Today, in Mercy, in our reading from Acts, we see how the courage and inspiration of the disciples amazed to surrounding community.
The disciples had been known as ordinary women and men, but the power of their new-found witness was stunning:
The leaders, elders, and scribes were amazed, and they recognized them as the companions of Jesus. Then when they saw the man who had been cured
standing there with them, they could say nothing in reply.
This powerful witness in the disciples was not a showy, self-promoting swagger.
Rather, they had been radically transformed by their faith in Jesus Christ. The power poured out of them, like light from a Star.
What would it be like if the witness of our faith were so vibrant that we moved the world to wonder! What if our lives could not help but speak through our actions of mercy, justice, truth and peace?
Music:I Will Stand as a Witness of Christ
(Please see note below song. Thanks.)
On Friday night, my religious community shares the joy of celebrating the lives of such witnesses, our Sisters marking 25, 50, 60, 70, 75, 80 and 85 years of faithful, merciful service. In an additional post, I will list their names with two poems I used while praying for them this morning.
Please join us in grateful prayer for these dear Sisters today.
Today, in Mercy, Jesus asks his disciples, “Why do questions arise in your heart?”
Honestly, Lord? How could they not? You have, after all, just RISEN FROM THE DEAD! We’re not used to that, and we’re not sure how to handle it!
And about that Last Supper, when you said the bread and wine were your Body and Blood? It’s a pretty amazing statement, and we’re still trying to comprehend it.
We’re just human beings, Lord. Our minds naturally work to solve problems. That’s why we have questions – we like answers.
Only now, as Resurrection People, are we beginning to learn that you are much more the “The Answer”.
You will always be “The Mystery” – the Infinity we are invited to – where there is no end, only deeper, always deeper.
Help us to learn that our faith and our doubts are the same thing – they are our attempts to embrace the Question. Help us transform our doubts to faith by our unequivocal trust in your Mystery.
For God does not want to be believed in, to be debated and defended by us, but simply to be realized through us.” ― Martin Buber
Mystery is not to be construed as a lacuna in our knowledge, as a void to be filled, but rather as a certain plentitude. — Gabriel Marcel
Today, in Mercy, our readings present us with a picture of the nascent Church as it works toward understanding itself in the physical absence of Jesus.
Throughout the Gospels, we see a Christian community forming around a Leader they can see, hear and touch. Acts reveals how that community awakens to itself when Jesus is no longer materially present.
Acts shows us a Church like us. We have never seen Christ, nor heard him, nor touched him. And yet we believe, or want to believe.
In our reading today, Peter preaches with brutal honesty:
Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.
Peter’s message gets through to the assembly, to the point that, when they hear it, they are “cut to the heart”.
This phrase indicates a profound conversion in the way they believed. Peter tells them that their faith, like Jesus’ life, must now become a sign of contradiction to a “corrupt generation “.
What might this powerful passage say to us?
For one thing, the reading calls us to be honest about the sincerity of our faith. Is it the core of our lives? Or is it, at best, a Sunday hobby? Does it pervade our relationships and choices, giving witness to Christ’s commission to love? Or is it a tool to judge and vilify those who differ from us?
The reading doesn’t demand that we “preach out loud”. It calls us to a much more courageous witness:
to be Truth in a world of lies
to be Peace in violence
to be Justice in the face of abuse and domination
to be Servant rather than be served
to be Love for those deemed unlovable
in other words, to be like Jesus
And to do it all because we have been “cut to the heart” by the witness of the Cross and Resurrection.
Today, in Mercy,in our readings the distress of both Jeremiah and Jesus becomes palpable.
Jeremiah says:
All those who were my friends are on the watch for any misstep of mine.
And Jesus, as the crowd pick up stones to throw at him, says:
I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of these are you trying to stone me?
The Psalmist responds for both Jesus and Jeremiah:
In my distress I called upon the LORD and cried out to my God; From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.
Jesus tells his persecutors:
If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me; but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.
Perhaps Jesus is also speaking to us in any place where our faith is weak, or we harbor doubts. He is asking us to place absolute trust in him in all things. It’s a big request and one we work a lifetime to achieve.
In our prayer, we might take time to remember the works God has already accomplished in our lives, the gifts God has given us through the years, the wonders of Creation we have experienced, the loves that have graced our days.
In gratitude and trust, let us place any distress in our hearts into the open heart of Jesus, repeating our Gospel verse for today:
Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life; you have the words of everlasting life.
Music: Your Words Are Spirit and Life – Bernadette Farrell
Today, in Mercy, our readings speak to our innate desire to have another chance, to start fresh.
Don’t you love to get something new? A new outfit that refashions not only your appearance but your attitude? A fresh coat of paint on a room that has grown commonplace? A few new plantings in your winter-dried flower boxes?
Even as a kid, didn’t you treasure that new box of crayons? That unscuffed baseball when the season started? That second piece of construction paper when your first effort flopped?
Isaiah knows how we feel. He is speaking, in today’s passage, to a people bereft by their circumstances and recent history. They have suffered invasion, exile, tribal strife, and the destruction of the Temple. The faith of the masses had been weakened almost beyond repair.
But Isaiah challenges his listeners to renew their hearts. God is greater than all they have suffered. And God is offering them that second chance, that fresh sheet of paper, that box of whole crayons:
Instead, there shall always be rejoicing and happiness in what I create; For I create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight; I will rejoice in Jerusalem and exult in my people.
What we have to understand from this passage is that God is talking to us! We are Jerusalem! Any suffering in our lives, the pain, disappointment, brokenness, heartache and sin that might burden us is going to be transformed. In the Eternal Creation, all will be joy and fullness of life.
And we don’t have to wait until we die to experience that new creation. Our faith, ever deepened by God’s grace, lets us live in that joy even in the midst of our everyday challenges.
This is the profound lesson Jesus is about to teach us by his Passion, Death and Resurrection. This week’s readings, in a dynamic mix of joy and sorrow, lead us more deeply into that understanding.
Music:O Day of Peace That Dimly Shines –Carl P. Daw
Today, in Mercy,halfway through Lent, we see in our readings glimpses of new life.
The captivity in Egypt had been TOUGH on Israel. During those many decades, they had appeared to be abandoned and forgotten by God.It was a harsh reckoning for them … hard to be forgotten. Even then, when they thought they had found freedom, they still wandered for forty years in the desert.
But now Israel stands at a new horizon.Moses has died and Joshua has become Israel’s leader.God tells him that it is a new day:
“Today I have removed the reproach of Egypt from you.”
In our second reading, Paul tells us:
Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.
And in our revered Gospel story of the Prodigal Son, Jesus tells us:
This beloved child of mine was dead, and has come to life again; was lost, and has been found.
All of these passages speak to us in our Lenten journey, and in our Life journey.We have experienced our own “Egypts”, times when we felt disconnected, even abandoned, by God.We have sometimes felt we were journeying aimlessly toward an unknown goal. We have at times wandered, like the prodigal son, from the path of God’s love. We have darknesses in our memories that still long for Light.
This poem from Mary Oliver might capture the feeling for us:
Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
~ Mary Oliver ~
In today’s readings, God is reminding us that the Light awaits us. Forgiveness, reconciliation, new energy and grace are the gifts of Easter – the gifts where we must keep our eyes focused as we journey.
So let us do as e.e.cummings encourages us in this poem:
Let It Go – e.e. cummings
let it go – the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise – let it go it
was sworn to
go
let them go – the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers – you must let them go they
were born
to go
let all go – the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things – let all go
dear
so comes love
Music: Remember Not the Things of the Past – Bob Hurd
(Lyrics below)
Remember not the things of the past;
now I do something new,
do you not see it?
Now I do something new, says the Lord.
In our distress God has grasped us by the hand,
opened a path in the sea, and we shall pass over,
we shall pass over, free at last.
In our parched land of hypocrisy and hate,
God makes a river spring forth,
a river of mercy, truth and compassion; come and drink.
And who among us is sinless in God’s sight?
Then who will cast the first stone, when he who was sinless
carried our failings to the cross?
Pressing ahead, letting go what lies behind,
may we be found in the Lord, and sharing his dying,
share in his rising from the dead.
Today, in Mercy, our two readings encourage us to be humble and repentant.
In the reading from Hosea, God is very clear:
For it is love that I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God
rather than burnt offerings.
In our Gospel, Jesus tells us the parable of the proud Pharisee and the humble tax collector. The Pharisee’s prayer shows his judgmental self-satisfaction with all the sacrifices he’s made:
O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity — greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’
On the other hand, we have the scorned tax collector ( a status we can understand this time of year:-) who admits his weakness and need for God’s mercy.
Oh God, have mercy on me, a sinner!
The readings are really about seeing ourselves in the light of God’s truth, while knowing that our merciful God loves us infinitely, even in our weakness. They are about being open to that mercy so that we can know the fullness of God’s grace.
Looking at my graphic for today, you may wonder how I’m going to connect that command to baseball’s Opening Day. Watch! 😊⚾️
There’s no better feeling than an “opening day” feeling. No matter how bad you were last year, you have a clean slate for the new season. You’ve had a chance to assess your weaknesses and rehab them. You’ve been able to add some strengths you needed but had neglected. You’ve got another carte blanche chance to be everything you were born to be! Now you’re standing in the batter’s box just listening for that thrilling phrase, “Play ball!”
Guess what! You’ve been doing all the same things throughout Lent. You’ve taken a look at your life and straightened a few things out. You’ve dusted off the plate, so to speak, and you’re ready to start fresh as Easter approaches.
Today’s readings are telling us to tune in, listen, for God’s coaching in our lives. The game of life plays out for us in ways we could never imagine. But God imagines- and will guide us through to home plate if we just “hear God’s voice and harden not our hearts”.
Today, in Mercy, we have powerful readings – they get really serious about repentance!
In our first reading, Moses has been on a kind of decades-long sabbatical on his father-in-law’s homestead. After the young glory days of Egypt, and the ensuing drama that exiled him, Moses had settled into being a humble shepherd in Midian. He probably wasn’t expecting a fiery, direct telegram from God.
But God never gives up on his plan for us. So God, divinely expert at getting our attention, conflagrates a bush right in front of Moses.Supposedly, it was not that unusual for this type of bush to spontaneously combust in the desert heat. What was unusual was for it not to be consumed by the fire.
God then delivers a message of overwhelming fidelity to Moses:
Thus shall you say to the Israelites: The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever; thus am I to be remembered through all generations.
Because of God’s mercy and fidelity, the Israelites – and Moses – are getting another chance to live in covenant with God.
In our Gospel, Jesus tells his followers not to ignore such chances. He reminds his listeners that life is fragile and transitory. If we haven’t acted on God’s invitation to grace, we might lose the opportunity.
If we look back over our lives, we might realize that there have been burning bushes all over the place – times and events where life offered us a choice between grace and sin, smallness of heart, selfishness. When we chose grace, the bush kept burning and was not consumed. It lit our way to deeper covenant with God.
These final weeks of Lent offer us countless encouragements to look for God’s Fire in our hearts and to go deeper toward the Light. Let’s not ignore them.
Today, in Mercy, our readings pour out the lavish mercy of God. Our prayer invites us bask in that warmth and understanding.
The prophet Micah asks,
“Who is there like You … the God who delights in clemency?”
Our Psalm reminds us that “the Lord is kind and merciful”:
For as the heavens are high above the earth, so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he put our transgressions from us.
(Two musical selections today.)
Then Jesus tells us the tender parable of the Prodigal Son, which is really more about the Merciful Father. He receives his contrite child in the same way that God receives us in our repentance.
Sometimes we become so content with ourselves that we fail to realize our need for contrition. Sometimes our failures are buried so deep and so long in us that we become blind to them. Repentance is the grace to break through that blindness.
We were created to be an image of the merciful God we meet in today’s scripture. Where we are short of that in our actions, words, choices and attitudes – that’s where we have need of repentance.
Rembrandt’s magnificent painting captures a sacred feeling that might help our prayer. Sometimes we are the gracious Father – loving, forgiving, hoping and working for life in others. Sometimes we are the son, returning from our own destructive selfishness to seek a new beginning. Sometimes we are a little bit of each.
Lavish Mercy 