One thing a year and a half of pandemic has taught us over and over is how interconnected everything is. We don’t need to be as extreme as was Jurassic Park to see the interconnections all around us. For example, I can see that the lockdown increased my landscaper’s depression, which mucked up his business, which left me with weeds and leaves everywhere, which led to the takeover by wildlife of parts of my yard. That’s a mild example mind you. But at last things are approaching a new sort of equilibrium. I have a nicer garden and a recovering lawn and once again am able to enjoy the outdoor space, especially under the star-lit Oregon evening sky. There is grace in the beauty and harmony of creation. And there is mercy in the forgiveness of nature.
Maybe then, there is grace in the equilibrium of life as we regenerate it and mercy too—we are forgiven our early pandemic transgressions the better to let grace fill us with love. Mercy is the action of showing love in the face of pain or adversity. It is a particular form of love in which power differentials shift so that forgiveness replaces the friction caused by the absence of love with the possibility of new love. Love, indeed merciful love, creates more love, which in turn teaches better than any retribution.
The epistle to the Ephesians (4:1-16) reminds us that we must grow up—mature–into loving people (“we must no longer be children … we must grow up in every way”) because the whole body of creation demands mature love, lived out in “humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing one another in love,” bringing grace to all. For how many of us has the pandemic been a “growing up” experience, despite our chronology? For how many of us has the pandemic been a time of mercy and grace?
In John’s Gospel (6:24-35) we have the aftermath of the feeding of five thousand with loaves and fishes. The miracle is followed by Jesus’ attempts to withdraw, to rest and restore. Here there is mutuality in the mercy because Jesus needs the mercy of solitude at the same time that the crowds need the mercy of his explicit love. He preaches that “the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Of course, he means that he has come to give life to the world. The life he has come to give is the explicit knowledge of the power of love. The message is layered in the examples of grace and mercy, in the metaphor of the “bread of God” which is love, which is the food that endures for eternity. It is in the demonstration of the building of love in the multiplying of the loaves and fishes that we see the true power of God’s love.
The continuing saga of David’s sin (2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a) reveals the truth that all sin against each other is, in essence, sin against God. In his repentance David appeals for mercy and hopes for grace. Psalm 51 reminds us that a clean heart is the result of the receipt of merciful love. It brings us full circle to the mutuality and interconnectedness of creation, to the layered interplay of grace and mercy as pathways to mature love.
Complex theology and scripture lead us to the inevitable conclusion that we are critical players in God’s creation. We are pivotal actors in God’s dominion of love. It is the love we show each other that has the power to heal and restore and regenerate the equilibrium that must now evolve if the pandemic is to be overcome. It is the mature love we must live out that has the power to generate grace through mercy.
It is especially our call as LGBTQ heirs of the dominion of love to play a leading role in this time. It is we, those people who are created in God’s image as people who are identified by our love, who must show all of creation the corners of mercy and the neighborhoods of grace that magnify the love we share. It is we who create logical families with love who can show “humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing one another in love.”
Proper 13 Year B 2021 RCL (2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a; Psalm 51:1-13; Ephesians 4:1-16; John 6:24-35)
©2021 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.
Dimensions of Reality: glbt Christian spirituality 