The Conditions of Mercy

 Music is unconditional.  It plays—I listen.  Or not. When I turn on my stereo and tune into Alabama Public Radio, music pours forth from my speakers, filling the room and cascading upon me in such a way that I can be drawn into its depths and float in its ethereal melodies.   I can choose to be engulfed in the notes and sounds of wind and string instruments in such a way that it stirs my soul.  Or, I can turn on my radio and allow the music to enter the room, but not enter me.  I may hear it, vaguely maintaining awareness of it, but in no way connecting with it.  The music hasn’t changed—it pours forth from my speakers unconditionally—regardless of whether or not I listen.  I am responsible for whether or not I hear it, not the music.  The very nature of music is to present itself in a particular way.  But to listen to music requires one to be in relationship with it, to choose it, to engage it.  The music is there.  The question is—am I?

                                            'The Unanswered Question' by Charles Ives 

Last week there was another mass shooting.  This time the shooting took place at a movie theater in Lafayette, LA.  Two people were killed, nine injured, and the shooter took his own life.  After hearing about the shooting, I posted on Twitter, “3 mass shootings in a month.  Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy. #Lafayette #Chattanooga #Charleston.”  I grew up in the Catholic and Episcopal traditions and we often say this prayer during the season of Lent as a preparation for delving into the Word.  Lent is a penitential time; the shooting in Lafayette felt like it needed a penitential response (for reasons I am not going to go into—that’s another post).  The next morning when I looked at my Twitter feed, I had one reply.  Steve_J wrote, “What has the US done to cause Christ to show mercy to the US, much less the rest of the world?”

It took me a while to reply to Steve_J for three reasons:

1.     I don’t want to get into a “back ‘n forth” on Twitter;

2.     There is no easy answer though there is a faithful one; and,

3.     I’m not giddy about correcting someone else’s bad theology on social media.

We have been led to believe that we can do something to earn or lose the love of God.  This bad theology permeates our religious culture. Nothing we can do, or not do, lessens God’s grace and mercy for us.  Just ask the eleven disciples, the ones who abandoned Jesus on the cross and hid in the Upper Room after his crucifixion.  He greeted them with the word “peace” after his resurrection, not judgment and condemnation.  How much more does he greet us with that same word?

The U.S. (much less the rest of the world) can do nothing, nothing at all, to cause Christ to show mercy upon us.  Jesus pours out his mercy upon us of his own accord.  It is his nature to do so.  He will not give or deny mercy based on what we do.  Instead, the conditions of mercy were met a long time ago on Golgotha.  I don’t deserve that mercy, few do, and yet, the Good News is that it is not up to us.  It is up to God.