might recall Jesus’ words earlier in the same Gospel: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Lk. 6:36). Be merciful: a big part of The Dummy’s Guide to Going with the Grain of the Universe.

What this sermon boils down to: an invitation to use Jesus’ parable as a lens through which to view the world we’ll encounter in the coming week. Us and them. Notice how often this gets encouraged, the subtle ways it can distort our identity. Compassion. Notice all that deadens it. Look for opportunities, however small, to practice it, inside and outside the “family of faith.” Recall former Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple’s observation: “The church is the only institution that exists primarily for the benefit of those who are not its members.”

“Love your enemies”–the downside of “God is love” (7th Sunday after the Epiphany, 2/23/25)

Leave a reply

Readings (Genesis 45:3-11, 15; Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42; 1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50; Luke 6:27-38)

Easter doesn’t often fall late enough for us to celebrate this 7th Sunday after the Epiphany. Since we often find Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel unwelcome, perhaps that’s intentional. In any case, here we are, with readings that invite us to wonder about how God holds together justice and mercy, and what that means for us.

Justice. Psalm 62 ends with “For you repay to all according to their work,” and that’s the definition of justice this sermon assumes.

Justice: the problem’s centerstage in our psalm. How are we supposed to believe in God’s justice surrounded by all these prosperous evildoers? To which the psalm responds (repeatedly): don’t be angry; be patient; “the lowly shall possess the land” (v.11)—last week we heard Jesus weave that last bit into his beatitudes. That’s all good and true as far as it goes, but what when the patience needed extends over generations? So in the last centuries leading up to Jesus books like Daniel and the Wisdom of Solomon turned to the world to come to find God’s justice.

Our reading from Paul follows that tradition. Last week, earlier in the same chapter, we heard “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied” (v.19). Why? Because within this tradition God often doesn’t make things right until the next life, the next world. And Paul concludes the chapter—past the verses we heard—with “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (v.58). Not in vain, because within this tradition only with the resurrection does life make sense, is God’s justice obvious. So Paul out of pastoral concern works at length to help his hearers imagine the resurrection.

The cries for justice are frequent in Scripture, as is the deferment of an answer. In response, there are voices—the Book of Job in particular—that suggest that while justice is important, it’s perhaps not supremely important. Gustavo Gutiérrez, whose credentials as a partisan for justice are impeccable, puts it like this in his book On Job, “The world of retribution—and not of temporal retribution only—is not where God dwells; at most God visits it” (p.88).

So if justice is not supreme, what might be? That brings us to another theme in today’s readings: mercy.

“Love your enemies” says Jesus. Why? “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.”

We don’t notice often enough how diplomatic Jesus is being. He doesn’t say—as he could easily have said–“Be merciful, just as your Father has been merciful to you.” Scripture often talks about the righteous and the wicked, and it’s easy to assume that these are quite different groups. But then we hit the fine print as it were, the penitential psalms or that line from Psalm 143 “Do not enter into judgment with your servant, / for no one living is righteous before you.” The difference between the righteous and the wicked is not that the righteous are righteous and the wicked wicked, but that the righteous are that group of the wicked who plead for mercy, who seek to act mercifully.

Within Scripture Jesus’ “love your enemies” is not a new idea. (Recall that in both Testaments love is about actions, not emotions.)  We hear this in Exodus: “When you come upon your enemy’s ox or donkey going astray, you shall bring it back. When you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden and you would hold back from setting it free, you must help to set it free” (23:4-5). But it’s not until Sirach—which the Protestant reformers relegated to the Apocrypha—that the connection between receiving mercy and showing mercy is clear: “Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done, / and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray. / Does anyone harbor anger against another, / and expect healing from the Lord? / If one has no mercy toward another like himself, / can he then seek pardon for his own sins?” (28:2-4). So Jesus in the “Lord’s Prayer:” “And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us” (Lk 11:4a).

“Love your enemies…be merciful.” How unwelcome these words were and are. “Hey Jesus, have you forgotten about the Romans and those so-called Jews who collect their taxes?” And our polarized context brings the problem into sharper relief. “Real people are being hurt; many are at risk”—that’s a cry heard across the various spectra. All this is the downside to “God is love.” “God is love” applies also to our enemies. More precisely, for the preacher, the problem is not so much God’s love, but that there’s such a chasm between how much God loves and how much I love.

So, how does God do justice and mercy? James, Jesus’ brother, nails it: “mercy triumphs over judgment” (2:13b).

So the Gospel is finally a variant on “Olly olly oxen free?” No, because there’s that first half of the verse from James that I just quoted: “For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy.” Or, as Jesus puts it in Matthew’s account: “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (6:14-15). We can hear this as justice getting its due; we can hear this as the Father extending to the merciless the only mercy they can receive. The question of eternal life is finally the question of whether we’re the sort of folk who’d want to spend eternity with this merciful God.

Recall how the Eucharist moves. Scripture and Creed remind us of God’s love and mercy. We pray, and then, more pointedly, we confess that we’re only sometimes on board with this love your enemies / be merciful business and commit ourselves again to try to do better. Then the Absolution, then the Peace.

Two more things, then we’re done. Jesus’ “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” poses two intimately related questions: How do we want to live? How does God live? Intimately related, because we rightly think that living like God sounds pretty good, but our pictures of how God lives are all over the map. How does God live? Doing whatever God wants? Answering to nobody? Showing mercy? Jesus is suggesting, I think, that if we get some clarity as to how God lives, a remarkable number of other issues sort themselves out.

Finally, Joseph in our first reading, which reminds us why all this matters. Paul spends a good deal of ink on the resurrection; from the brothers’ perspective Joseph might as well have been raised from the dead. Joseph could have moved the brothers into one of Egypt’s prisons, thrown away the key, and justice would not have raised an eyebrow. Joseph chooses mercy, chooses to acknowledge that God was also a player in their history. “And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.” Today, when too many are acting like Joseph’s brothers, our merciful God is also a player, and calling on us to show mercy.