Mercy

Monday, February 3, 2025

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Mercy

As the people approached Jesus they caught sight of the man who had been possessed by Legion, sitting there clothed and in his right mind. And they were seized with fear.

Why should they be afraid? Do they think they themselves will be unmasked? Where is their own mercy? Where is mine? What do I think when Jesus does the unthinkable? The unthinkably good?

Another fine poem from the Dakotas:

When you are held in the relentless grip

of mercy, you are relentlessly merciful.

 

To the unmerciful

nothing is more frightening.

They will inflict upon you

their unmercy.

 

But be at peace.

Even as they lead you to the edge of the cliff,

they cannot destroy you.

You are held in the hands

of the One Who Is Mercy.

If your heart is open,

despite their cruelty

all you will know

is mercy. – Steve Garnaas-Holmes

O Lord, open thou my heart. In the middle of a culture that reeks of calculating cruelty, be thou my vision. Thou my best thought, by day and by night, waking or sleeping, thy Presence my Light.

Those Irish knew how to write songs, and sing them. Those Irish knew how to throw up barricades and sacrifice their lives for a cause. Sometimes the causes got ahead of them, and they lost sight of God’s light. Me too. I don’t stand up behind the barricades much anymore, and that’s probably a good thing. Still, I pray for those who do. You never know, something unexpected might happen and change everything.

A large herd of swine was feeding where Jesus delivered the man who had been dwelling among the tombs. The demons pleaded, “Send us into the swine! And the unclean spirits came out of the man and a herd of two thousand hogs rushed down a steep bank into the sea, where they all were drowned.

Billionaires would not tolerate this kind of wasting good bacon, and neither did the farmers who owned the pigs. That’s what happens to me sometimes too, when I forgot where my bounty came from. Comes from. The bounty is as unending as cattle grazing on a thousand hills. It is everlasting and abundant, it removes the myth of scarcity from this earth. There is always enough, share and share alike.

Or will be, when Jesus in his mercy sends the demons out into the sows and hogs, down the hill into the sea.

I can’t get enough of God’s terrorizing mercy. The demons I cherish are afraid, and the fear I thought was real but is finally shown false falls off me like scales. Who among us would not tell this story to the nations, crying out to the sky that the Lord is good?

Go home to your family and announce to them all that the Lord in his pity has done for you.

There is always so much more to tell of the faith of our fathers, and finally our faith too.

I have not time to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, closed the mouths of lions, put out raging fires, escaped the devouring sword. Out of weakness they were made powerful.

This was far from the easy path I walk most days in my own life. This was different.

Some were tortured, others endured mockery, scourging, chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, sawed in two, went about in skins of sheep or goats, needy, afflicted, tormented, wandering about in deserts and on mountains, in caves and crevices of the earth. The world was not worthy of them.

But the author of Hebrews doesn’t stop there. Amazed at his own place on the great mandala, he writes what would otherwise be arrogant and false.

Without us, they should not be made perfect. All these, though approved by their faith, did not receive what had been promised. God had foreseen something better for us, for all of us.

(Hebrews 11, Psalm 31, Luke 7, Mark 5)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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