Trinity 4

 

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +

    I want you to think back on this past week, and I want you to think of all the stupid little times you got angry, annoyed, peeved. And not even over big things, or serious things – but just all the passing junk that drifts on by and you get irked, your temper flares, you roll your eyes, a little huff and puff. Think of all the petty disdain, the irritations that try to grow into rage. And I mean the little ones, the stupid things that just bother you and get your goat. Your pet peeves. The face palm, head in hands, shake your head I can't believe they just did that moments. Got them? Have some in your head? It is precisely those sorts of things that Christ Jesus your Lord is speaking against and warning against in our Gospel today when He says, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

    And I mean this quite seriously. Let's review what comes right before this verse. Jesus instructs us - “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, for you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.” This is the generosity of God, where He gives and doesn't expect anything in return. This is the love of God, where even to those who fight against Him He still does good, actual real good. Is someone ungrateful? Are they a scoundrel? Your Father still does good to them, and if you want to be like your Father, that's what you'll do. In fact, Jesus tells us to be merciful... well, there's a problem with how we hear this. There are two words in Greek that get translated as mercy – there's the typical one – Eleos – like we get in the Kyrie Eleison – Lord, have mercy. Lord, see the lousy consequence of my actions and deliver me. Have mercy on me; don't judge me guilty, spare me!

    Except, that's not the word that Jesus uses here – He uses a great word, but it's a word that we just don't have in English. It's oiktrimon - It's “Be full of pity, even as your Father is full of pity.” Except, that sounds weird to us, because if we say that someone is “pityful” we mean they are low, down, messed up. So full of pity doesn't sound right in modern English. Jesus is saying, “When you see someone and they are doing someone foolish, silly, annoying – your first and overarching reaction should be to pity them – to see them as people who are trapped in sin, trapped in the folly of this world, trapped in death... because you know what? That's how your Father sees things. That's how God looks out upon the world – He sees all those things that got you riled up – the things that others have done to you or even that you yourself have done... and His reaction isn't primarily anger or disgust or anything like that. It's pity. It's compassion. It's,,, heartache, where God sees His creation that He loves groaning in bondage to sin and death, and that's not what He created any of it for, not what He created you for. He created you to receive nothing but His goodness, and yet, you're stuck in and surrounded by badness... and so God is moved to pity. Pity, not rage. Pity, not disdain. Pity, not annoyance. And so, instead of destroying, God is moved to rescue. Instead of crushing, God is moved to redeem. Hence “be merciful” - it works, but it's mercy that is driven by pity, never some haughty, begrudging I'll let you off this time. No, no, oh you poor thing, God is never begrudging towards you.

    And this is why the next thing Jesus says is, “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned.” This is how God operates; this is how His merciful pity works. He's not interested in being critical and judgey – He wants you rescued and redeemed from sin and death, from those things that would lead to judgment. He doesn't want you condemned, He doesn't want you punished. God takes up your punishment and condemnation for you – that's why Jesus came, that's why He went to the cross and suffered, that's why Paul notes in Romans, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Get away from that miserable judging and condemning game that the world plays – get away from the grousing and complaining hobby, the rage and reaction... because it's a lousy game and it makes you miserable and angry and it's not what God wants for you. God didn't make you you with all your wondrous gifts and talents just so you could nitpick everything to death and not enjoy anything. And you live in a fallen world, which is nothing but a factory of discontent and death, and you get dragged to that assembly line of disgruntlement day in and day out... and Jesus says - No. Don't go there, don't clock in for duty at the daily rage factory.

    Instead – Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you. Do you see? Do you understand how God likes you to operate? He likes forgiveness – He likes completely getting rid of any strings hanging over people, any sense of doom – no, get rid of that. Stop worrying about it – forgive, let it go, be free of all that. And instead, give. Serve. Love. Because the simple truth is this – your Father is going to keep on forgiving and loving and serving and giving to you, so much, over and over, pressing His forgiveness and love and generosity into you that you'd never be able to run out of it, you'll never out forgive or out give God. That's the reality.

    And that's what we forget, and that's what Satan is trying to delude you into abandoning. God is merciful, God has compassion, God has pity upon you and upon your neighbor. He desires all, all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. And when we forget that God is merciful, we ourselves slide away from mercy, from pity, from compassion... and we become more and more bitter and resentful and prideful and arrogant and angry and unsatisfied... and what do you think hell is going to be but all that junk ratcheted up more and more and more? Not what God wants for you. If you demand it, God will let you have it in the end. But no, in His pity He wants you forgiven and receiving His good with joy and thanksgiving because that's who God is.

    Do you see? He also told them a parable. “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?” See who God is! Know and remember your Father's love to you – know His forgiveness, understand how He gives freely – and then and only then can you likewise have pity on your neighbor and lead them to God, can show them God's love and forgiveness. And this is what Jesus is preparing you to do, this is who Jesus is shaping you to be – A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. Jesus has pity upon you, and thus you will have pity upon others who were trapped in sin, just like you were. Jesus forgives you, and thus you will learn more and more to forgive others. Jesus blesses you, and thus you will be God's blessing to other people more and more. Because Jesus is going to make you more and more like Him. And I mean that quite literally – you and I will only see it in full come the last day when we are raised from the dead even as He is raised from the dead, and we will be fully free from sin as Jesus is free from sin. You want to know what you'll look like, be like in heaven, in the life of the world to come? You'll be like Jesus – you'll be a Christian – a little Christ is full – but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we will see Him as He is. That was John. Paul puts it this way – For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.

    Now, we don't always see. Now we live in the time of clouded vision and things obscuring the reality of God's love, where we and where our neighbors get distracted. Thus we hear Jesus say, Why do you see the speck that is in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, “Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,” when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your neighbor's eye. God wants those specks, those logs removed – God wants us to see clearly, rejoice clearly. And that only happens through forgiveness, through receiving Christ's forgiveness, through living in it – and then you will be prepared to forgive others.

    Oh there's so much junk. There's so many specks and logs gumming up our eyes, and we're about ready to leave service and head back out to our week where pretty near everyone and everything will be shouting at us to sharpen those logs into weapons and jab them at each other, where those specks will be built into molehills taller than Babel, where even our own sinful flesh will want to get in on that game. Week in and week out, that same sinful game will keep calling. But over and against that, remember who God is. Your Father is the God who has pity, who sees sin as something that needs to be forgiven and removed, not merely complained about or used as leverage. And this is how your Father sees you – with love, with mercy, with compassion – this is why He forgives you daily and richly in His Church, by the working of the Holy Spirit through the Word – the Word that forgives and rescues you from the misery of judging and condemning and grousing and the dog-eat-dog-ing of the world. No, the Father gives you Jesus, and in Him you are forgiven and have new life, even now. And though Satan tries to obscure it, Jesus takes away your log so that you can see, so that you can see Him, for your good and for your neighbors', in all things. He was nailed to that log and died and rose, so that you would be rescued from your sin and have life in Him. Come, let us fix our eyes upon Jesus, the Author and Perfector of our faith. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +