10 March 2017 - fearsome mercy

 [ Today's Readings ]

Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar,
and there recall that your brother
has anything against you

The onus is of reconciliation is always ours. It isn't only when we have something against our brother that we need to work to set things right. It is when he has something against us as well. This is a challenge to us. Mercy is not passive and defensive. It is active. It builds bridges. It reaches out. Perhaps it cannot succeed at changing a person's heart in a given instance. But it will at least make the effort. Mercy does all it can do. One who shows mercy is therefore blameless regardless of whether there is any apparent success.

We need a righteousness greater than that of the Pharisees and the scribes. To attain it we must be merciful. The level of mercy to which we are called is superhuman. We cannot attain it on our own. We are willing to be merciful, perhaps, when unforgiveness is costing us something personally. But what about when the broken relationship doesn't really seem to hurt us but only the other? Fortunately for us Jesus is willing to share his own mercy with us. His mercy is like this by definition. Since he makes this mercy available to us by his Holy Spirit the decision to receive righteousness still ultimately comes down to our own choice to accept all that Jesus wants to offer us.

When someone virtuous turns away from virtue to commit iniquity, and dies,
it is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die.
But if the wicked, turning from the wickedness he has committed,
does what is right and just,
he shall preserve his life

Let's not wait to show mercy. It is better to be changed here and now then to insist on the prison from which we will not be released until we pay the last penny. It is better now than then because it is actually truly better to live in mercy and to hesitate is to deprive ourselves of that better life for that much longer.

For with the LORD is kindness
and with him is plenteous redemption;
And he will redeem Israel
from all their iniquities.