“You all are partakers of my grace”
The Morning Prayers readings from Wisdom 11 and from Luke 13 complement rather wonderfully this morning’s eucharistic readings from Paul’s letter to the Philippians and Matthew’s Gospel. The Gospel reading might seem rather forbidding and dark and yet it illustrates the deeper meaning of the prayer of Paul “that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgement”. The parable of the unforgiving servant shows the meaning of not acting out of the infinite mercy and forgiveness of God, in effect negating the very mercy which he himself has received.
Forgive even as you have been forgiven. In complete contrast to the unrighteous servant who was paradoxically the example of acting with prudence, as you may recall, the unforgiving servant shows the true meaning of human wickedness to illustrate what we should not do. With the words of the forgiveness for which he had asked still ringing in his ears, he refuses to forgive another of much smaller debt, as one of the Fathers, John Chyrsostom, I think, noted. The parable is told in response to Peter’s question about the limits of forgiveness. How often shall I forgive the one who has sinned against me? Is there a number? Can forgiveness be quantified?
This speaks to our age which mistakes data and information for knowledge and understanding. This is to focus on the finite and limited, the quantitative, at the expense of the forms of our participation in what is infinite and eternal, namely, the wisdom and grace of God, the substantial. This is where the lessons from such texts as Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus in the Apocrypha help to deepen our understanding of the infinite mercy of God. To be made aware of this is all our joy; to negate it is all our misery. “Thou art merciful to all”, Wisdom tells us, “for thou canst do all things, and thou dost overlook men’s sins, that they may repent, for thou lovest all things that exist, and hast loathing for none of the things that thou hast made”.
This is a wonderful affirmation of the essential goodness of creation and of our humanity even in its disorders. “Thou sparest all things, for they are thine, O Lord who lovest the living”. With great insight, the reading from Wisdom concludes: “For thy immortal spirit is in all things. Therefore thou dost correct little by little those who trespass, and dost remind and warn them of the things wherein they sin, that they may be freed from wickedness and put their trust in thee, O Lord”. Is it not in this spirit that we may best understand the Gospel story of the unforgiving servant? It is told for our correction, for our good, to remind us of the freedom and love of acting out of the mercies and forgivenesses which we have received. It is told to awaken us to the infinite mercy of God which knows no limits. God is all good and his goodness is for all. But it means that we have to act in the likeness of God’s acts of mercy. It is what we pray.
The second lesson from Luke complements this in three ways. First, it likens the kingdom of heaven to the mustard seed which grows into a tree in which the birds of the air make their nests and the leaven which a woman hides in three measures of flour until it is all leavened; lovely images of God’s providential work which makes so much and so great out of so little. The act of the man and the woman in planting the seed and the leaven remind us of the necessity of working with the providential order of creation. Secondly, the lesson bids us “strive to enter by the narrow way” and highlights the perennial and universal problem of human hypocrisy and pretension; we cannot presume upon ourselves but only upon the goodness and mercy of God. Thirdly, the lesson concludes with the anguished prayer of Jesus: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you!” This is a strong reminder of human perversity and evil but then is followed by the heart-rending cry of God’s greater love. “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” Jesus says.
This complements the point in the Gospel reading about the infinite nature of forgiveness which must be the moving force in our own lives towards one another. We are recalled to Christ and his forgiveness in the face of our unloveliness. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”. In other words, we are shown the infinite mercy and goodness of God in and through the folly of our sins and wickedness. And so too in and through the sufferings and pains which we experience in terms of loss and death.
We are given a way to face both sin and evil and suffering and death, especially when we are most broken-hearted, as we all are at Christ Church and beyond at the sudden passing of our beloved treasurer, Kathy Cameron, especially after such an horrendous trial of suffering and then the hopes of recovery, so suddenly dashed. We are the broken-hearted for Scotty, Nikki, and Chris and for ourselves as a parish. Only grace can sustain us.
The readings from Daniel and Esther this week are equally about insight and character in the face of power and the machinations of human evil. The whole point of the scriptural pageant of the church year is to ground us in the infinite and loving mercy of God which is the only and true measure of our lives. It is the counter to all the distresses of our hearts and the madness of crowds in a world which closes its ears to the words of wisdom and grace, of mercy and forgiveness.
Christ’s response to Peter’s question with its deliberate exaggeration of seventy times seven followed by the parable is a profound and moving awakening to the infinite grace of God of which, as Paul tells us, we are all partakers. The Trinity season runs out in the recurring themes of wisdom and forgiveness, the themes that belong to our good. As Ecclesiasticus movingly notes, the Lord “pours out his mercy upon [us]”, full knowing “that [our] end will be evil “therefore he grants [us] forgiveness in abundance”. Forgiveness is the infinite goodness of God towards us in spite of ourselves. How can we not be moved to forgive one another even as God has forgiven us? “Forgiveness in abundance!” Such is the infinity of his grace and mercy. Our joy is found in being partakers of his grace, the joy that gathers us into the communion of saints.
We come to the Feast of All Saints’ and the Solemnity of All Souls by way of St. Simon and St. Jude, the last of the Apostles’ feasts that punctuate the pageant of the church year. They are a timely reminder that the saints are not heroes in any kind of ordinary sense. St. Simon and St. Jude are the patron saints, for example, of zeal and lost causes! Fanaticism and failure – hardly the things that our worldly lives would countenance – and yet they usher us into the glory of the communion of saints, into the company of grace. This is Paul’s point:
“You all are partakers of my grace”
Fr. David Curry
Trinity 22, 2024