Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 103 which paints an incomprehensible God in the soft colors of kindness and mercy.
Face detail from Creation of the Sun and Moon by Michelangelo
Writers as early as the Genesis story have worked to put a face on God.
Artists have done the same.
And of course, the face is human because that is the only one we know. In our first reading, we see the Lord reflecting, turning options over in his mind, keeping secrets, and allowing himself to be cajoled. It’s a very human conception of the Divine – because it’s the best we can do with our only human paint brush.
Reading today’s Genesis verses, I hear their counterpoint in the elegant hymn from Romans:
O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and untraceable His ways! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?” “Who has first given to God, that God should repay him?” For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.
Romans 11: 33-36
How incalculably gracious of God to show us the Divine Heart in the human face and story of Jesus Christ.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation: for by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities— all things have been created through Him and for Him.
Colossians 1 15-16
In Christ, we find the true human face of God’s Mercy. As we deepen in prayer and imitation of Jesus, that Face becomes visible in us.
With the psalmist, we offer praise and thanks for:
The Lord is kind and merciful, dealing with us not according to our sins, nor requiting us according to our crimes. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so surpassing is God’s kindness toward those who live in holy awe.
Psalm 103: 10-11
Poetry: Creature of God – Jessica Powers
That God stands tall, incomprehensible, infinite and immutable and free I know. Yet more I marvel as His call trickles and thunders down through space to me.
that from His far eternities He shouts to me, one small inconsequence of day. I kneel down in the vastness of His love, cover myself with creaturehood and pray.
God likes me covered with my creaturehood and with my limits spread across His face He likes to see me lifting to his eyes even the wretchedness that dropped his grace.
I make no guess what greatness took me in. I only know, and relish it as good, that I am gathered more to God’s embrace the more I greet him through my creaturehood.
It is a soft, summer morning in Capernaum and Jesus is in the height of his ministry. Large crowds follow him wherever he goes, crowds hungry with hope; crowds fired by his counter-cultural words and miraculous deeds. This morning, Jesus prepares to speak to them, to translate into language they can comprehend the Eternal Life that lives in his heart. His back is to the gentle, sunlit sea. The hubbub softens to a murmur, finally stilled by the lapping waves.
But before Jesus can begin, a distressed man bursts through the gathered crowd. His robes fly about him as he runs to Jesus and falls at his feet. This man is important, so important that we all have known his name for two thousand years. This is Jairus who lives nearby and organizes the worship in the synagogue. Now breathless and swallowing sobs, Jairus pleads with Jesus: Please! My daughter! You can give her life!
Every loving father has been Jairus at least once in his life. We know these fathers. We are these fathers. They are the ones who burst into emergency rooms with a seizing infant in their arms. They are the ones who stare blankly at the pronouncement of a stillborn child. They are the old men in war-ravaged countries who kneel at the sides of their fallen sons and desecrated daughters. They are all the men throughout history rendered helpless by the forces of unbridled power, greed and death.
The merciful heart of Jesus understands this man and his desperate urgency. Without even a word, Jesus gets up and accompanies Jairus to the place of his pleading.
But there is another urgency pushing forward from the crowds: a woman, apparently of low importance for we have never known her name. She is a woman whom the ages have defined by her affliction. She is “The Woman with the Hemorrhage”. Without the status of Jairus, she approaches Jesus as such a woman must. She crawls behind him at his heels, reaching through the milling masses to even scrape the hem of his garment.
This is a troubled woman, a stigmatized woman. Her life has been spent, literally, in embarrassment, isolation, fatigue and, no doubt, abuse. For twelve years – coincidentally the life span of Jairus’ s daughter – her vitality has bled out of her. Her face is gaunt; her eyes sunken. Her soul’s light is all but extinguished. She is a woman who knows a particular kind of scorn.
We know these women. We are these women. They are the ones filled with remorse for an aborted baby. They are the ones who miscarry their longed-for child. They are the women whose beautiful young sons are profiled, stereotyped and hunted on the violent streets. They are the mothers of “The Disappeared”. They are the women who suffer disproportionately from war, poverty, hunger and violence. They are trafficked women, prostituted women, women victimized by the long saga of domination. They are the women whose children have been torn from them at the borders.
It is just such a broken woman who stretches her fingers through the Galilean dust in a last reckless reach for healing. She finds only the hem of his robe. Touching it, she is transformed, like a parched meadow in the spring rain. Her whole being reaches up to receive the holy restoration. She knows herself to be healed. And it is enough; it is everything. She retreats into the resignation of her otherwise lonely life.
But Jesus wants more for us than just the practical miracles we beg for. We ask for one healing; Jesus wants our eternal salvation. We ask for one blessing; Jesus wants our entire lives to be filled with grace. We ask for one prayer to be answered; Jesus wants our life to become a prayer.
Jesus feels the electrical touch of her hope. He feels the secret healing she has extracted from him. He turns to seek her. Can you see their eyes meet? Yes, the bleeding has been stemmed, but he sees the deeper wounds that scar her soul. His look of immense mercy invites her to tell him “the whole truth”. By her touch, she has commandeered a physical healing. But by his gracious turning toward her, her entire being is renewed. In this sacred glance, her history has been healed. Her future has been pulled from darkness into light. Her capacity to love has been rekindled. She now and forever will remember herself as a child of God.
Jairus waits, no doubt impatiently, at the edge of this miracle, anxious for such power to touch his daughter’s life. He fears they have lingered too long with the woman. His servants arrive, confirming his fears. He receives the dreaded report, “Your daughter has died.”
Jesus now pushes Jairus to the gauntlet of pure faith. In the face of this devastating news, Jesus tells him, “Do not be afraid; just have faith.” Is this not an almost impossible command? Like Jairus, we all know what it is to worry for our children:
Fathers of color teach their sons behaviors to protect them from profiling.
Immigrant parents fear their children will be ripped from them in a pre-dawn raid.
Famine-ravaged mothers watch their children disappear into hunger.
In hospitals and doctors’ offices, devastated parents summon the courage to accompany their critically ill child.
And Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid. Have faith.”! What can he possibly mean?
Perhaps it is this simple. In Jairus’s home, Jesus takes the dead girl’s hand. He says, “Talitha, koum – Little girl, arise.” His call to her heart tells her there is no darkness, devastation or death from which God cannot draw us into life. This is the truth Jesus brings to the little girl and to us. But it is a truth that, in our fear and need, we cannot always see.
For the moment, this girl lives. But at some time in history she, like all of us, will die. So the miracle is not the restoration of her life. The miracle is that her eyes, and her parents’ eyes, are opened to the power of God over death. Despite all appearances, God’s life endures eternally.
This is the revelation of this Gospel passage. If we live by faith, we live beyond cure into healing. If we live by faith, even death can bring life. If we live by faith, we are free to release all worry into the abundant mercy of God who grants us healing even beyond our asking or desire.
Man or woman, old or young, at some time in our lives each one of us has been Jairus. Each one of us has been one or the other of these two women. Within their stories of woundedness and deep faith, our stories shelter. Jairus and the afflicted women – unnamed like so many women throughout time – believed there was a way to new life. They reached for it. They begged for it. What is it in us that cries out for such healing? What is it in us that, without the touch of Jesus, teeters on the verge of death?
Simply by believing, these three Gospel figures became new beings. Simply by believing, their orientation changed from darkness to light. By their example, let us lift up those wounded and deadened places in our hearts and world before the loving gaze of Jesus.
To what suffering in our souls is God whispering the encouragement, “Talitha, koum”? What is the “whole truth” Jesus is inviting us to confide? Let us arise and respond to him in the full energy of our faith. Let us gaze with boundless confidence into the eyes of God’s mercy.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray once again with Mary’s exquisite prayer, the Magnificat. This prayer is so rich that we can pray it in many ways. Today’s other readings suggest to me to pray it as a prayer of spirited possibility.
For you, my God, have done great things for me, and Holy is your Name. Your Mercy is from age to age for those wrapped in awe of you.
In our first reading, Abraham and Sarah are the prototypes of such holy awe. Recognizing something godly in his visitors, Abraham welcomes them extravagantly.
Sarah is so struck by their predictions that she turns giddy.
Sometimes when we are overawed by our circumstances, we dissemble rather than quiet ourselves in reverence. God calls Abraham and Sarah to be still within the holy moment by asking the divine rhetorical question:
In our Gospel, the centurion has his own holy moment. Already committed in faith, he hopes for more from Jesus because of his need. With profound trust and humility, the centurion invites God’s Word to act completely and spontaneously in his life.
We may not have visible angels visiting our homes today, like Abraham and Sarah did.
We may not find Jesus walking into our local town like the centurion did.
Still, by faith, we trust that the Holy is present in every moment of our lives.
With Abraham and Sarah, may we open the tent of our lives to heavenly intervention.
With Mary, let us ask God to release the miracle of sacred possibility over our lives and over our world.
Your mercy reaches from age to age for those in awe of you. You have shown strength with your arm; you have scattered the proud in their conceit; you have deposed the mighty from their thrones and raised the lowly to high places. You have filled the hungry with good things, while you have sent the rich away empty. You have come to the aid of Israel your servant, mindful of your mercy― the promise you made to our ancestors― to Sarah and Abraham and their decendants forever.
Poem: SARAH’S LAUGHTER (GENESIS 18:1–15) by Irene Zimmerman, OSF
When Abraham had hurried back
to the three Strangers with bread
and meat, milk and curds,
Sarah, obediently hiding her faded
beauty behind the tent flaps,
watched them feasting beneath the oak.
From there the Strangers’ words
came winging to where she stood—
in shocked disbelief at first,
having grown old and used to
the sterile disfavor of Abraham’s God,
then exploding in peals of laughter
that ricocheted off the oaks of Mamre
and the stony hills of promise.
“How many can you count, Sarah?”
Abraham asked as they held each other
beneath a blanket of stars.
“How many children will there be?”
The words set her off again,
and Abraham too,
with irrepressible mirth
till the hills whooped and hollered
and the stars blazed their Aha
in the pregnant desert night.
Music: Two songs today. One just to laugh! Enjoy the possibilities!🤗
Sarah Laughed – Joe Buchanan
Miracles abound, In front of you and all around
You and I, she and him, It’s a miracle that life begins
Every time we think we’re lost for good
The world keeps turning, just like it should
And out of the darkness came let there be light
And it’s a miracle we’re sharing space, here in this life
The universe is a concert, everything moves in time
Anything can happen when the moment is right
And Sarah laughed…
The day begins the same way each time
The sun and moon and stars, they all know their lines
Life has a heartbeat of its own, you know
The only thing unpredictable… the human soul
And out of the darkness came let there be light
And it’s a miracle we’re sharing space, here in this life
The universe is a concert, everything moves in time
Anything can happen when the moment is right
And Sarah laughed…
And we’re the change in things
The dreamers and the shapers, we’re the crafters and makers
All building our lives
And I try so hard to find G-d’s plan in mine
But I’m a rocky start… maybe that’s by design
And then I laugh, And Sarah laughed
And out of the darkness came let there be light
And it’s a miracle we’re sharing space, here in this life
The universe is a concert, everything moves in time
Everything can happen when the moment is right
And Sarah laughed…
2. Abraham and Sarah Had to Laugh – Bryan Sirchio
Abraham and Sarah were very old and gray
And angel of the LORD showed up and said to them one day
We know you’re very old and that you’ve never had a kid
But God says, “better find a baby crib!”
And they said…
(Chorus)
Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho!
You can’t have a baby when you get this old
Abraham and Sarah had to laugh
O boy that’s a knee slapper!
Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho!
But now Abraham and Sarah know
That nothing is too hard for God
This reflection on Psalm 128 was published earlier this year, but I thought it deserved another day. I hope you do too. 🙂
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 128 which some describe as a blueprint for a happy home.
Happy are they all who fear the Lord, and who follow in the ways of God! You shall eat the fruit of your labor; happiness and prosperity shall be yours. Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house, your children like olive shoots round about your table.
Psalm 128, Canadian Inclusive Psalter
As lovely as it is, this interpretation may be overly simple.
Psalm 128, written in the post-exilic period, is the people’s song of gratitude for the chance to return to their homeland after the Babylonian captivity.
For Israel, the captivity was the result of their faithlessness to their covenant with God. The core sentiment of the psalm is awareness, repentance, and conviction to live life more intentionally – to live in fear of the Lord and thus preserve oneself from future calamity:
Blessed are you who fear the LORD, who walk in the Lord’s ways!
I think that word “fear” is a tough one. It seems to contradict our desired relationship with the God who is Love, the God we have met in the person of Jesus Christ. How do we reconcile the contradiction?
But Proverbs tells us this:
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Proverbs 9:10
So this “fear” is significantly different from the emotion we might feel when, for example, we hear an unfamiliar noise in our darkened house.
Thus the ‘fear of the Lord’ is a relational term signifying the Israelites’ response to God’s grace displayed in salvation (especially the Exodus). As Walter Brueggemann has aptly written, it means: to take God with utmost seriousness as the premise and perspective from which life is to be discerned and lived. That ‘utmost seriousness’ requires attentiveness to some things rather than others, to spend one’s energies in response to this God who has initiated our life.
Mark J. Boda, Professor of Old Testament, McMaster Divinity College
This, in fact, is the rich sentiment underlying Psalm 128, and that will yield the security of an intimate relationship with God
May the LORD bless you from Zion; may you see Jerusalem’s prosperity all the days of your life, and live to see your children’s children. Peace upon Israel!
Psalm 128:4-5
May we live to see our lives unfold in grace.
The psalmist’s “fear” might be more akin to awe, reverence, glad obedience to our God who loves us and wills our good. It is a virtue rooted in our search for a holy awe and wisdom as our life unfolds in God’s Grace:
Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann, says we live in a technological society that has grossly confused knowledge and wisdom. He says wisdom is the mystery, held by God, about how and why life works…how creation holds together…and how human reason has its limits. Wisdom is God’s secret and even our bold Enlightenment expectations barely lay a finger on that secret. Wisdom involves recognizing limits before the mystery of God. Knowledge has to do with control, says Brueggemann. Wisdom has to do with awe.
Walter M. Klein, Pastor, Lexington Presbyterian Church
Poem: I Am Bending My Knee
Originally from the Carmina Gadelica I, 3. Taken from Esther de Waal, editor, The Celtic Vision (Liguori, MO: Liguori/Triumph, 1988, 2001), p. 7.
I am bending my kneeIn the eye of the Father who created me,In the eye of the Son who purchased me,In the eye of the Spirit who cleansed me,In friendship and affection.Through Thine own Anointed One, O God,Bestow upon us fullness in our need,Love towards God,The affection of God,The smile of God,The wisdom of God,The grace of God,The fear of God,And the will of GodTo do on the world of the Three,As angels and saintsDo in heaven;Each shade and light,Each day and night,Each time in kindness,Give Thou us Thy Spirit.
Music: The Fear of the Lord – First Baptist Dallas (Wow! How about this music ministry!)
Icon of St. John the Baptist (16th c.) Dionysiou Monastery
Today, in Mercy, we celebrate one of the greatest figures of the Bible, John the Baptist. He prepared the way for the Lord.
Thinking of John’s role in Salvation History, I am reminded of a captivating poem by Geoffrey Brown, author of Road of the Heart Cave:
The Heart Cave
I must remember
To go down to the heart cave & sweep it clean; make it warm with a fire on the hearth, & candles in their niches, the pictures on the walls glowing with a quiet light. I must remember
To go down to the heart cave & make the bed with the quilt from home, strew the rushes on the floor hang lavender and sage from the corners. I must go down To the heart cave & be there when You come.
John the Baptist went down to the heart cave of our human perception of God. He understood, in an inexpressible way, that God was about to do something astounding in human history. God was about to become part of it!
John understood this with unquestioning faith, the way we understand heaven but cannot rationalize it. Understanding it, he knew that the world needed to turn itself toward God – to repent – in radical and ardent expectation.
This was his call and his message – this extraordinary man, dressed in his camel hair vestments, preaching at the desert’s edge.
We might pray with John today to be turned from anything that distracts us from God, to long for God’s presence in our hearts and in our world, to love deeply and make a welcome home for Christ within us.
( On this Feast, 55 years ago, my entrance companions and I professed our vows. I think of all of them with love today. May I humbly ask you, dear readers, to join me in prayer for us as we thank God for the gift of our lives in Mercy.)
Music: “Utqueant laxis” or “Hymnus in Ioannem” is a Latin hymn in honor of John the Baptist written in Horatian Sapphics and traditionally attributed to Paulus Diaconus, the eighth-century Lombard historian. It is famous for its part in the history of musical notation, in particular solmization (do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do). The hymn is sung to a Gregorian chant, and introduces the original do-re-mi music
1. O for your spirit, holy John, to chasten Lips sin-polluted, fettered tongues to loosen; So by your children might your deeds of wonder Meetly be chanted.
2. Lo! a swift herald, from the skies descending, Bears to your father promise of your greatness; How he shall name you, what your future story, Duly revealing.
3. Scarcely believing message so transcendent, Him for a season power of speech forsaketh, Till, at your wondrous birth, again returneth, Voice to the voiceless.
4. You, in your mother’s womb all darkly cradled, Knew your great Monarch, biding in His chamber, Whence the two parents, through their offspring’s merits, Mysteries uttered.
5. Praise to the Father, to the Son begotten, And to the Spirit, equal power possessing, One God whose glory, through the lapse of ages, Ever resounding. Amen.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 105, a sacred invitation to rest confidently in God.
Glory in God’s holy name; rejoice, O hearts that seek the LORD! Look to the LORD’s strength; seek to serve God wholeheartedly.
Psalm 105:3-4
Our trust is based on God’s infinite memory, mindful of us with every breath of our lives. We are asked to remember too.
The Lord remembers the covenant for ever.
Psalm 105:8
Jesus reminds us of this covenant in our Alleluia verse from John’s Gospel:
Let’s just be cradled in these holy promises as we pray today.
Poetry: Trust by Thomas R. Smith
It’s like so many other things in life to which you must say no or yes. So you take your car to the new mechanic. Sometimes the best thing to do is trust. The package left with the disreputable-looking clerk, the check gulped by the night deposit, the envelope passed by dozens of strangers— all show up at their intended destinations. The theft that could have happened doesn’t. Wind finally gets where it was going through the snowy trees, and the river, even when frozen, arrives at the right place. And sometimes you sense how faithfully your life is delivered, even though you can’t read the address.
Music: two songs today. I liked them both a lot and didn’t want to deprive you of either.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 15 which begins by asking a crystal clear question:
LORD, who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy mountain?
Psalm 15:1
In other words, “What is it you’re looking for in me that I may be your friend, living under your protection?”.
In our first reading, Abraham is in the process of deciphering the answer to this question by responding wholeheartedly to God’s invitation and promise.
One of Abraham’s first actions when becoming God’s friend is an act of justice toward his nephew Lot. Both their holdings had grown very large and their families began competing for resources. So Abraham gave Lot a choice to have his own land so both could live in security and peace.
Justice is the core of today’s readings, and it’s the ticket to God’s tent. I think it is a virtue which confuses many of us. We get it mixed up with concepts of law, vengeance, preferential judgements. But here’s the definition from the Catholic Catechism and I like it. It sounds academic, but it’s exactly what Abraham did for Lot in our first reading – he acted for “right relationship” which is the heart of justice. All in all, justice is just another face of Mercy.
Justice is the moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor. Justice toward God is called the “virtue of religion.” Justice toward persons disposes one to respect the rights of each and to establish in human relationships the harmony that promotes equity with regard to persons and to the common good.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
Thomas Aquinas must have thought people were confused about justice too. He defined and explained it exhaustively in the Summa Theologiae
Psalm 15, though, makes it simpler for us. Here’s Christine Robinson’s transliteration:
How do truly good people live? They speak the truth from their hearts have no hidden agendas, are loyal friends. They offer respect to their neighbors, but avoid the company of the selfish and the foolish, They honor good people wherever they find them. They live to do good, keep their word make their living with honest work and give generously from their abundance. Their way of life makes them strong in heart.
I like people like that, and I want to be one of them – for God’s sake, other people’s, and my own. Praying with Psalm 15 can help us do that.
Poetry: Making Peace – Denise Levertov
A voice from the dark called out, ‘The poets must give us imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar imagination of disaster. Peace, not only the absence of war.’ But peace, like a poem, is not there ahead of itself, can’t be imagined before it is made, can’t be known except in the words of its making, grammar of justice, syntax of mutual aid. A feeling towards it, dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have until we begin to utter its metaphors, learning them as we speak. A line of peace might appear if we restructured the sentence our lives are making, revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power, questioned our needs, allowed long pauses . . . A cadence of peace might balance its weight on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence, an energy field more intense than war, might pulse then, stanza by stanza into the world, each act of living one of its words, each word a vibration of light—facets of the forming crystal.
Music: Conserva Me, Domine (Psalm 15) – Marc Antoine Charpentier
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 33 in which the human family remembers and gives thanks for God’s creative omnipotence.
Following upon our reading from Genesis, our psalm moves past Eden to the practical world of the psalmist. It is a world where centuries have passed and human beings have progressively made a mark on Creation – for good or for ill.
God has watched the progression, blessing or redeeming it in Mercy:
The One who fashioned together their hearts is the One who knows all their works.
Psalm 33:15
The psalmist reminds us that all Creation generates within God’s power. To cooperate with that infinite grace, we must wait, listen, trust, and deepen in holy understanding:
Our soul waits for the LORD, who is our help and shield. For in God our hearts rejoice; in God’s holy name we trust. May your mercy, LORD, be upon us; as we put our hope in you.
Psalm 33:20-22
We are not the actors. We are simply the instruments of God’s gracious unfolding in the symmetry of Creation – both in the cosmos and in the delicate blossom of our own hearts.
How is God growing in the world today within my life?
Poetry:The light shouts in your tree-top, and the face – Rilke
The light shouts in your tree-top, and the face of all things becomes radiant and vain; only at dusk do they find you again. The twilight hour, the tenderness of space, lays on a thousand heads a thousand hands, and strangeness grows devout where they have lain. With this gentlest of gestures you would hold the world, thus only and not otherwise. You lean from out its skies to capture earth, and feel it underneath your mantle’s folds. You have so mild a way of being. ……………………………………………They who name you loudly when they come to pray forget your nearness. From your hands that tower above us, mountainously, lo, there soars, to give the law whereby our senses live, dark-browed, your wordless power.
Our gifted Mercy artist, Sister Judy Ward, has created greeting cards using some of my designs. This “Sunrise Tree” is one of them. If you would like to purchase any of Sister Judy’s beautiful work, you can connect with her here. She’s nice to talk with on the phone.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 107, a poem filled with images that hold secrets for our spiritual journey:
They who sailed the sea in ships, trading on the deep waters, These saw the works of the LORD and God’s wonders in the abyss.
Psalm 107:23-24
Those who have the opportunity to see the ocean in its many moods will quickly understand the analogy.
Life is an ocean, but we are not sailing it alone.
That’s what the Lord suggests to Job in our first reading, and what Jesus points out to the nervous disciples in our Gospel.
Psalm 107 tells us that when life distresses us we should do just what the disciples did:
They cried to the LORD in their distress; from their straits he rescued them, God hushed the storm to a gentle breeze and the billows of the sea were stilled
Psalm 107: 28-29
It also suggests us that we can hope for this result:
They rejoiced that they were calmed, and brought to their desired haven. Let them give thanks fo the Lord’s kindness and wondrous deeds to us all.
Psalm 107:30-31
The message of today’s readings for me is trust and hope — in both calm and storm. Let’s pray for it.
Poetry: blessing of the boats – Lucille Clifton
(at St. Mary’s)
may the tide that is entering even now the lip of our understanding carry you out beyond the face of fear may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back may you open your eyes to water water waving forever and may you in your innocence sail through this to that.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 34 once again. With its two accompanying readings, the psalm hits me right between the eyes with this awareness:
Those of us trying to live in God’s presence, the world isn’t going to help us. We will be in contradiction to many, if not most, popular values. Our choices may be questioned, if not ridiculed. Our values may be explained away. Our integrity may be challenged.
What’s it like to live a faith-based life in today’s culture? The image that comes to my mind is that of trying to play soccer with a square ball!
Paul felt the dissonance:
But the Lord said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me. Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ …
Jesus put the contradiction in a nutshell for us:
No one can serve two masters. You will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
So we need to figure out our “mammon” and vanquish it. We need to make the choice that Paul, the psalmist, and Jesus made. Let’s pray on it today.
Poetry: Contraband – Denise Levertov
The tree of knowledge was the tree of reason. That’s why the taste of it drove us from Eden. That fruit was meant to be dried and milled to a fine powder for use a pinch at a time, a condiment. God had probably planned to tell us later about this new pleasure. We stuffed our mouths full of it, gorged on but and if and how and again but, knowing no better. It’s toxic in large quantities; fumes swirled in our heads and around us to form a dense cloud that hardened to steel, a wall between us and God, Who was Paradise. Not that God is unreasonable – but reason in such excess was tyranny and locked us into its own limits, a polished cell reflecting our own faces. God lives on the other side of that mirror, but through the slit where the barrier doesn’t quite touch ground, manages still to squeeze in – as filtered light, splinters of fire, a strain of music heard then lost, then heard again.
Lavish Mercy 