by CCW | 3 March 2013 15:23
The theme of divine mercy triumphs over human presumption and folly. Divine mercy, however, makes no sense whatsoever if we do not know ourselves to be, in fact, sinners. In a way the shadows of the Cross reach backwards as well as forwards. We are illumined, paradoxically as it may seem, by the shadows of the Cross.
There is the grace of revelation and the grace of redemption and nowhere, perhaps, is that seen more wonderfully than in the 18th chapter of the Book of Genesis[1] both in terms of this morning’s lesson and in terms of what precedes it, namely, the encounter between God and Abraham under the shade of the oaks of Mamre, a scene in which God gives the promise of a son to Abraham and Sarah in their old age, the proverbial ‘promised son’. God appears to Abraham in threefold aspect and Abraham prepares a meal for them and waits upon them. The scene becomes the basis for the icon of the Trinity in Eastern Orthodoxy, an image at once of the Eucharist and the Trinity, the communion of our humanity with the communion of God. All under the shade of the oak of Mamre for such is the grace of revelation which in turn signals the grace of redemption which is what we see in the story which immediately follows and which is our first lesson this morning.
We are presented with a most remarkable exchange between Abraham and God about human wickedness and divine mercy, about the power of righteousness and the powerlessness of sin. The question has to do about Sodom and Gomorrah, cities which are the proverbial images for all that is wicked and perverse, a wickedness and perversity that has very much to do with our hearts of judgment and self-righteousness.
Will God destroy the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous in the city? Forty-five? Forty? Thirty? Twenty? Ten? It all seems like the lively banter and the barter of a Middle Eastern bazaar but with a clear and unambiguous premise, namely, that the principle of righteousness far outweighs any consideration of evil. For the sake of one righteous person, it is implied, the city shall be saved.
But then, who is that one righteous person, we must ask? We cannot presume upon our own righteousness, after all, something which we saw last week in the story of the Canaanite woman who has such a strong hold on the divine mercy and will not be put off. In the second lesson[2] this morning from The Gospel according to St. Luke, the “unjust judge” gives in to the widow’s cause not for any reason of justice or mercy but simply because she is “bother[ing him]” and “wear[ing him] out” (Luke 18.5). It is, I suppose, a telling instance of what it means to make those who are evil do good in spite of themselves. The unjust judge gives in to her importunity; how much more, the parable suggests, will the divine judge who is all goodness and truth in himself justify or vindicate those who seek his will in prayer. Yet we also see what the presumption of self-righteousness looks like in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican or tax collector.
It is seen in the Pharisee who does not pray all because “he prayed thus with himself.” His prayer never gets beyond himself; it seeks nothing and yet asserts everything, and none of it is true. His prayer is all about self-promotion, about self-justification and necessarily leads to accusations against others. “Thank God, I am not like that publican,” he says with arrogant disdain. But what does he know about that publican? Nothing. Anymore than Abraham knows who or how many righteous persons there are in those proverbially wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, let alone much about the much greater measure of divine mercy.
In the parable, the publican is the image of the righteous person if for no other reason than he confesses himself to be a sinner. His prayer is a true prayer for it is open to God’s mercy and seeks God’s transforming grace. The scene reveals to us something of the nature of redemption. It has to do with our seeking the right order of things in ourselves and in our communities. When we no longer desire what the publican here desires, namely, the mercy of God, then we are entangled in the depressing and destructive realities of despair, a despair of God and of the good order of his will for us in our lives.
And that is the terrifying picture of utter emptiness presented in the Eucharistic Gospel[3] for this day. It is the emptiness that arises when we forget our need for the redemptive grace of God. To recognize ourselves as sinners is to be open to God’s will rather than to assert our own, as if we could climb to heaven, as if we could fix ourselves, as if we could get our act together on our own, as if we could save the world. The point of confession is the recognition that we cannot. It means our openness to the divine mercy as the corrective to the follies of our self-righteousness and as the measure of our thoughts, words and deeds. It is about the presence of God’s grace in our lives. We have to want that and be open to it without which we are in a pretty desperate state.
“The last state of that man is worse than the first.” Such is the state of the person who presumes upon his or her own strength rather than seeking and willing the revelation and the redemption that attends the illuminating vision. That vision is the Cross of Christ. The shade of the oaks of Mamre is but the shadows of the Cross cast backwards upon the whole history of salvation which yet illumine the path of glory; the path which we follow in Lent is the way of the Cross. It illumines all the shadows and darknesses of our lives, even the darkness of despair.
Despair, after all, is really a particularly pernicious form of pride that is blind to the need for grace and mercy. Ultimately, it presumes upon itself and refuses to see the simple truth of our sinfulness. In so doing, despair closes us off from the deep mercy of knowing that we are sinners. The lowly publican opens us out to the heights of divine mercy, the mercy that is always greater than our unrighteousness, but only, if we like him, desire that mercy. The terrifying picture of desolation is meant to awaken us to the need and the desire for mercy, the only thing, dare I say, worth desiring.
Fr. David Curry
Lent III, MP 2013
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