Faith | Cats | Hope | Grace

“O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”—Collect for the Second Sunday in Lent

There are words we use, and use frequently, that we sometimes don’t think about their meaning. One of those words for me is mercy. We describe God as merciful, we offer prayers of thanksgiving for his mercy, we as humans are called to be merciful as God is merciful.

But what is mercy? And why do we need it?

Dictionaries of varying lens—etymological, theological, philosophical—will all give you very good technical meanings of the word. But sometimes looking at the results of a word help us to really understand its meaning.

Mercy is space. Space between our actions and the judgement those actions would warrant. And in that space we have the opportunity to repent. Scripture is filled to the brim of stories of God’s mercy. Mercy shown to individuals and mercy shown to communities. In the midst of the consequences of action, we sometimes miss the mercy. The first time it really hit me was the story of Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden. It’s a story I’d heard and read hundreds of times, but one particular moment I was really noticed that the consequence of eating from the tree in the middle of the garden is death. Spoiler alert, Adam and Eve don’t die after eating from the tree. God is angry with them. There are physical consequences for Adam, Eve, and the serpent. And Adam and Eve are driven from the garden. But they don’t die. Through God’s mercy they are given the space to remake their lives. God stays his hand throughout time and history giving humanity as their descendants the space to remake our lives. May we continue to give thanks for that space.

God’s mercy is also closely connected to his compassion. God hears the cries of people broken and oppressed and comes to their aid. Jesus answers the pleas of those who are sick, or dying, and possessed and frees them from their infirmities. This element of God’s and of Jesus’s mercy point to a closeness that they have with humanity. Both God and Jesus see us, and see our burdens and struggles. And we are so loved that our cares and struggles individually and collectively move the divine on our behalf. May we continue to give thanks for that closeness.

And we humans are called to be merciful as God is merciful, but what does that look like at human scale. In our relationships and in our systems of justice, do we offer people that space to repent? Do we offer people the possibility of becoming reconciled back into community? Or is our justice a permanent exclusion from community? Reconciliation is hard. It requires truth telling, repentance, forbearance, a staying of hands, and forgiveness. But by leaning on God we can hopefully rise to the occasion.

 We are also called to mirror God’s compassion in our interactions with those around us. We see those in need of care and we do not look away. Instead we make sure the vulnerable in our society have housing and medical care. We do this, because like God and Jesus, we are moved by love of our fellow humans. Our mercy will never have the depth and expansiveness of God’s, but it can have an impact on those around us.

Mercy is an ever-present part of our worship services, our faiths, and our lives. But hopefully we don’t allow familiarity to diminish the impact and the importance of it. Our lives were begun and are shot through with mercy. May we continue to give thanks.