[ Today's Readings ]
and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your heavenly Father,
for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good,
and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
God loves us even when we don't act in a way which is deserving of that love. He loves us while we are yet sinners and enemies. And we don't really understand how amazing this is until we try to love others in the same way. We imagine ourselves to be selfless. But then at the slightest slight we no longer act so loving. We either separate ourselves and withhold interaction or we let the criticism fly. We really do have this need for a certain balance in our relationship with others, a transactional equivalence whereby we earn the next gesture of love from the other. And once we realize this we also realize it is terrible. But now the great love with which God loves us reveals itself for how great it is. Now the commandment "So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect" reveals itself in all of its wonderful and terrible depth.
And so, like Ahab, we often fall, and fall hard. We murder and we take possession, at least emotionally and spiritually. We not only don't love others for their own sake but instead use them however we please for our happiness. The blessing which the LORD offers us today is one of repentance.
When Ahab heard these words, he tore his garments
and put on sackcloth over his bare flesh.
He fasted, slept in the sackcloth, and went about subdued.
We ask...
Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.
... because he shows us how desperate is our need for mercy. But at the same time, he shows us how ready he is to offer that mercy ...
Since he has humbled himself before me,
I will not bring the evil in his time.
It is not a mercy which merely ignores the wrong. It is a mercy which transforms our hearts so that we can actually somehow be perfect even as the Father is perfect.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me.
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