An Emaciated Mercy

I've been going to a small church for a couple of weeks.  I wanted to go to a church nearby my house.  I feel like it's a negative thing to travel far and wide to get to a church that’s just right for me.  It's not a sin or anything but I felt that if I was looking for a church that was just right for me then I was looking for a church for the wrong reason.  There is faith and hope needed in every corner of the world after all.  I wanted to be useful where I went to church, so a smallish church.  I wanted to be able to go there anytime so nearby.  I like communion every Sunday and I choose accordingly. 

The church that I choose will remain unnamed.  They are driving me off.  I want to be an instrument (St. Francis) but can God use me in this place so bereft of grace to work hope back into dry bones?

There I sit in the pews and I hope someone will engage me in conversation so I can give them a piece of my mind, but that may not help.  How will a bunch of crusty old fuddy duddies listen to what I have to say?  If I have the boldness that God commands and exhorts in Joshua will they have ears to hear what the spirit says to the churches?

What is their soul crushing, joy sucking message?  You can’t sin.  This church seems like a relic in this era.  Most churches are too far on the other end of the pendulum.  They are too grace filled???  Nothing matters, but your faith and love.  I have a message for them too but this church, flying in the face of humanity and history expects true perfection after Christ’s forgiveness. 

What arrogant rubes?  It brings to mind this passage from the 17^th chapter of Ecclesiasticus.  Yes, there is a chance to leave sin behind every day, but there is power in our weakness.  Praise God for his mercy he lavishes it on all who turn towards him.   

25 Return to the LORD and renounce your sins, plead before his face, stop offending him.

26 Come back to the Most High, turn away from iniquity and hold all that is foul in abhorrence.

27 Who is going to praise the Most High in Sheol if we do not glorify him while we are alive?

28 The dead can praise no more than those who do not exist, only those with life and health can praise the Lord.

29 How great is the mercy of the Lord, his pardon for those who turn to him!

30 For we cannot have everything, human beings are not immortal.

31 What is brighter than the sun? And yet it fades. Flesh and blood think of nothing but evil.

32 He surveys the armies of the lofty sky, and all of us are only dust and ashes.

I think that modern Jews sort of believe that their good and bad deeds are going to be weighed at the end of the world.  They believe that God has mercy and will give mercy to those who seek it, those who were close to even.  That’s probably a little obtuse version of it.  We Christians sort of believe that too; just that Christ Jesus is the tool by which we receive grace.

So too, back in the times of this Jesus after the return from Babylon and Persia that they believed that there is power in being sorry.  There may be more power in being sorry than having nothing to be sorry about.  After all, how boring would creation have been if there were nothing but greatness?  If Earth was populated by giants of intellect and morality Jesus, son of David would have been a blip in history and no one would have put up with your awful B.S.  If everyone was good enough there’d be no beautiful choice, no reaching up from the bottom that society and humans hit.  There’s no greatness if there’s nothing but greatness.

This little church believes that you’re going to give an account for what you believe and do.  This church’s preacher starts every sermon with the specific albeit frightening assertion that we will all be on the hook for what we’ve done.  This is, basically, a gospel-less gospel.  This is a Church of Christ where Christ doesn’t make sense.  This is a salvation without a savior. 

But we believe that God looks down on you, with your foibles and quirks, and loves you.  Sometimes he loves you in spite of your faithlessness.  Sometimes because of your broken spiritual wings.  He loves the lame, the frightened, the meek, the week, the sad, and the lonely.  “Man cannot have everything.  Flesh and blood think of nothing but evil.” But God… 

I don’t know where you are on the pendulum of God’s grace.  Somewhere all the way over towards God’s demand for works.  Faith without works is dead of course.  Maybe you’re a figurative member of this church and are hoping to get a ticket into heaven without using Christ as your only ticket in.  Maybe you’re in a church or in a place in your life where you think God is so grace-filled, he really doesn’t care how you behave.  You may think hippie faith is the answer to the world’s problems.  Wherever you are on the spectrum; spend a day on the other side. 

For the fans of James spend a day contemplating and meditating that, “It is the gift of God so that no man may boast.”

For the Pauline lovers maybe you should spend a couple of hours a day or a whole week trying to turn towards God again.  Let’s strive for faithful observance because if you don’t have proofs of faith then your faith is shallow and even the demons have faith in God.