Sunday I was doing something I usually don’t do; nothing
radical or heretical. Rather than
preaching on the epistle or Gospel appointed for the day, I based my sermon on the
collect. We were celebrating the 11th Sunday after Trinity and the
collect for the day addressed the themes of grace and mercy. I believe that these concepts are important
so I want to reiterate and expand a bit on my sermon. Not because anything I said is radical or new
but grace and mercy is key to our relationship with God and each other. For those of you who do not follow the
Anglican Book of Common Prayer, here is the collect:
O God,
who declarest thy almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
Mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running the way
of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of
thy heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
As
I noted in my sermon there is much to unpack in that short prayer. First, let’s look at what grace and mercy
mean. One simple way of looking at them
is that grace is receiving what we do not deserve. Mercy is, you could say the opposite, not
receiving what we deserve. This is not original to me, I heard it some
years ago and I’m sure it has been around longer than that.
That needs some clarification. When I say “deserve”, I mean they are not something
which we earn or is based on our efforts or actions either good or bad. Grace and mercy are offered to us by God unconditionally
because we are God’s children and they are expressions of God’s love for
us. Growing up in the fifties and sixties
there was a lot in the ether and culture about unconditional love. It was something that everyone was supposed
to desire in their heart of hearts. It,
unfortunately, became something of a cliché in part because I believe people
realized it seemed to be impossible. It
is unfortunate because I believe it is true.
We do desire it; we want to be accepted and loved for who we truly are and
not on the basis of having to earn it.
It is indeed hard to truly believe in our heart of hearts—or
I could say souls—that we can be loved unconditionally. Our experience does not generally support
this idea. We believe that we need to
earn the love of others. As I write this
a song came up on the media player on my computer (which is set on
shuffle). The song is “Outrageous” by
Paul Simon. The chorus is, “who’s going
to love you when your looks are gone”? After
that chorus is repeated a number of times the answer is, “God will”; thank you
Paul and thank you synchronicity. That is
exactly the message and meaning of grace and mercy. God does love us unconditionally no matter if
our looks are gone or what kind of a life we live.
That does not mean we have a free pass. It does not mean that it doesn’t matter to God
what kind of a life we live. Grace and
mercy are freely offered but it is up to us to accept them. We need to be in relationship with God. Often our lives can be out of relationship
with God. The grace of God is freely
offered. This is the love of God. There are many things in our lives which prevent
us from being open to the love of God and sharing it with others; past
experience of being hurt by others and receiving conditional love to name a two. We learn to put up walls to protect ourselves
and those walls can seem to be almost impenetrable.
That is where God’s mercy comes in (thank God). God' mercy is also offered unconditionally as
it is also God’s love in action. When we
are not in relationship with God we are in a state of sin. However, God’s mercy offers us
forgiveness. We can come to God and seek
to re-establish our relationship with God; it is two sided—God and each of
us. We have the assurance of God’s
forgiveness when we do that. As I noted
in the sermon, we have the mercy that is offered to us in the confession and
absolution in both the Book of Common Prayer and the Book of Alternative Services. We confess that we have not lived as God has
intended us to live. We are in a state
of sin. We ask for God’s forgiveness and
God’s forgiveness is granted to us in the absolution. Again this is freely offered to us—it is ours
for the asking.
If we were to truly believe in our hearts and souls that we
are unconditionally loved by God think how different our lives and the world would
be. It is hard to imagine but it is
worthwhile imagining it. That is the
first step to living it. I will close
with a quote from Richard Rohr’s Daily Mediation (more synchronicity) for today
which speaks of the mystery of forgiveness and the possibility of an infinite
ocean of grace:
The Spirit within us creates an unrelenting desire toward
forgiveness and reconciliation. The entire Gospel reveals the unfolding mystery
of forgiveness; it is the beginning, the middle, and the end of the Gospel’s
transformative message. The energy of being forgiven—in our unworthiness of
it—first breaks us out of our merit-badge mentality. The ongoing experience of
being forgiven (when we don’t even think we need it) is necessary to renew our
flagging spirit and keep us in the infinite ocean of grace. Toward the end of
life a universal forgiveness of everything for being what it is becomes
the only way we can see and understand reality and finally live at peace.
Blessings and love on your journey.
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