Strange Mercy: Sermon 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

English novelist and thinker Graham Green states in his novel Brighton Rock  - I admit I have not read this novel, but I heard the quote on my favorite TV show The West Wing.

"You can’t conceive, my child, nor can I or anyone the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God."

We Christians usually see the Hebrew Scriptures as a series of a bronze-age stories with peculiarities and moralities that don’t seem to befit our own day and age. The first reading starts out like that – the LORD rolling up his sleeves in preparation to deal out some well-deserved vengeance for the awful sins of Sodom and Gomorrah; the “cities of the plain” which have historically been used by biblical scholars (and not-scholars) as metaphors for homosexuality. While later Hebrew prophets and modern biblical scholars name the sins of Sodom & Gomorrah as adultery, pridefulness and uncharitablility, that’s actually not here nor there for this passage.

What matters is the mercy of God. And the power of our prayers.

 

As the Lord prepares His wrath. Abraham stands before Him and asks if the innocent deserve to be swept away with the guilty; would the LORD spare the city of 50 were innocent? The LORD agrees to spare the city for the sake of the 50 innocents; I imagine God looking at Abraham with a cocked eyebrow, waiting for more like a stage manager in a play. Abe asks for full mercy for the sake of the 45, then the 40, then 30, 20, 10. Each time The LORD assents the City will be spared over and over again even if there be but 10.

 

I like to think Abe kept going. 5 then 4 then 3-2-1. Because the mercy of God abounds. Because a righteous person dared to ask God to spare the innocent. Abe asked God. And God listened.  But the appalling strangeness of God’s mercy is baffling. What if Abraham had NOT begged got to save the innocent? Or elsewhere in Abraham’s story, what if the Angel hadn’t stopped him from sacrificing his son?

 

The strangeness of God’s mercy lives within all of us. How often are we enraged about being wrong – real or perceived? From being cut off in traffic, to a heated argument with a coworker or the betrayal of a loved one; I think we all have felt that brief flash from our shadow selves when these things happen. We may stew, let our rage grow and even wish harm on someone for one hot minute. To become wrath, to exact vengeance.  And then, the vast majority of us thank God, come around to the futility of such actions. We let the car pass, we settle back into a working relationship with our work colleagues, we move on and maybe even forgive our beloveds’ betrayal. All little works of the mercy of God working through our own hearts and lives.

 

We experience that strangeness when we pray as Jesus taught us to pray. For me, it’s in that one line… forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Now I’ve said the Our Father so often as a child on through adulthood, it’s so rote, that I can miss what I’m asking God here; If you’ll allow a paraphrase; please God forgive our sins IN THE FASHION THAT WE FORGIVE PEOPLE WHO WRONG US.  We ask God to have people treat us when we do wrong in the same fashion that we treat others. Not others who do wrong in general, but specifically those who wrong US. So God…treat us the way we treat the driver who cuts us off… the belligerent coworker, the beloved who betray us. This challenge is the beating heart of what it means to be Christian, to me. This requires us not to simply proclaim Christianity but to strive to live it with each action that we take towards ourselves, towards others and toward God. We will stumble and we will stumble often. A good portion of the time we may struggle against the idea of forgiving those who trespass against us; God knows I do. But think of reciting the prayer Jesus taught us in that context; if we first do not forgive, we will not be forgiven. But if we lead with love and forgiveness as a default, then maybe the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God won’t seem so strange anymore.