Today, in Mercy, Matthew begins to wrap up the long series of instructions related to the Sermon on the Mount. Three familiar, and very direct, closing points punctuate today’s reading:
Pearls before swine
Do unto others
Enter by the narrow gate
They sound a bit like what a wise parent might say to a child as he or she goes off to the wide worlds of college, business or marriage. But the core of their message works for us at any age:
Today, in Mercy, Jesus once again blows all our human instincts to smithereens! He says don’t worry about what you’ll eat or wear. Seek God’s Kingdom and all your needs will be filled. Really?
We may be tempted to picture a hippie type, bird-watching and sun-bathing in a field of of flowers – all agog with the Kingdom, but not too swift with the world!
But that’s probably not what Jesus envisioned. After all, Jesus himself worked hard to secure the necessities his family needed in Nazareth. He worked hard at his ministry throughout the Holy Land, and cared deeply about the success of his message.
What He didn’t do was worry.
Worry is what happens when we think it all depends on us. It’s what happens when it’s all about us. Worry is a windowless, doorless room where we run around aimlessly. Even God has a hard time getting in to reason with us.
To break out of that room, Jesus says seek God’s way of looking at things. Work hard and do your best – but make sure it’s for important stuff like love, honor, mercy, justice, charity, and peace. Make sure it’s not for “mammon” stuff like greed, selfishness, domination, prejudice and a host of other sins that love to worry us.
If we can make these distinctions in our life, we will have a freedom like the beautiful lilies and the unfettered sparrows. It will be an amazing liberty that the evil-hearted cannot understand or compromise.
Music: Consider the Lilies of the Field (Words below)
Consider the lilies of the field,
How they grow, how they grow.
Consider the birds in the sky,
How they fly, how they fly.
He clothes the lilies of the field.
He feeds the birds in the sky.
And He will feed those who trust Him,
And guide them with His eye.
Consider the sheep of His fold,
How they follow where He leads.
Though the path may wind across the mountains,
He knows the meadows where they feed.
He clothes the lilies of the field.
He feeds the birds in the sky,
And He will feed those who trust Him,
And guide them with His eye.
Consider the sweet, tender children
Who must suffer on this earth.
The pains of all of them He carried
From the day of His birth.
He clothes the lilies of the field,
He feeds the lambs in His fold,
And He will heal those who trust Him,
And make their hearts as gold.
He clothes the lilies of the field,
He feeds the lambs in His fold,
And He will heal those who trust Him,
And make their hearts as gold.
Today, in Mercy, our readings are a study in contrasts.Our first reading from Sirach describes the fiery majesty of the prophet Elijah. Everything about Elijah was thunder and lightning.He toppled kings and raised the dead, and generally cast a path of fire as he preached. At the end of his life, he passed into heaven in a chariot of flames.
The Gospel presents a Prophet of a gentler stripe – Jesus, who is teaching us how to pray.
Jesus says to pray simply, humbly, to ask for forgiveness, and freedom from temptation. He tells us to forgive others, avoid evil and be content with our daily bread.No fiery chariots; no tumbling governments.This gentle man will die in the agony of the cross.
No wonder those who hoped for a Messiah like Elijah were disappointed in Jesus.No wonder we still struggle to understand the contradiction of the Cross.
However, Walter Brueggemann says this:The crucifixion is
“the ultimate act of prophetic criticism
in which Jesus announces the end of a world of death…
and takes the death into his own person”.
Still, the witness of Calvary would remain nothing but a contradiction without the transformative act of the Resurrection.
Through the combined witness of Good Friday and Easter, Jesus not only confronts the old order, he embraces and transforms it.He takes to himself the same suffering and death that we all must face, but he shows us that it cannot destroy us. He proves that, ultimately, death has no power over those who believe in Him and in the Father Who has sent Him.
Indeed, the Our Father is a most powerful, prophetic prayer. It teaches us how to be in the presence of God even in the midst of our daily life. It shows us how to express our faith in God’s Kingdom even as we live in our earthly one. It helps us to become a little more like gentle, powerful Jesus.
Music: Aramaic Our Father – in the orgs that Jesus likely used.
Today, in Mercy, our first reading continues to follow the journey of Elijah, one wild and crazy guy – with a holy obsession for God.Elijah is so frustrated with the hard-heartedness of the Israelites, that he whines constantly to God about it. God calls Elijah to Mt. Horeb (the same place where He first chatted with Moses) to talk the situation over. Elijah tries to find God’s voice there in a howling wind, an earthquake and a huge fire. No dice!
Elijah is so like us in this! Don’t we call on God in our troubled times, asking Him to fix things in a flash and glam? It is one of the ways we try to deal with the presence of evil in the world. We would love the security of a “Superman” God Who dramatically intervenes to reverse reality according to our comfort.
But how rare are such miracles! Instead, God abides quietly and steadily in the unfolding of our life, both in sorrow and joy. God whispers the directions to eternal life, deep under the noise of our human challenges – even evil, even death.
God’s word did come to Elijah eventually, not in the fiery demonstration he expected. It came in the gentle breeze of mercy, patience, fidelity and hope which most truly reflects the omnipotent nature of God.
Divinity is so quietly vibrant in all life. We must become equally quiet in our prayer and awareness to hear God’s whispers for us.
Today, in Mercy, Jesus expounds on what a true, faithful life looks like. He uses the word “righteousness”, a word that occurs frequently throughout the Bible.
“Righteousness” describes the perfect, balanced goodness of the heart of God. It is a balance in which Mercy and Justice complement and infuse each other; a balance of Love so exquisite that it generates the Eternal Life of the Trinity.
Jesus says that we must pattern our lives on that Divine Balance, not on a proud self-righteousness like that of the scribes and Pharisees. If our faith and religious practice do not generate reverence, love, mercy, justice and peace for ourselves and others, then we are skewed in our relationship with God.
Jesus says it is not enough to obey the letter of Law, and certainly not enough to boast about it. We must respond generously to the spirit of the Law which brings the soul into reconciliation with itself and all Creation. This is the new law of love …the true righteousness of a humble, faithful heart.
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,but do not have love, it does nothing. 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3
Music: Lead Me Lord ~ Samuel Wesley (1861) A lovely old hymn that can serve as a mantra for prayer throughout your day. Just let your heart sing it gently.
Today, in Mercy, we read the wonderful story of Elijah and the Widow. Both were in “drought and darkness” situations, but they did not lose hope. Trusting in the Lord, they chose to live out of their abundance rather than their scarcity. And their small, shared abundance sustained them.
In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus encourages us to live from and to share our abundance, whatever that might be. Sometimes we may feel that we don’t have much to offer to the world. Our personal difficulties may thwart our spiritual energy. But we are children of God, filled with Divine potential. Life will always break through if we live with faith, hope and love. It just may look different from what we had planned or expected.
There is a modern school of “abundance vs. scarcity” thinking, a self-improvement practice presented by the late Steven Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Whether or not he intended it, Mr. Covey delivers scriptural truths in secular language:
“ An abundance mentality springs from internal security, not from external rankings, comparisons, opinions, possessions, or associations.”
“ People with a scarcity mentality tend to see everything in terms of win-lose. There is only so much; and if someone else has it, that means there will be less for me. The more principle-centered we become, the more we develop an abundance mentality, the more we are genuinely happy for the successes, well-being, achievements, recognition, and good fortune of other people. We believe their success adds to…rather than detracts from…our lives.”
Bottom line from 1 Kings, Matthew 5, Covey? Trust, and live generously. Be light. Be salt. Doing so will open the space for God’s abundance.
Music: A New Age piece that may be helpful if some negativity is blocking our Light.
In our readings, we encounter one of the more perplexing Gospel passages. Jesus, in the thick of controversy with the scribes and Pharisees, goes home to seek some respite. But the crowds follow, harassing him with questions and demands for signs. His friends and family are increasingly concerned for him, as the animosity to his challenging message rises. Some even think he is unhinged to jeopardize himself by confronting the evils and blindnesses of his society. His mother and brothers arrive, concerned for him. When Jesus learns this, he delivers what may seem a hard-hearted comment, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” — they are the ones who do the will of God.
With this question, Jesus is not disowning his family and those who love him. He is stating clearly that, rather than deter him from his redemptive work, they need to open their minds to the deeper purpose of his life. To use a contemporary phrase rooted in the socially conscious African-American community – they need to be “woke” people.
How hard it must have been for them! How hard to love a prophet, to fear for their safety in times when truth and justice are assailed!
Walter Brueggemann, in my all-time favorite book Prophetic Imagination, says this:
“In both his teaching and his very presence, Jesus of Nazareth presented the ultimate criticism of the royal consciousness (or self-serving power of the dominant state). He has, in fact, dismantled the dominant culture and nullified its claims. The way of his ultimate criticism is his decisive solidarity with marginal people and the accompanying vulnerability required by that solidarity. The only solidarity worth affirming is solidarity characterized by the same helplessness they know and experience.”
In today’s second reading, Paul is experiencing the same kind of vulnerability as Jesus. Paul says that he is not discouraged for:
“ … although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.”
As Christians, we are called to live prophetic lives in imitation of Jesus. We are called to foster that kind of witness in others, to work together for that “eternal weight of glory”.
The prophet Dorothy Day puts it this way:
“As we come to know the seriousness of the situation, the war, the racism, the poverty in our world, we come to realize that things will not be changed simply by words or demonstrations. Rather, it’s a question of living one’s life in a drastically different way.”
On this powerful Sunday, the message is this: we need to be “woke” people!
Today, in Mercy, Paul continues to instruct Timothy on how to deepen his life in Christ.He says,
“If we die with Christ,we shall also live with Him.”
Some of us, when we pray that verse, will picture ourselves on Calvary, literally dying beside Christ. But I think that our actual path to new life in Christ comes to us in much less dramatic ways. It comes to us in opportunities for selflessness, no matter how small.
I was at the supermarket one day, submerged in the ice cream freezer, looking for Turkey Hill Pineapple Sherbet. It is a rare find.
An elegant, older gentleman joined me, looking for the same thing.I told him the sherbet had been recommended to me and that I would like to try it.He confirmed the recommendation, saying it was his favorite.
We found only one carton. He turned to me and said, “You take it, because you’ve never had it before.I have.” It may have seemed a small kindness, but it was much more.
That man’s selflessness has stayed with me many long years after the ice cream. Whether or not he was a Christian, he had died to himself.The practice of openness to others’ needs – even a stranger’s – had become customary for him.
Our death to self and new life in Christ will be evident to others in our ordinary acts of selflessness and service.It will become the customary way we find joy in life, and the way we give witness to a redeemed heart.
Today, in Mercy, our readings are full of fire and brimstone. In the epistle, James takes on the tone and rhetoric of the Old Testament prophets, kind of scaring his listeners into better life choices.
In our Gospel, Jesus uses perhaps his harshest words to convince his listeners that choices for sin cripple and kill us – choices that damage the innocent, the poor, the weak, the ailing, the hungry, the marginalized in any way.
These readings tell us that to become holy, we must make holy choices. These are tough, sometimes stunning, choices that demand our attention, sacrifice and love. They are choices that will “cure” and preserve our spirits for eternal life, the way salt preserves food. They are ultimately those dichotomous life choices between self and others; between self and God.
Let us not misunderstand the Scriptures. There is nothing wrong with “self”. It is blessed and good. But self for self’s sake only is a road to isolation and spiritual death. Our selves are made to love God and others.
Today, in Mercy, in John 17, we are folded into the prayer of Jesus as He talks to the Father about us. We are the humble, silent listeners to a Divine Conversation. Jesus prays that we may be part of His unity with the Father. He calls us His gifts and asks to keep us with Him in eternal life. He asks to live within us through the gift of the Father’s love. These are awesome prayers that may be too much for us to comprehend.
But picture this: a loving parent embracing a frightened or injured child. The parent looks up to heaven, asking God to keep this child safe; to never let them be lost; to fill them with love, joy and life. The praying parent promises to always protect and guide their cherished child like a precious gift and to hold them securely in times of trouble.
This is the way Jesus prays for us. Awesome, indeed!
Music: He Will Hold Me Fast ~ Keith and Kristyn Getty
Lavish Mercy 