Daniel 9:4-10; Psalm 79:8-9, 11, 13; Luke 6:36-38 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (Lk 6:36) 2nd Week of Lent Do you pray for Gods mercy and pardon for yourself and for those you know who need his mercy? Do you promptly forgive those who wrong you, or do you allow resentment and ill-will to grow in your heart? Daniel was shamefaced before God because he recognized that many of Gods people had been unfaithful to Gods commands and to his covenant with them (see Daniel 9:4-10). He acknowledged the sins and failings of his own people, and he pleaded with God for compassion and pardon. When we are confronted with our own sins and personal failings we experience guilt and shame. This can lead us to cast off pride or it can lead us to lose our inhibitions and fall into more wrongdoing! If we are honest and humble before God, we will admit our own sins and ask for his mercy and forgiveness. The Lord gives help and strength to those who choose to turn away from whatever would lead them into hurtful and sinful desires. Do you know the joy and freedom of heartfelt repentance, forgiveness, and a clean conscience? That does it about our relationship with God. We may also want to address how we could relate to one another as God does to us. In this light, we might want to know why a girl will want to imitate her mother. The mother certainly hopes that her girls intent comes from a natural desire to be like her. But what if the girl were just doing it because she was frightened of her mother or because she wanted to get something from her? We could misread this Gospel passage as a call to be something like this child in her misguided stance. We should be merciful, forgiving, and generous with other people so that God will then be merciful, forgiving, and generous with us. Of course, the reverse is never far from our minds either: if we are not all of these things, God will refuse to act that way with us. So it’s in our best interests to be good. But to read the passage this way is to overlook an important verse: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Jesus isn’t just giving us a set of rules for how we have to relate to other people. And he certainly isn’t trying to extort kindness out of us with the threat of hell if we fail. He is telling us about himself. He is telling us how God relates to us so that we will know how we are meant to relate to the people around us. Our Father is merciful, slow to anger, forgiving, and generous. And since that is his nature, that’s what we will grow up to become as we mature in Christ. It’s in our spiritual DNA, so to speak! If we reduce these verses to a list of things that we need to do to keep God happy and stay out of trouble, we miss out on the joy of becoming more like our Father. We miss out, in fact, on the very thing we were created for. Always keep this in mind: you are not here to follow rules! God doesn’t want robots. He wants children. That means that you are here to do the things that Jesus did - both the miraculous and the everyday. As you learn how to show mercy just as Jesus showed mercy, you will be doing something that is both miraculous and everyday. And the witness of your mercy, generosity, and charity will grab people’s attention and turn them to the Lord. “Father, mark me as your child by making me look more and more like you.” Amen.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 12:12:38 +0000
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