God's Mercy: Comfortable or Cleansing?
Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern it always by your goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
___________________________________________________________
The above was the collect that was read this past Sunday, August 5th, 2012 at our 8 and 10AM services. At first it was a tough collect to read, a tough collect to comprehend and swallow.
A collect is a prayer that the clergy person at an Episcopal Church reads to "collect" the people, gather us together as we begin our corporate worship. It is a little late in the service to really function that way as we have already said a different collect, something called the Collect for purity, and sung a hymn to gather us all together and mark the beginning of our corporate worship, but none the less, that is its function.
I had an old boss who used to get very angry when the clergy in his care allowed the congregation to say the collect, in any way, as they began the service. It was a call issue, or something like that, for him, something that the clergy person was called to do for the people gathered. I say it mostly, and have never really thought much about it, but would probably be more uncomfortable than I would like to be if I wasn't the one reading it. Might have to look into that.
Anyway, this past Sundays collect was one that made me cringe a bit.
At first reading it seems it is a prayer that would allow the Church to think that in its current form, and its current existence it is defended wholly by God's mercy. That we can sit around and know that God is defending the Church, its dogma, its traditions, its rituals, essentially all that it is and all that it does. At least that is where my head went as I read it at the services this morning.
Tonight, as I write this, I see I missed the point a bit. This prayer is actually quite subversive and maybe a little revolutionary. What does it mean to be cleansed by God's continual mercy? I can't imagine it would feel all that great, all that helpful, even. Florence and the Machine have a song called "Shake it Out" that I have been listening to over and over again. And one of the lines is, "I am done with my graceless heart. So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart."
I think this song might capture the idea of this collect, God's mercy is not something that makes us comfortable in the rituals and patterns and habits that we maintain in our lives. God's mercy is something that reveals the gracelessness in our lives, the pieces of our lives that are left in the dark because we don't pay attention to them or maybe we ignore them purposefully. God's mercy reveals the faults, the flaws, the weaknesses that we like to think don't exist.
King David had his butt handed to him in Sunday's reading in just such a way, absorbed completely by his own lustful desires he had one of his best generals, Uriah, murdered because Uriah wouldn't sleep with his wife to cover up David's getting Bathsheba pregnant. David thinking everything was in the clear upon Uriah's death, has the spotlight shone on his actions by Nathan, speaking for God, in that line that Veggie Tales made so famous, "You ARE that man!"
God's mercy, God's cleansing mercy reveals those places where we try to accomplish our own goals and our own desires and reach for our own wants when we know full well that we cannot safely move forward as a faith community without God's goodness to govern us in every way. This collect is the ultimate prayer of giving up control. Giving up our own need for success, for control.
The Church must be open to God's mercy, and being open to God's mercy isn't something that is going to leave us happy and ready to do mission. It is something that is going to be embarrassing, hurtful and humiliating. It is something that is going to make us want to change and look at our lives and our work from a different perspective.
God's mercy isn't something that is nice and warm and glosses over the blemishes we have, it puts the spotlight on the blemishes and asks us to recognize them and desire to change them, cut them out and restart, so to speak. The hard part is to not attempt this on our own, but as a community of faithful people, holding one another up in love, care, compassion, the only things that can bring healing the the hurts we have, but also the hurts we have caused.
God's mercy is about restarting, cutting out those dark parts that are painful and difficult to see. The thing is, God is with is the whole time, Jesus is present in our whole lives, a model of compassion, a silent presence loving us, and binding up our broken hearts, helping us to find companionship on our journey.
May God's grace be gentle to us all, beloved friends.
A+
___________________________________________________________
The above was the collect that was read this past Sunday, August 5th, 2012 at our 8 and 10AM services. At first it was a tough collect to read, a tough collect to comprehend and swallow.
A collect is a prayer that the clergy person at an Episcopal Church reads to "collect" the people, gather us together as we begin our corporate worship. It is a little late in the service to really function that way as we have already said a different collect, something called the Collect for purity, and sung a hymn to gather us all together and mark the beginning of our corporate worship, but none the less, that is its function.
I had an old boss who used to get very angry when the clergy in his care allowed the congregation to say the collect, in any way, as they began the service. It was a call issue, or something like that, for him, something that the clergy person was called to do for the people gathered. I say it mostly, and have never really thought much about it, but would probably be more uncomfortable than I would like to be if I wasn't the one reading it. Might have to look into that.
Anyway, this past Sundays collect was one that made me cringe a bit.
At first reading it seems it is a prayer that would allow the Church to think that in its current form, and its current existence it is defended wholly by God's mercy. That we can sit around and know that God is defending the Church, its dogma, its traditions, its rituals, essentially all that it is and all that it does. At least that is where my head went as I read it at the services this morning.
Tonight, as I write this, I see I missed the point a bit. This prayer is actually quite subversive and maybe a little revolutionary. What does it mean to be cleansed by God's continual mercy? I can't imagine it would feel all that great, all that helpful, even. Florence and the Machine have a song called "Shake it Out" that I have been listening to over and over again. And one of the lines is, "I am done with my graceless heart. So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart."
I think this song might capture the idea of this collect, God's mercy is not something that makes us comfortable in the rituals and patterns and habits that we maintain in our lives. God's mercy is something that reveals the gracelessness in our lives, the pieces of our lives that are left in the dark because we don't pay attention to them or maybe we ignore them purposefully. God's mercy reveals the faults, the flaws, the weaknesses that we like to think don't exist.
King David had his butt handed to him in Sunday's reading in just such a way, absorbed completely by his own lustful desires he had one of his best generals, Uriah, murdered because Uriah wouldn't sleep with his wife to cover up David's getting Bathsheba pregnant. David thinking everything was in the clear upon Uriah's death, has the spotlight shone on his actions by Nathan, speaking for God, in that line that Veggie Tales made so famous, "You ARE that man!"
God's mercy, God's cleansing mercy reveals those places where we try to accomplish our own goals and our own desires and reach for our own wants when we know full well that we cannot safely move forward as a faith community without God's goodness to govern us in every way. This collect is the ultimate prayer of giving up control. Giving up our own need for success, for control.
The Church must be open to God's mercy, and being open to God's mercy isn't something that is going to leave us happy and ready to do mission. It is something that is going to be embarrassing, hurtful and humiliating. It is something that is going to make us want to change and look at our lives and our work from a different perspective.
God's mercy isn't something that is nice and warm and glosses over the blemishes we have, it puts the spotlight on the blemishes and asks us to recognize them and desire to change them, cut them out and restart, so to speak. The hard part is to not attempt this on our own, but as a community of faithful people, holding one another up in love, care, compassion, the only things that can bring healing the the hurts we have, but also the hurts we have caused.
God's mercy is about restarting, cutting out those dark parts that are painful and difficult to see. The thing is, God is with is the whole time, Jesus is present in our whole lives, a model of compassion, a silent presence loving us, and binding up our broken hearts, helping us to find companionship on our journey.
May God's grace be gentle to us all, beloved friends.
A+
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