Proper 18b 2024; 8 Sept.
Pro. 22:1-2,8-9,22-23; Ps. 125, Jas. 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37
Jack Hardaway
UNCONSTRAINED MERCY
Mercy is an adventure.
Or is it a landslide, an avalanche, a stampede?
A wave that rises up and carries us off our intended course?
Once we take that entrance ramp onto the interstate, there is no going back the way we came, everything is up ahead.
Mercy invites mixed metaphors.
Jesus started down that road and tried to pull back.
The Syrophoenician woman argued with Jesus about this, back and forth about dogs and crumbs and children and tables. She won the argument. Jesus changed his mind. Her daughter was set free from demonic possession. Mercy and freedom.
We don’t know her name.
Just the Syrophoenician woman.
You know, that woman who changed Jesus’ mind.
She joins that long line of salty saints who strived with God, like Jacob, and Moses and Job.
She stands out, we just don’t know her name.
Mercy.
It isn’t a self-improvement exercise or an occasional jaunt into charity.
Mercy. Once it is let loose, it always takes us to the cross.
Mercy does triumph, like it says in James’ letter, but it is the triumph of the cross.
To be clear, mercy is a kind of dying.
Mercy is a grace to both those who give and who receive, and the “quality of mercy is not strained,” as Portia says in the Merchant of Venice. Mercy is rather unconstrained, and it bleeds God dry. There is no honest soft sell around that.
Jesus is God’s mercy bled out.
The blood of the cross is unconstrained mercy. The blood of Jesus is unconstrained mercy unleashed on the world.
We receive that mercy, we drink that mercy.
Who knows where it will take us? All we know is that it takes us to the cross.
The adventure of mercy.
This parish is always going on that adventure, always finding new ways to step out into the mercy. It is part of our DNA.
I keep thinking of our new little food pantry at the bottom of the parking lot and the unexpected consequences that have come with that adventure.
It is sought out. People wait and camp out wanting to be the first to get to the food being dropped off.
Garbage and human waste has begun to accumulate on the property.
The hungry bang on doors and chase people down wanting to know when more food will be dropped off, and the playground is suddenly empty.
It is uncomfortable. Mercy takes us to this place of discomfort.
What do we do now?
Mercy is an adventure.
God’s nearness at times like this is unsettling.
Who knows where mercy will take us?
Mercy always takes us to the cross.
Jesus pulled back, he hesitated, wanting to make it conditional.
She changed his mind and that landslide to the cross– it started right back up, unconstrained.