Mercy Triumphs

Proverbs 22
James 2
Labor Day has become for us the vestige of a by-gone era. A World-wide celebration of our labors. In most countries around the world, Labor Day is the 1st of May, though in Canada and the United States remembered on the first Monday in September. Labor Day is celebration of the 8 hour work day and the human rights of workers, the concept that there should be 8 hours of work, 8 hours of recreation, and 8 hours of sleep every day, and a weekend consisting of Saturday and Sunday. These were efforts at Health and Wellness and balance. With more recent memory of labor strikes to attain $25 per hour as a starting salary, Day Care in the workplace, over against EPA Standards and lay-offs to demonstrate to stock-holders efforts to balance expenses, it is hard to recall that less than a hundred years ago, our grandparents worked a 14-16 hour day, for 6 and 7 days a week. What irony then, that Labor Day should become little more than the end of the State Fair and a day to commute, to go back home, to go back to college, to prepare for the beginning of the Program Year?

So much of human life has been spent on our fighting. Would that people would sit down together to recognize what is fair and what is just, NOT a matter of how much is in it for me, what can I get, but what is fair and what is justice, then question in our hearts what would be merciful? What an entirely different world it would be!

Often times, I think we had it right Centuries ago in our beginning. Before this Village was annexed off and incorporated unto ourselves, with our own schools and our own fire department, our first identity was as A Religious Society. We did not consider one another as Tax-Payers or Voters, but each as integral parts of this Religious Society. There could be no dispute of WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR, or whether we had responsibility for one another, for we were all part of this Religious Society together. When one was in need, when one had wronged another, the question was not about rights, or lawsuits, or vindication, but rather “What is needed for the other to be redeemed, to be made whole?” More even than Justice, the question was in what is Merciful, because Mercy thriumphed over Justice.

Thus far this year we have been buffeted between arguments over CHANGE, over Race, over bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as lending institutions, over the Economy and over Health Care. There seems to be a constant assumption that we can simply take out greater and greater debt, mortgaging our children's futures to pay for correcting what should have been.

The travesty, according to the Letter of James is that we have treated each as philosophical issues unto themselves, paying attention to who is on which side of each debate, rather than living our lives based on what we believe and know to be true. As CONFLICTS intensify, rather than majority opinions coalescing around what we are prepared to do about an issue, we tend to identify with one another, until regardless of the issue, regardless of what we are prepared to do, if so-and-so is for it we may as well be also. James is addressing two points simultaneously: First, that our faith in God is not simply believing in the right things, in the right way. Faith is more than Philosophy, more than your ideals, your hopes and beliefs, Faith must be lived. Our actions demonstrate our convictions, though at times we may be motivated to do the right thing for the wrong reasons; therefore faith is about both our faith and our works. But also, doing so because you believe in the outcome, rather than trying to curry favors.

This morning's sermon is different from our norm. Our routine is for the Old Testament and the Gospel to each provide a story, and we discern the underlying issue, which is the more memorable because of the story. Proverbs and the Epistles are equally valid and important passages to reflect upon, still listening for what the text names as issues, for despite the temptation, the Pulpit is for preaching the Word of God; HOWEVER the story we remember and interpret this day is not of Moses or King David, not of Mary or Mary or Phoebe, or the Woman in Purple, but our own story.

TRAIN UP A CHILD IN THE WAY THEY SHOULD GO and when they are old they shall not depart.

There is a reality shift that we must come to grips with.
For the last four decades, the pundits have named the decline of mainline churches; in part this is true, but stated differently The 1950s were an odd and unique time in American Culture.
A time after World Wars, when people were motivated to be THANKFUL because they were alive. There is a marked difference in the Church today. There was a time when on Sunday morning people went to worship, simply because it was Sunday, and there were those who wanted to be seen going to worship, or stated differently did not want to be seen not going to worship. Today, those worshipping often were baptized as infants, sometimes not, and as adults are coming to worship because there is something going on in our lives. That changes the way we preach and minister, it also changes the way we all relate to one another...
When you come searching for a parking space, it is recognizing that the person driving ahead of you may be in the midst of Chemo treatments; may be fighting depression and it was so hard just to get out of bed let alone to be in the company of others, they may be dealing with the chronic illness of a child or parent or spouse or all three, more than philosophical ideas about the economy they may be struggling with how to survive.

Our purpose in providing weddings to non-members, pastoral counseling, funerals and even baptisms, is for the Church to be open and welcoming, reaching out into the community, for when people need us. We recognize waving to folk on Sunday morning, or standing up for marriage in an Editorial, being inconvenienced for a month to host the Festival are tiny little seeds... but planting welcome and invitation, providing music, means that when people are in need they will come to faith and support of the community. This is far from “Membership” and rights, and far closer to Mercy.

There are hundreds of thousands of fine Charitable causes in the world, but MISSION is different from Charity. Charity is giving Alms to the poor, responding to someone in crisis to alleviate their suffering so they can make a difference. Mission is personally getting involved, giving yourself, making change in the life of others a priority in your life.

This is what Christ came to provide. Not to offer teachings for us to memorize as a philosophy. Not for us to create holidays to remember. GOD is the one true Creator and origin of all that is. God is intangible and ethereal and eternal. BUT God loved us so much as to become one with humanity. A Human life is not intangible, not ethereal, not eternal, a human life is mortal, suffers and laugh, and loves and weeps. This sacrament is realization that Christ gave his life, that life that is God with us, for us. There are broken wounded offenses in our lives, we have sinned, we have done wrong to one another and to ourselves. In the breaking of the bread, we claim that brokenness in our lives. BUT God did not leave us there, broken, the cup is hope. The cup is a covenant, an eternal promise of forgiveness and love. Covenant's were eternal promises cut into living flesh, written in blood or stone. This covenant, that God will forgive, offering us new and different life is written in Christ's own blood for us.