GRACE AND MERCY

A wise person once observed that grace is when God gives us something that we do not deserve and mercy is when God does not give us what we do deserve. But, then, none of us needed a wise person to make this observation for us. We have observed up front and personal in our own lives, most probably on a daily basis. The sad truth is that we are usually not aware of most, if any, of this.

We are blessed, you and I, and abundantly so. And, for the most part, we take these blessing for granted. Now we will not be so bold to assert that we deserve these blessings from God, although we sometimes act as if we do. It seems it is only on those rare occasions when we stop, step back and reflect about just how blessed we really are that we realize that we have done little or nothing to deserve what we have received except for the grace of God.

Why are we so blessed, so graced, while so many others around us and around the world are not? They did not do anything to cause their loss of blessings and we really did nothing to merit ours. All we can do is be thankful, grateful and humbled by how blessed we are and do all we can to help those who seem, and certainly are, so deserving of God’s grace but are not. That is not so say they are not blessed. It is to say that when we compare our blessings with so many others, there is no comparison and it simply does not seem fair.

The other side of the coin, if you will, is the realization that God, in God’s infinite mercy, has spared us from much pain and suffering that we truly did deserve – and continues to do so. It is almost as if we have a guardian angel steering us away from the places and people that will lead us down the wrong path and cause us pain and suffering. Even more, when we ignore those angelic warnings and get ourselves into a real mess, for some reason God spares us from much, if not all, of the pain we deserved.

God’s mercy saves us from ourselves. And like the realization of just how blessed we are by God’s grace, it is only when we stop and reflect how often God has spared us from the pain and suffering our words and actions truly merited that we are thankful and grateful and humbled. Again, it does not seem fair that others suffer more than they deserve while God’s mercy saves from the suffering we truly do deserve.

Grace and mercy: God’s constant gifts that, if you are like me, we tend to take for granted and overlook. My guess is that God does not expect us to be constantly aware of God’s grace and mercy but simply to pause every once in a while to reflect just how active God has been as is in our lives every day. What God does expect, or at least hope for, is that we are thankful, grateful and humbled. It’s the least we can do. But it is a starter. At this moment in time, if we’ve never or hardly ever reflected on God’s grace and mercy, it may be enough, may be. Enough said.

IT’S ALL QUITE SIMPLE

A group of us usually gather at a local restaurant after the early Sunday Eucharist. A few weeks ago I was seated next to our Senior Warden who proceeded to tell me a joke she had just shared with our Rector. Let me share it with you even if you have already heard it because it made me think about what it means to be a Christian. Here goes:

Forrest Gump is standing at the Pearly Gates waiting to get in. St. Peter tells him he has to answer three questions in order to get in. The first question: How many days of the week begin with “T”? Forrest’s response: “Two – today and tomorrow?” St. Peter reluctantly agreed. Second question: How many seconds in a year? Forrest’s response: “Twelve – January second, February second…” Not the answer he was expecting but another reluctant agreement from St. Peter. Third and final question: What is God’s first name? Answer: “Andy.” St. Peter was at a loss to understand. Forrest broke out into song to explain: “Andy walks with me. Andy talks with me…” St. Peter opened the gates to Forrest.

Okay, corny joke and a long way to get to my point. Forrest’s answers were so simple even if the second question needed a computer and the last one could only be answered by “God only knows.” But the simple truth, as Forrest would probably tell us, is that living out our faith and understanding what it means to live out our faith is not rocket science. It’s simple – and is the whole message of the entire Bible summed up in one sentence: love God above all else and love your neighbor as you love yourself.

That doesn’t mean it is easy, as we have all learned through daily living. We inherently know what we are to do, how we are to live, as followers of Jesus. And we strive to live that life each and every day. And each and every day we fail to one degree or another. No one of us is perfect nor does God expect us to be perfect. What God expects of us and we should expect of ourselves is to be as good as we can.

I recently looked over the catalogue from my seminary to see what the theologians were studying these days. They are getting a great education just as I believe I had. But all those years studying scripture, moral theology, the sacraments and even canon law and everything I learned and those seminarians are learning today boils down to that one sentence, no more and no less.

And when they and I stand in the pulpit to proclaim the Gospel message, everything we say boils down to that message. If it is something else, if the words are contrary to that message, Jesus’ message, then we are failing to do what we have been ordained to do. And when we, priest and people, live contrary to that message, we fail to live out what we have proclaimed by our baptism that we are commissioned to do. But when we do, as we have learned when we do, we find life and we find life in its abundance. Isn’t that why we keep trying to live it as best we can even as we fail every day?

WONDERFULLY HARD

My Old Testament professor, who was also the Hebrew teacher, told us that we need not learn that language if we never intended to be scholars. Since I only wanted to be a simple parish priest, I did not. In hindsight, I wish I had at least learned to read Hebrew, but that’s water over the dam. Thus, when it comes to defining Hebrew words, I have to trust those who know – which is simply an introduction to my reflection.

I learned that the Hebrew word for hard is the same word for wonderful. Imagine that! Something that is hard is also wonderful. It is wonderfully hard. If you think about, it has a ring of truth. If something is easy for us, we usually don’t give it much thought and we probably don’t take as much delight in it as we could or should. We just take whatever pleasure or joy that the task gives for granted and move on.

But if some task is hard, whatever the task, we have to concentrate on what we are doing simply because the task at hand is indeed hard, difficult. It takes serious attention if we want to accomplish what needs to be accomplished. Otherwise, we will make a mess of what we are doing and will probably never complete the task. We know this to be true because we have learned the hard way.

Yet, when we have given it our all, when we have been fully physically and mentally present at the task at hand and done what needed to be done, we came away with a wonderful feeling of accomplishment even if we are bone tired and exhausted from our efforts. We also know this is true because we have learned from our experiences that it is the truth.

When something is wonderfully hard, there is an inner peace and enjoyment that is difficult if not impossible to put into words; nor do we have the need to do so. Why? Because the experience and the effort was and always will be very personal. Yes, others may and probably will have benefited from our efforts, and that is one of the driving forces for our actions. But we did not set out to do what we did simply because we were looking for some personal satisfaction. We did what we did because, in our eyes, it had to be done.

It is only when we have completed the task at hand that we can sit back and reflect. What we learn is that we accomplished what we did, as hard and as difficult as it was, because of the grace of God; the grace that put us in the position to be able to do what needed to be done; the grace and strength to accomplish the deed; the grace to make the effort when so much of us wanted to walk away and let another take up the difficult task.

We truly learn the hard way. We learn that the hard way is probably the only way to learn and that is why we need the grace of God to do what needs to be done and why we can say to ourselves afterwards, “That was a wonderfully hard experience!”

THE EMPTY TOMB

The symbol for Christmas is the star – or the manger or, in the secular world, the tree. The symbol for Good Friday is the cross, either bare or with a corpus-in-agony on it. The symbol for Easter is an empty tomb. Nothingness and yet everythingness. As Frederick Buechner writes: “You can’t depict or domesticate emptiness. You can’t make it into pageants and string it with lights. It doesn’t move people to give presents to each other or sing old songs. It ebbs and flows all around us, the Eastertide….

“He rose. A few saw him briefly and talked to him. If it is true, there is nothing left to say. If it is not true, there is nothing left to say. For believers and unbelievers both, life has never been the same again. For some, neither has death. What is left now is the emptiness. There are those who, like Magdalen, will never stop searching it till they find his face.”  (Whistling in the Dark)

And there will be those who will spend their lives whistling in the dark because of their refusal to open their eyes and see something, nay everything, in the emptiness of the tomb. For when our eyes are opened, we see not the darkness of a tomb, empty or otherwise; rather, we see the brightness of the glory of God in all of creation. More importantly, we find the face of Christ when we see that face in and on the face of every person our eyes behold.

If all that is true, there is nothing left to say, as Buechner says. All that needs to be said is said. Our search for the one who once occupied that now-empty tomb has ended. We have found him. We see him. We encounter him every time we open our eyes to the light. If it is not true, if the tomb was never empty, then there is not much that one can say or even needs to say. So the question asked to believer and unbeliever alike is quite simple: “When the stone is rolled back, what do you see?”

The problem for non-believers is that they don’t believe; but that’s their problem. They have to deal with it and answer for it. But at least what they can and do say is that they do not see what we claim to see. Our problem is greater. We know what we see when we look into that empty tomb. We see resurrection and new life – for Jesus, for us, for everyone. Our search is over. We see the face of Jesus everywhere we look – when we open our eyes to see.

The temptation is not to, to shut our eyes to the brightness of the empty tomb and the responsibility that emptiness brings to our own lives. There are times when we in fact do give into that temptation and begin to act as if, as if, the tomb was never empty, even as we know it was and is.

The Feast of the Empty Tomb, Easter, is the celebration of our discovery of the fullness of life itself, our life now and the life of the community of believers whose lives are now living proof to the resurrection. “The tomb is empty. Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed!” No more can be said. No more needs to be said except “Alleluia!” and the living out of that Alleluia in our daily lives.

 

MY NAME IS CAIAPHAS

In Mel Gibson’s long-ago movie of the passion of Jesus the hero, of course, is Jesus. The villain is the High priest, Caiaphas. The true villain in the real story, if there is indeed one true villain, is Pilate. Pilate was not the philosophical bon vivant Gibson portrays him to be but rather a ruthless, uncaring, me-first-and-damn-everyone-else-no-matter-the-cost-just- to-save-my-job ruler. Pilate washed his hands of the whole mess when he could have simply prevented it. That makes him Villain Number One.

Caiaphas, on the other hand, was not nearly as evil as Gibson depicts. Caiaphas’ job was to protect his people from further incursions by the Romans into what little freedom they had. Caiaphas was basically a good man, a man of deep faith, a man who cared about his people. Whether or not he was also well beloved, we do not know. He was probably a little power hungry. After all, he held the job for eighteen years when it was usually a one-year position. But if he had been doing a lousy job, the other ambitious priests among the Sanhedrin would have forced him out.

Caiaphas, I think, honestly believed his was doing the right thing both for his people and his faith in getting rid of Jesus, or at least making the attempt to shut Jesus up. If it meant that Jesus had to die because he would not cease his preaching and his gathering of followers, then so be it. The evil in having one innocent man killed was outweighed by the good that would come from keeping the Romans off their backs and allowing the people to practice their faith in relative peace. If Caiaphas was Villain Number Two, his villainy pales in comparison to that of Pilate.

Yet, when I reflect upon this man who, thanks to Gibson, has been receiving a bad press almost 2000 years after his death, I must sadly admit I see much of myself in Caiaphas. Power is alluring, corrupting. And those of us who are given power and authority -- and clergy are no exceptions, often take advantage of that power – and clergy are often the rule. Every division, controversy, schism in the church has been clergy led. The round collar and/or the purple shirt are just as seductive as were Caiaphas’ fine phylacteries. I know that if I am not careful, when I am on a power trip, my name is Caiaphas.

And yet there are times when I am worse than Caiaphas, who did the wrong thing for the right reason, or so he thought or so his love of power convinced him. Perhaps he didn’t know better. He didn’t have a clue who Jesus was. But I do. Caiaphas may have had a good excuse for doing something that was wrong. I do not. I know better. I know Jesus, who he is and what he desires and demands of me. When I do not do what my faith demands or do what I know I should not, I have the hammer in one hand and the nail in the other. I am one up on Caiaphas.

It is no consolation that I am not alone in any or all of this. The only consolation is that I am forgiven; forgiven when I use my authority for a selfish reason; forgiven when I do the wrong thing for what seems a right reason; forgiven for being worse than Caiaphas; forgiven. And because I am forgiven, I can always become better, less selfish and more loving. And I must. Must we all.

 

 

FIVE PEOPLE, FIVE LESSONS

 If heaven, as Mitch Albom wrote several years ago in his the five people you meet in heaven, is where all our yesterdays will finally make sense – and I do believe that is part of what we will learn in the life to come -- what lessons will those five people teach us now that it is too late to learn them? In other words, had we known and lived out those lessons in this life, would this life have made more sense to us as we lived it?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Even when we know why something turned out the way it did, we still have to live with the results. Our foolishness and sinfulness get us into many messes. When we are up to our necks in an alligator pit, we may fully know how we got there. That is no consolation as long as the alligators are aiming to eat us alive. What we have to do is get out of that pit ASAP. Then we can kick ourselves for being so stupid in the first place, for getting ourselves into that mess when we knew better.

Then, too, how often have we said to ourselves, once safely out of the pit, blood pressure back to normal, “This surely has been a good lesson for me,” and then found ourselves back in that alligator pit once again? Lessons learned are often lessons ignored. We study history to learn its lessons so that we will be spared the pain of learning them from firsthand experience. Nevertheless, history repeats itself, as we all know firsthand.

Yet, we still desire to learn more about ways to save ourselves from pain and suffering and to make this life both better and more understandable. So Albom’s five heavenly people remind us of at least five lessons we have already learned but which we often forget when rushing from here to there, which is how we end up in all those alligator pits in the first place.

First: there are no random acts. We are all connected because we can no more separate one life from another than we can separate a breeze from the wind. Every act, intentional or accidental has consequences with unperceived and never-ending results. Second: sacrifice is a part of life. (The word means “to make holy” which is what we become through sacrifice and only through sacrifice.) Third: When hurt, as we all are, we need to forgive, now, unconditionally and unasked. To not forgive is to live in the past, which prevents living in the present.

Fourth: Love has no end even when the ones we love die. Love lives on in our memory and in us. Fifth, whoever we are is who we are supposed to be. Wanting to be someone else is simply a waste of time and prevents us from living who we are to the fullest at every moment in our lives.

Life’s little lessons? Heaven’s little lessons? To be sure, simple but profound. I would like to assert that one of these lessons is more important than the others or that they could be listed in order of importance, but I cannot. The truth is, I think, they are interconnected and cannot be separated one from another. Albom gave me a whole lot to think about back then and he is still giving me a whole lot to think about, and my guess is that I will still thinking for years to come, God willing. You, too?

 

IF ONLY

Life, my life at least, would be so much easier if everyone agreed with me. If everyone thought like me, reasoned like me, understood as I understand, why preaching and teaching would be a piece of cake. We would all be on the same wavelength and be able to get to the core of any problem very quickly. Wouldn’t that be wonderful for me! However, it might not be so wonderful for someone else.

We all would like others to agree with us, to think and understand as we do, to see life and all life is about from our particular perspective. Then there would be less disagreement, less dissension and division and, perhaps, even true peace in this world. But no two peoples and no two people think alike, operate with the same mindset, the same principles, the same belief system simply because we are unique. We are each one of a kind. That is the way God created us. That is the way we are. That is the way we will always be. That is why we will never be of one mind on everything.

The reason why I believe what I believe is the result of almost eighty-two years of living: eighty-two years of unique thoughts and experiences. Since I have not experienced everything there is to experience and not thought about everything there is to think about, there are still great gaps in my education and in my understanding. And so it is with everyone else. Thus, when my gap meets your understanding or your gap, or vice versa, we will no doubt disagree because we cannot see what the other sees.

If only we could, but we cannot. That is why while we must stand up for our beliefs and convictions, we cannot and must not negate or belittle those who do not see or understand the way we do. We may try to convince another about the truth of which we are convicted, but we may not succeed. Some truths are only arrived at through a lifetime of thinking, experiencing and learning. Sometimes they are never arrived at.

And sometimes what we believe to be true may indeed be false, may be wrong. We may go to our grave believing something to be true that we discover in eternity to be false. And we may only discover in death that what we thought was false was in fact quite true. Life would be so much easier if we all knew the whole truth and lived our lives based on nothing but the truth. If only.

In the meantime, as each of us struggles to discover the truth, we have to agree to disagree on some matters, perhaps even on some issues of faith and morality. We do not have all the answers because we have not yet asked all the questions and because we will never fully understand God and God’s ways. We must never try to force our beliefs on anyone but must live our beliefs to the fullest. We will never convince another simply because we have the better argument. We will convince another by the way we live out our faith.

Jesus never convinced nor converted anyone by trying to change his or her mind. He tried to change the way they lived and he did it by modeling that lifestyle. So did the early church. So must we today. If only there were an easier way, but there is not.