Grace & Mercy

Homily for September 11, 2016
Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14; Psalm 51; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-32

When I was in elementary school, my brothers and I were caught shoplifting ice cream treats from the freezer at the Park Place Pharmacy several blocks from our home on the East Side of Milwaukee.  Although we managed to get away with the thefts for a day or two, we weren’t very clever crooks.  It was only a matter of time before we were busted.

That was over 45 years ago, and pharmacies then tended to be family-owned and more rooted in the community.  So when the manager of the place caught us in flagrante delicto we not only had to deal with his anger and disappointment and the prospect of not being allowed back in the store for a while, we also had to walk home knowing that he had called our mother.  So our “walk of shame” was accompanied by the fear of what—and who—we would be facing when we got home.  It was a long walk. 

When we got home…well, let’s just say that a form of justice and discipline common for the era was swiftly applied—and felt!  It was a lesson that I never forgot.  Decades later I’m grateful for it, though I definitely wasn’t at the time!   There were no police or security guards called, I wasn’t referred to the juvenile justice system, and no one reported my parents to social services.  I sometimes wonder how my life would have been different if I had been caught shoplifting as a child in 2016 rather than in the late 1960’s.  I was fortunate to be the beneficiary of the grace of a simpler era and the mercy of a neighbor who, as mad as he was, never forgot we were kids.

Today’s scripture readings are filled with the interplay of grace and mercy. 

Our Old Testament scriptures from Exodus 32 and Psalm 51 focus on God’s mercy.   When the people of Israel lost patience with Moses and turned from worshipping God to a golden calf of their own creation, God felt like punishing them for their infidelity and idolatry.  However, Moses pleaded on their behalf, asking for God to be merciful and to be faithful to the Covenant even when his own people were not.

Psalm 51 has traditionally been linked to David and his prayer in the wake of his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, his faithful servant Uriah.  Just as Moses reminded the LORD that his mercy was rooted in his fidelity, David reminded the LORD that his mercy was rooted in his compassion and goodness.  Both Moses and David knew that mercy was part of their loving God’s “DNA.”

It’s a little more complicated with human beings like us.  Like David, we need to continue to pray for clean hearts and steadfast spirits.   St. Paul testified to his young protégé Timothy that while he was “a blasphemer and a persecutor and arrogant” God had mercy on him and he experienced the abundant grace of Jesus.  As a result of his own experience he could say with absolute conviction:  “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”  That should offer hope to all of us, and if we need a further reminder we can look to Jesus’ own testimony about his mission:  “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.  I did not come to call the righteous but sinners” (Mark 2:17).

It’s not coincidental that Jesus said spoke those in response to the criticism from some religious leaders that he had table fellowship with tax collectors and others marginalized as sinners—the very thing that brings him into conflict with the Pharisees and scribes in today’s gospel reading and leads into his parables about the lost sheep, the lost coin and the Prodigal Father and Son.  These stories all remind us that God seeks us out when we’re lost and that, fortunately for all of us, God’s love, grace and mercy don’t conform to our expectations of justice.

Those gifts are always there for us.  Unfortunately, sometimes we only become ready to receive them when like the younger son in Luke 15 we find ourselves “in dire need” and stuck in the mud of our own sins.  Then, finally, we come to our senses and turn back to the Father.  Those gifts are also always there for us to share, though sometimes like the older son we forget and fail to be grateful for all that we have received and instead get stuck in our own self-righteousness or resentment toward others.

Our gospel acclamation recalls that “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”  It’s a message that our world will always need to hear, and we can share it because we have lived it. +