Mercy and Grace

Plato, in his Timaeus, says “So, Timaeus, it seems it would be your task to speak next – that is, after

you’ve called upon the gods in accordance with custom.” [27B]

In like manner, I will call upon both St. Augustine, the patron saint of theologians, Bastet, the Egyptian cat goddess, as well as Polyhymnia, the muse of sacred poetry and eloquence, in order to ascertain how mercy and grace play upon the human stage.

What value is there in finding mercy and grace? How do we know if we have found mercy and grace? The Israelites of the Torah, especially if you lived within a day’s walk of Jerusalem, had it easy. They has a cadre of priests, to whom you brought you doves, lambs, or bullocks, if you were really a big sinner, and the priests would make your sacrifice on the altar in front of the temple, and you were good for another few days, weeks, or months, depending on how big of a rascal you were. Jesus, according to Hebrews, put an end to that, by being the last high priest, of the order of Melchizedek, the first order of priests, from Genesis. One way of reading Hebrews is that Jesus give all the Jews in the Diaspora, those living in Ephesus, Alexandria, Byzantium, Cyrenia, Rome, and Athens a break. They no longer had to schlep all the way to Jerusalem, over difficult roads and seas, to have their sins forgiven. It was all done for them.

But there was no longer any “receipt” for two doves paid for sacrifice. That’s were the “boldly” in the meme comes in. We are now on the honor system, and being on the honor system is sometimes tough. We have to be like the skeptical Agent Dana Scully to the wild eyed alien-hunter, Agent Fox Mulder of the X-Files.

But that’s not what I’m really here to tell you. This should just get you to the right place to accept what I have in mind. Remember when we talked about forgiveness and the fact that He is expecting us to forgive our enemies before we can expect forgiveness from Him. Remember how it is even in His prayer. Well, I suggest that Grace and Mercy are treated in the same way upstairs. Since we have no App on our Smartphone or Tablet to signal whether we are in His good graces, and are up to date in the grace and mercy department, we have to assume that if we have faith that we are, and pay it forward, we will be in His good graces when our ledger is tallied up when the time comes.

The company line is that we are rewarded with grace even if there is no way we can afford to earn it by being… aha … and there’s the rub. We don’t even know what it means to earn His grace and mercy. So why try. But at least we have a reasonably good idea of what can really foul up our ledgers. We don’t even have to be murderers, rapists, or adulterers to make His virtual police blotter. Being greedy is high on the list. In fact, it may even be worse than murder, if that taking of a life was due to a momentary blindness in judgment. Greed requires intent, and it is intent which runs all through your daily life. It is so consuming that you lose any sense of compassion for those in need.

So, that’s were mercy comes in. Grace is a bit abstract, but when we are in the forgiveness and mercy shelves of the library, we have no trouble reading what those notions are all about. It mean that if someone whose politics runs counter to yours, you welcome them into your church with as much enthusiasm as your closest confidant on political matters. The past is entirely in God’s hands. We deal with what is set before us, with mercy and forgiveness. We don’t only act on it, we preach it, and we write about it.

That writing business may be more powerful than you may think. Robert Heinlein, the dean of classic writers of science fiction, added an exchange in his novel, Between Planets which went like this:

The banker reached into the folds of his gown, pulled out a single credit note. "But eat first—a full belly steadies the judgment. Do me the honor of accepting this as our welcome to the newcomer."

His pride said no; his stomach said YES! Don took it and said, "Uh, thanks! That's awfully kind of you. I'll pay it back, first chance."

"Instead, pay it forward to some other brother who needs it."

Heinlein lived this philosophy, and passed it on to other great writers of science fiction, such as Ray Bradbury, who wrote stories with the same theme. This is not something which only happens in TV commercials. Speaking of and to everyone with love, mercy, and forgiveness gets communicated in actions.

Take this with you in this Easter season.

Amen.

-- Bruce Marold