Mary Gauthier came to Nashville from Baton Rouge, by way of Boston. Her song, Mercy Now, was released in 2005. I loved it when it first came out, and I’ve loved it ever since.
My brother could use a little mercy now. He’s a stranger to freedom, he’s shackled to his fear and his doubt. The pain that he lives in, it’s almost more than living will allow — I love my bother, he could use some mercy now.
Her song just resonates, her words, her voice, as she sings about her father, her brother, her church and her country, and every living thing. People in power, they’ll do anything to keep their crown, she sings, a line that’s perhaps never rung more true than in these past couple of weeks. We love our little crowns.
I love life and life itself could use some mercy now, … and every single one of us could use some mercy now.
Let life simmer, let it boil down to its essence, and name what you taste — Mary sings, mercy, now. Your story and all the ways it’s connected to all the other stories on this little planet — let it sit like a jar of muddy water, let it sit for a few good, deep breaths, and let the mud settle, and name the clarity that emerges before your eyes — Mary sings, mercy, now.
The universe is an expanding vastness of 13.8 billion years. If the history of the universe, all 13.8 billion years of it, were compressed into one calendar year, just for the sake of comparison, our sun was formed at the end of August, and just about all of known human history happened in the last few seconds before midnight on December 31. My head starts spinning whenever I try to think about it — creation is so immense, unfathomable, awesome, and we are so small. What was the line in Psalm 90? The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong.
There’s a place in Washington, D.C. that’s built to human scale. Perched on a hill above the town, it is like something out of a dream, a place of grandeur and great beauty. The National Cathedral is only stone and light, yet entering the cathedral is like stepping into the mystery of life itself. Above the front entrance, carved in bright lime stone, is a dramatic depiction of the creation of humankind, human bodies emerging from whirling, swirling textures fluid as water. Stepping across the threshold you find yourself immersed in light filtering through magnificent stained glass windows, in a place filled only with hushed whispers. The tall pillars envelop sacred silence, interrupted only by the proclamation of God’s word and the prayers of God’s people. As you make your way to the altar on the opposite end of the sanctuary, you journey through human history, past the monuments of faith and of the saints, memorials to achievements in science and art, and testimonials to what we honor as good and true and beautiful.
At the end of your walk down the nave, your passage from humanity’s beginnings to the end of time, you arrive before the finely carved high altar: Here Jesus sits on the throne of his glory, surrounded by the whole company of heaven, balancing the earth like a ball in the palm of his left hand, his right hand raised in blessing. Christ crucified, risen from the dead, reigns the universe and he speaks the final word on all things come into being from the foundation of the world.
All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.
Our journey through the grand cathedral of time does come to an end, and we are invited to picture ourselves standing before the throne of glory, naked and empty-handed, and Jesus speaks.
Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.
In the end, the last word about our life is not spoken by ourselves, or by those who remember us, or by those who may wish to delete our memory — the final word is spoken by Jesus, the crucified Son of God, risen in glory.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established — what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?[1]
In the vastness of spacetime and among billions of human beings, a single lifetime seems small, but in the eyes of the one seated on the throne, the one who has been crowned Lord of life, in the eyes of the judge, every life is seen, every story is known, every name is spoken. And the judge is none other than Jesus of Nazareth whom human beings judged, sentenced, and executed. The judge is the Son of God who walks barefoot with the poor and declares them blessed, who sleeps among those who have no place to lay their head, and who knows betrayal and torture and death row without parole.
The judge himself is the Least of These: rejected and ridiculed, spat upon, sneered at and yelled at, beaten, abandoned, killed and forgotten. The judge is the Least of These, raised by the power of God. And this judge shows little interest in the sincerity of our confession, or the orthodoxy of our doctrine, or our knowledge, our wisdom, or our list of accomplishments. What he’s looking for is mercy. We would not know, had he not told us, that when we look into the eyes of another human being who needs us to be and act as their neighbor, we are looking into the eyes of the Lord of life.
Hungry and thirsty, ailing, lonely, unsheltered, unwelcome, weighed down, excluded, abandoned — every one of these words speaks of a situation of need, and each presents the need as a question awaiting an answer. And the answer is mercy. The need for mercy calls forth deeds of mercy, and the Lord of life is present in both the need and in the kindness that meets it. That is all that matters in the end, says Jesus: Ordinary, everyday people and all the ways in which we give shape to mercy in ordinary, everyday actions; it’s lovely in its simplicity.
There are, of course, those of us who will ask, “How much mercy is enough? And isn’t there a limit? How much mercy is too much? And what about those whose need for mercy outweighs our capacity to offer it?” Reinhold Niebuhr wrote,
On the one hand it is true that it makes a difference whether [humans] are good or evil, loving or selfish, honest or dishonest. It makes a real difference, that is, an ultimate difference in the sight of God. On the other hand it makes no difference. No life can justify itself ultimately in the sight of God. The evil and the good, and even the more and the less good are equally in need of the mercy of God. … Love is both the fulfilment and the negation of law. Forgiveness is the highest justice and the end of justice.[2]
We are all equally in need of the mercy of God. Every single one of us could use some mercy now. The more fully we know and remember this, the more fully we will live and give mercy. The one who comes to judge us is no stranger, but the one who has come to redeem us, to free us from sin and fear and every shackle that keeps us from living in freedom as the children of God that we are. The one who comes looking for mercy among us is the one who was and is and forever will be the very mercy of God. Worry and fear will not free us. Worry and fear will not set us free for a life of loving service to others, but faith will — trust in God whose love drew us into life and continues to draw us toward life’s fulfillment.
Every human life is a marvelous journey in time and a unique verse in the song of creation. But every human life participates in the one life of God, and therefore we are not solitary, disconnected travelers, here today and gone tomorrow. We are made for communion, in time and beyond the vast expanse of time. We are made for the one life given shape by God’s loving attention to us and our needs and our loving response to the needs of others. We are made in the image of God whose mercy is from everlasting to everlasting.
[1] Psalm 8:3-4
[2] Beyond Tragedy, 1937; quote from http://www.lectionarycentral.com/septuag/Neibuhr.html