by CCW | 8 November 2020 08:00
Link to audio file of the service of Matins & Ante-Communion for Trinity 22 on the Octave Day of All Saints[1]
This Gospel question complements and even intensifies the teaching which is at the heart of the Beatitudes. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” The various readings provided for the Octave of All Saints along with the readings for today have very much to do with mercy. You get what you give, but if we are not merciful? Then there can be no mercy for us. As with all of the Beatitudes, the question is about what is moving in us. The question is about the inner qualities of soul, about the matters of character. What kind of person are you?
As such these readings speak to the contemporary confusions about the self and show us once again that the knowledge of the self is bound up with the knowledge of God. Character is about our lives as lived for something greater than ourselves without which we cannot be a self. Mercy lies at the heart of the story even in the denial of mercy.
Mercy is not about being nice. This is one of the common misconceptions about mercy. Being nice doesn’t really mean much of anything. A more serious misconception is to suppose that mercy overrides justice, that mercy and justice somehow stand in opposition to each other. One of the readings provided for services in the Octave and on patronal festivals is the Matthaean Apocalypse. It is a vision that seems to be harsh and judgemental in the separation of the sheep and the goats but really belongs to the mercy of being called to account. It provides the scriptural basis of what becomes the seven works of corporal mercy. In being called to account we discover that our actions towards one another reveal our relation to God. “Inasmuch as ye have done this to one of the least of these my brethren,” Jesus says, “ye have done it also unto me.” Our actions reveal our hearts and minds. That is exactly the point of the Gospel of the unforgiving servant. It is an example from the negative about the importance and the necessity of showing mercy.
The necessity of showing mercy? Can mercy be compelled and still be mercy? The questions about mercy belong to an ethical understanding of our lives as lived with one another and with and towards God. They are the questions that challenge us about the assumptions of our world and day. Plato in his famous allegory of the Cave, one of the greatest images of his Republic or Politeia, argues that the philosopher who has made the arduous journey out of the cave of opinions and into the light of understanding must go back into the cave where he or she will be subject undoubtedly to ridicule, criticism and abuse. The Republic examines the question of what is justice. Justice somehow requires that the philosopher/king go back into the cave because justice cannot be simply what benefits oneself. It has to be about the common good, about what is good for all, not mere self-interest. In that sense, justice for Plato, we might say is a kind of mercy. It seeks the greatest good, the Summum Bonum, for the soul and the community of which we are a part. The Octave of All Saints in the richness of its reading offers a vision of the spiritual community of all saints and all souls, a vision of redeemed humanity animated by the mercy and goodness of God, a vision of the justice of God moving in us.
But along with philosophy and the scriptures, it is Shakespeare who has thought the most about mercy. His later plays focus on the questions of mercy and forgiveness drawing upon such readings, it seems to me, that are before us in the Octave of All Saints and this Sunday. What does mercy look like in practice, he wonders? In his play the Tempest, Prospero forgives Alonzo who had conspired to usurp his dukedom of Milan. Alonzo was aware of his sin and the need for mercy. But Prospero also forgives his brother Antonio even though he is a complete scoundrel and does not seek mercy himself.
In the play Measure for Measure, the one who has offended someone twice and has become aware of his actions desires his punishment which would mean his death whereas the person who has been twice wronged seeks mercy and forgiveness for the person who has twice wronged her. Such is the power of mercy. In the Merchant of Venice, Portia, in disguise as a learned judge, says to Shylock in relation to the justice of his plea to have “a pound of flesh” from Antonio that “therefore must the Jew be merciful.” Shylock asks, “upon what compulsion?” This leads to one of the most famous speeches about the power and nature of mercy which challenges and counters the false separation or opposition between mercy and justice. “The quality of mercy is not strained.” It cannot be constrained, held back or kept in. It is beyond human calculation.
“How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?” Peter asks and suggests a number, a limit, “till seven times?” Jesus’ response is “until seventy times seven.” He does not literally mean four hundred and ninety times. That would no doubt require an app based upon an algorithm to keep the tally. You are not going to be able to keep track of such a number on your fingers. The whole point is that forgiveness is incalculable. It is literally beyond number. It is something divine moving in us. It is “above this sceptered sway,” above the things of this world, Portia says. “It is an attribute of God himself, /And earthly power doth then show likest God’s/ when mercy seasons justice.” Mercy perfects justice; it is the greater good moving in us beyond the limits of human reason and calculation. It is the ethical principle present in all of the great religious and philosophical traditions, present in the Jewish Scriptures as the introit psalm for instance makes abundantly clear. It is not simply a Christian concept.
The parable of the unforgiving servant illustrates what it means not to show mercy. The servant, with the words of the forgiveness of a great debt still ringing in his ears, refuses the forgiveness of much smaller debt owed by another to him. The kingdom of God is likened, not to that unforgiving servant, but to the king “which would take account of his servants” and which had forgiven this servant his debt. But upon hearing that this forgiven servant was then unforgiving in return to others, the king has delivered him to the tormentors “till he should pay all that was due unto him.” Heaven is not about cheap grace. You can’t get if you don’t give.
What is the problem here? It is the problem of the refusal of mercy by not showing mercy in return. In not showing mercy to others we negate the mercy that has been shown to us. The logic is simple and clear. The unforgiving servant has in effect negated the mercy that has been shown to him. It is a refusal of grace, of what, in fact, has been infinitely extended to us. The paradox is wonderful. The infinity of grace requires an equation of equality; in short, mercy for mercy.
But the paradox reveals that mercy is precisely something more than justice, more not less. The operative word is the one which we hear in this gospel – the word of forgiveness, not forgetfulness. Mercy pays the price which is owed by another. Such is the richness of mercy which we render bankrupt and deny when we fail to show mercy. Mercy costs and we empty mercy of its power and truth when we deny its cost, a cost which is nothing less than the cross. It is the giving of ourselves. Such is grace moving in us.
The radical nature of the mercy of God compels and constrains us to act out of the same mercy that has been offered to us, a mercy that is infinite in power and in scope, a mercy that seeks its resonance in us by showing mercy for mercy, the mercy that fills and fulfills. The mercy, after all, is nothing less than the love of God, “the love [that] held bound/ into one volume all the leaves whose flight/ is scattered through the universe around” (Dante, Paradiso, Canto xxxiii, ll. 85-87). Without that mercy we are both empty and scattered in disarray as a church and as a people, “bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang,” as Shakespeare says. With that mercy, we are merciful, full of the mercy that abounds unto prayer and praise, the mercy that begets mercy and is never empty but always full; in short, we are blessed.
The kingdom of heaven is about our openness to the redeeming and perfecting grace of God without which we are not and cannot be partakers of that heavenly society of the blessed. The Beatitudes signal the perfections of God’s grace in us which enroll us in that heavenly society and not otherwise. Together they are the mercies of God toward us and in us, if we will let them have their gracious way with us in our lives. The Gospel question convicts us and calls us to account. Yet such is mercy.
Fr. David Curry
Trinity 22, Octave Day of All Saints
November 8th, 2020
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2020/11/08/sermon-for-the-twenty-second-sunday-after-trinity-on-the-octave-day-of-all-saints/
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