The Friday Letters
26 February 2010
My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Our collect prayer for this coming Sunday begins thus, “O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy,” yet in the eyes of the world, mercy looks like failure.
That’s a funny phrase, isn’t it? In the eyes of the world. There is a long history of Christians using this phrase to imply that the world is not seeing things correctly—that there is a difference between how the world sees and judges things and the way in which God does. Completely true, of course, as far as it applies to God. The lie in this popular statement is that it also implies that we Christians, the habitual utterers of this phrase, do not see with the eyes of the world.
It’s a noble goal, but I don’t think it gets done very often. I know my eyes are eyes of the world most of the time. My eyes, just like the eyes of the world, see mercy as failure. It looks like loosing. It doesn’t look like glory at all.
During Lent we seek to engage with the twinned ideas of mercy and judgment. Last week I wrote about justice. Not long ago I spoke about the fear of the Lord. The season of Lent is permeated by the religious idea of sin: what it is, how it dwells with us, where we can find peace from it. In the collect this week there is no mention of the harder side of God’s operation, just the assertion that God’s glory is somehow tied up with God’s mercy, and Thank God for that.
We look to God and ask for mercy, and when it’s God we’re talking about we are willing to see mercy as glory. Where else are we willing to see that? Where else do our eyes of the world see mercy and recognize it as glory, instead of finding it to be weakness? Are our politics characterized by mercy? Are our international relations merciful? What about our own lives, and the relationships we have with both friends and strangers—is there mercy there?
God is greater than we are, to be sure. Our mercy will never match God’s. Yet we are created in the image of God, and that is not just a blessing but a responsibility. If it is God’s glory to have mercy, then it is our calling to do likewise.
Peace,
Ben.
