“CHRIST IS MERCIFUL: HE FORGIVES, PERIOD!”
Saint Luke 6. 36-42
Fourth Sunday after Trinity: 27 June Anno Domini 2010
Fr JW Watson SSP
"Therefore be merciful." Beautiful words, NO. They are words of death. "Therefore" is the resultant condition of one created in the image of God. He made you and thus you owe everything to Him including complete, perfect and total obedience. "BE" is not a suggestion or aspiration; it is an operative condition. "Merciful" is an activity and not an emotion.
"Therefore be merciful" is pure Law, and, because you are not merciful, you would be damned apart from the Christ.
Being merciful is loving your enemies in action and deed. Being merciful is helping the bodily needs of those who hitherto have tried to harm and hurt you.
When you hear the Christ say to you: "Judge not, and you shall not be judged," He is not telling you that the Laws, the Commandments, don't apply to your sinful neighbors (they do), He is telling you to BE MERCIFUL. The greatest act of mercy is to forgive, to absolve, to wash away hate, anger, vengeance, pay-back, revenge, and excuse for inaction. The judging, the condemning, and the damning will be done by the Lord soon enough. The verdict will be read at the final Trump, the end of time, and it will be based on faith in Christ. BUT…. those who do have faith in Christ, and are IN CHRIST, will be reckoned merciful, counted merciful, declared merciful, by virtue of the Mercy of the Merciful God/Man Jesus!
It is not that you must forgive someone FIRST, before Jesus will love you…no…Jesus loved you FIRST when you were His mortal foe, when you were dead in the devil, and when you were yelling with the Jews: CRUCIFY HIM! But now, as the brother and sister of the Christ, overflowing with His WORD of tender forgiveness for you, overflowing with the cool water + from His mouth and side refreshing your spiritual thirst, and overflowing with the TRUE BODY AND BLOOD of the GOD/MAN, you DO forgive those who have hurt you and used you. You can even forgive yourself for…hurting and using you! Do you forgive perfectly? No. Do you lapse, and backslide, and remember past grudges and indignities done to you? Yes you do. And then, the Law of God knocks you down. Then the Law condemns you and then along with Saint Peter (after He had denied Jesus and heard the cock crow), you weep in bitter contrition. And then, Jesus picks you up and embraces you with those pierced hands and scarred arms; He breaths family upon you and says PEACE, I have absolved you of all of these trespasses.
The one who adamantly, arrogantly and defiantly, like Cain, like Lamech, revels in their refusal to forgive their sister for hurting and rejecting them, their parishioner for hating and slandering them, their parents for abusing and abandoning them, their children for defying them and wishing them dead, their neighbors for stealing from them and seeking to pervert their family and way of life… if one CONDEMNS THESE SINNERS to hell and hates them in thought, word and deed, then that person has jumped out of Jesus' arms, and doesn't believe any more the suffering and death that the Master went through to FORGIVE them all the same sins and wrongs which they (which you) have done to others, to yourselves , to God.
Notwithstanding Our Lord's interesting, arresting, and totally truthful simile about planks, specks, and eye blockages… you do well to let the Redeemer be the Carpenter and wood expert that He is!
He has taken the specks out of your neighbor's eyes, your adversaries' eyes, your enemies' eyes, and the eyes of those who hate you-because He loves them too. He has taken away all specks, sawdust, chips, irritants, burdens and scraps. He did when He obeyed the 10 Commandments. He did it when He carried the load, the wood, the kindling, and the "rules" kept perfectly up Mount Moriah. He did it when He carried the "firewood" of your sins up the Hill of Golgotha so that you would never have to be the sacrifice for your own badness.
He has taken the plank, the beam, the two-by-four out of your eyes by letting the wooden hands of sinful men slap, hit and buffet Him about the Sacred Head. He did it when the wooden handled whip scourged Him and stripped Him permanently. He did it when He, the Carpenter of Grace and Mercy, united His lacerated back to the Wood of the Tree, His punctured feet and hands to the Wood of the true Tree of Life.
It's good to have a wooden reminder of that Crucifix, here in our midst this morning. For here we have the wood of a Holy Pulpit-the place of Jesus' Words of remission and peace; the wood of a Holy Font-the place of Jesus' cleansing Word; and the wood of the Holy Altar-the place of Jesus' Sacramental Word of strength and salvation.
For it is the Merciful One in your midst who leads you out of blindness into Himself: LIGHT. It is the Forgiving One Who does not judge you because He was already judged, condemned, beaten, executed, and buried for you!
You have been lifted from the ditch to the banquet table of Heaven's ante-room. You are miserable no more, and you will again be Mercy FILLED!
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost