29 February 2020 - threshold of mercy

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Jesus said to them in reply,
“Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.
I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”

It is not to the perfect that Jesus came. It is sinners who need God's mercy. Those who thought themselves to be perfect weren't open to healing that Jesus desired to give. We sometimes slip into believing that we have more or less achieved some basic level of stable perfection. We may still imagine that we need Jesus for some optional spiritual path we choose to pursue as a hobby. But we forget that even as simple men and women called to love we are quite broken and desperate without him. The path to sanctification involves an ever greater awareness of our need for God. We see our own brokenness more clearly. But it does not discourage us because we also see the abundance of God's mercy, not only its existence, but especially its possibility for us.

"Oh, how happy I am to see myself imperfect and to have such need of God’s mercyat the moment of my death." - St Therese of Lisieux 

Only when we allow ourselves to see the parts of ourselves where we need God's healing can we be transformed. And this is the only way that the world itself can be changed. We ourselves must be the first recipients of any healing that we desire for the world. We must be the change we wish to see. But this means that we must first admit that we needed the change. Apart from God's mercy this is quite a frightening thing to believe. But when seen in the light of God it actually entitles us great intimacy with him. This is what Paul was expressing when he wrote, "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost" (see First Timothy 1:15).

If you remove from your midst oppression,
false accusation and malicious speech;
If you bestow your bread on the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted;
Then light shall rise for you in the darkness,
and the gloom shall become for you like midday;
Then the LORD will guide you always
and give you plenty even on the parched land.

The implication is that the reason that there is oppression, false accusation, and malicious speech, and hungry and afflicted people is because these things exist incipiently within our own hearts. This is what the heavy quote from the Brothers Karamazov is meant to express.

"When he realizes that he is not only worse than others, but that he is responsible to all men for all and everything, for all human sins, national and individual, only then the aim of our seclusion is attained. For know, dear ones, that every one of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men and everything on earth, not merely through the general sinfulness of creation, but each one personally for all mankind and every individual man."

He goes on in a way that shows the great hope that underlies such a claim.

"Only through that knowledge, our heart grows soft with infinite, universal, inexhaustible love. Then every one of you will have the power to win over the whole world by love and to wash away the sins of the world with your tears."
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

When we recognize the great need of mercy in which we all stand it is not only we ourselves that are on the threshold of being transformed, but the entire world.

The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake,
and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up;
“Repairer of the breach,” they shall call you,
“Restorer of ruined homesteads.”

With the psalmist we are moved to pray, "Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth."