“MERCY IN HIM”
Saint Luke 6. 36-42
Fourth Sunday after Trinity: 5 July Anno Domini 2009
Fr Watson SSP
The Lord commands you to show mercy. This Law to forgive applies to those who need forgiveness-the guilty, the bad, the ones who have hurt you. Why don't you do this? Your Heavenly Father forgives you.
You are not to judge others unworthy of Christ's forgiveness. You are not to assume those who are "bad" in your estimation are damned and unworthy of your love.
Lord have Mercy.
You fail to forgive freely because you don't love your Father perfectly. You still look too much in the mirror at your own reflection rather than focusing upon His Face of Grace found in His Son the God/Man.
To love ones neighbor means to be vulnerable and open and subject to being abused, used, and hurt all over again. To love perfectly means that when they are pounding the "nails" into your wrists and crowning you with their insults and treachery you are nonetheless asking your Father to have pity upon them and to not hold their sin against them. This you do not do.
Lord have Mercy.
The dead man cannot save the dying man. The man with no legs can't carry the cripple across the finish line. The blind cannot lead the blind.
Trust not in princes. Trust not in politicians and radio personalities. Worship not your heritage, home or family. Trust in the Lord only for only He saves.
The Apostle Paul, like Saint Stephen before him, fulfilled in his own body the suffering of His Master the Christ. This does not mean that Paul added to, or somehow completed, Jesus' passion and atonement. No. But this means that to be "IN CHRIST," to be a Christian-a 'little Christ' is to be like Him. To live a life as a believer means that by Grace, through Faith, not only are you saved, but everything that is Jesus' is yours. His life and eternal life belong to you. His Sonship with the Father is yours. And, praise be, His life under the Cross is now yours as well. You live most closely to Christ when your daily tribulations are cruciform in shape. The more you suffer, in faith, the daily ravages of sin and a sinful world, the more you shine in His Light.
Your enemies are not your neighbor and his falleness. Your foes consist of the world, the devil, and your own flesh. In brotherly love you of course are duty bound to warn your fellow man against self destructive behavior. In confessional boldness you of course are duty bound to condemn false doctrine and heresy. But Jesus tells you to shut up when it comes to whining and squealing and complaining about your brother's speck. Of course the other guy has a speck in his eye-he's a sinner; that damnable sawdust of broken and cut wood is everywhere. That speck left un-cleansed and un-removed will only lead to a mountain of ashes and dust 6-feet under; and then to fire and brimstone; so of course it is important to attend to…after you first attend to yourself. This means that you repent, that you turn, and that you daily drown your 'Old Adam,' before becoming the enforcer of rigid purity. Which by the bye-- you were never installed or ordained to be.
Lord have Mercy.
Who will save you from your fatal failings? Christ. Not some distant spirit Jesus who loves you in abstract fluffiness and feel-goodness, but a fleshly and present God/Man Who loves you with Body and Blood. A man Who is God, Who took the huge beam out of your eye, broke it in two and made a cross of crimson out of it. He took your sins out of your bodies and let them be used as spikes of sin to hang him on that cross-beam; to suffocate Him to death with only the sighs of "Father forgive THEM" on His bruised lips.
Because the teller of this morning's Gospel parable did it on Calvary, the Father looks at you and sees only your clear sparkling eyes of faith. Because of His Grace bestowed freely, your vision is 20/20 on the heavenly eye-charts, for it is fastened by faith to its permanent gaze at the Crucified One. Because the Lord Who shared His word 2,000 years ago, is not a distant, memorial, God, but a flesh & blood IN YOUR MIDST…IN YOUR FACE, "here & now" Redeemer, you bosom, your hearts, souls, bodies, and minds are overflowing with the life, love, and vitality of the Risen Lord. Pressed down, shaken together, running over, as you eat the Body of Mercy Himself and drink the Blood of remission and forever.
In the Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost