Abbey of Gethsemani – New Haven, KY – April, 2024
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:23-24 NIV)
As it is written, it would seem that the most “moral citizens” (that which I like to believe I am) and the most “careless sinners” (alas, that which I also am) equally fall short of living the extraordinary realities God desires for humankind. So, it is also written, a Savior comes into the world. Indeed, it is through Christ—his death, resurrection, and present-reign—that we are restored into right relationship with the God who made us and knows us by name. That is to say, it is through Christ that we are joyfully plunged back into the flowing river of God’s unfailing love.
And this is pure gift.
It cannot be earned, only received.
And it’s a gift available to anyone who wants it.
As disciples in this modern world, our call is to love Christ alone—Christ above all other loves. As a community of disciples, ministers of this “new” covenant between God and humankind, our call is to hold one another’s hand as we journey together towards this loving God each day. And we do this, as Henri Nouwen aptly captures, not as “professionals who know their client’s problems,” but as “vulnerable brothers and sisters.” In other words, secure in who we are: the body of Christ, a royal priesthood, living stones brought together in a miraculous way, given an astonishing vocation. And as we live into this “new way” together, we are called to remind one another—by what we say, how we relate, what we do—that we are all equal recipients of God’s incredible mercy and God’s unending love.
For those who gather weekly to worship in some shape or form, we do so to tell the truths of a story over and over.
And the story (basically) goes like this:
We roam astray—for all kinds of reasons.
God sends the search party—in a variety of ways.
We are found, fed, and lavished with gifts again.
Repeat.
And the truths of this story (basically) are these:
God’s mercy is incredible.
God’s love is endless.
None of us deserve it.
All of us get it.
And I said, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5 NIV)
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I have been part of this beautiful and odd fellowship of witnesses—most awake to it, that is—since my mid-20’s. And the more I journey within and alongside the people of God, the more I am convinced that the greatest threat to our fellowship in these contemporary times is this:
How infrequently many of us reflect upon this incredible mercy and experience this unending love.
Our minds just can’t comprehend it, despite our most rugged attempts at theological understanding. And because the mercy and love we give and receive as humans pales in comparison to God’s offering, many of us, though we believe ourselves to be “pretty good Christians,” are quietly starving to receive belonging and acceptance in more profound ways than we often admit. It’s no wonder we search across the landscape with the doggedness of King Solomon to satisfy our limitless desire for such radical oneness and wholeness. And yet, even the most wonderful gifts of this life can’t quite quench the great abyss of our souls—that deeper place only God can touch.
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Like the first disciples, our relationship with God is imperfect. And it will always be imperfect so long as our human feet walk this green earth. Thomas Merton speaks to such a condition:
We wear ourselves out wanting to project a perfect self. We want to be acknowledged as having arrived at a lasting, enjoyable state of spiritual attainment. And yet, these desires for perfection are contradicted by our failures to love others and ourselves with integrity.
Did you catch that? Many Christians today would have no problem identifying the ways we fall short of living Christ’s great commandment: to love our neighbor. What some of us have a harder time identifying is how we also fall short of receiving the fullness of love that God has for us. That is to say, to recognize, receive, and experience our God-gifted belovedness.
Sr. Olga, a Franciscan in Oldenburg, Indiana, tells a tale:
I’d been meeting a woman in mid-life for spiritual direction for many years. One day, tired of encountering her in the same self-deprecating, downtrodden state month after month, I asked, “What is the greatest commandment Jesus gives to his disciples?” She replied immediately, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.” “Very good,” I said in response, then “I sure am glad I’m not your neighbor.” The woman looked at me puzzled. I continued, “You don’t seem to love yourself very much, so if that’s how you love your neighbor, I prefer it not be me.”
We will never effectively love another with the extraordinary love of Christ until we come to terms with how exceptionally loved we are—and that we did nothing (zilch, nada, zero) to earn this love. It is quite simply an amazing grace, a gift we must receive. All of us. Equally.
An offering from the Book of Celtic Daily Prayer puts it this way:
Compassion for the other comes out of our ability to accept ourselves. Until we realise both our own weaknesses and our own privileges, we can never tolerate the lack of status and depth of weakness in the other. The self-righteous hate themselves for their own weakness and so they despise them in others. That’s why those who claim to be virtuous fall so much further, so much harder, than others when they fall. A touch of compassion for others along the way would surely soften the fall, as fall we shall—sooner or later.
Anne Lamott captures a similar sentiment with her signature humor and poignancy:
Everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, and scared, even the people who seem to have it more or less together. They are much more like you than you would believe.
In other words, there’s one boat and we’re all in it.
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At the heart of the gospel is the belief that this man/God of Nazareth came into the world to bear the weight of all sin on his shoulders. The Christian believes that through his death, Jesus has removed that which separates the Creation from their Creator, forming us into something new in the process. And the faithful take bread and wine—daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, whatever—to remember this death and why the gospel truly is good news: that sin is no longer a wedge between us and God, us and others—we are free to be in God’s arms and beloved community once again. Hallelujah! Talk about radical acceptance and belonging.
Are you hearing the ring of God’s scandalous mercy, love, and grace in your ears?
The writer of Hebrews counsels:
See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. (Hebrews 12:15 NIV)
My friends, what if the “bitter root” threatening our lives together is not the progressives with their “socialist” agendas nor the conservatives with their “backwards” ideals? What if the greatest threat to the fellowship of belonging Jesus birthed when he died is the lie that would have us believe that you, you, you, and you are anything less than God’s beloved child? The groaning creation, the war-torn creation, the envious and jealous creation, the exploited and exploiting creation, the hated and hating creation is built by the hands of those who do not know, were never told, or have long forgotten that they are a beloved child of God, free to roam, skip, jump, and play in every corner of the land.
Disciples, just like Peter, John, James, et al, our relationship with God is imperfect. And I am increasingly convinced that until we begin to receive a heartfelt acceptance of human imperfection (our own and our neighbor’s) we (the church) will stay bifurcated in arguments of morality, and miss the amazing grace God has already poured out onto Creation. God has made room for all of us despite how “screwed up, broken, clingy, and scared we are.” And as Christ’s body now on earth, I believe our best witness to this accommodating Lord is to do what we can to mirror such radical accommodation, boundless grace, and outlandish compassion, entering into our relationships with openness and gentleness, making room for all kinds of people, from every cut of cloth, in our homes, in our church buildings and in our hearts.
Lest we start believing this is possible by human effort alone, we draw upon wisdom from the Apostle Paul who counsels the church to remember:
Our qualification comes from God. He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life. (2 Corinthians 3:5b-6 NIV)
Beloved, God’s mercy and love is sealed in you through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Christ breathes his spirit into us so that we can breathe it into others. And this is our vocation as Christians. To be a person of Christian faith means that the Holy Spirit lives inside you, and it is the one thing you need—God’s mark of mercy and love right in your sacred center.
Merton concludes:
Everything has been given to us in Christ. All we need is to experience what we already possess.
Do you know how loved you are?