Increase and Multiply Upon Us Your Mercy

Proper 12C; Luke 11:1-13; St. Paul’s Smithfield, NC 7/24/2016

Jim Melnyk: “Increase and Multiply Upon Us Your Mercy”

 

There are two particular phrases that jump out at me in today’s liturgy.  The first is from the Collect of the Day.  In it we pray, “Increase and multiply upon us your mercy.”  The second phrase comes from the Gospel according to Luke.  Jesus, asked by his disciples to teach them how to pray, includes the words, “forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.”  I don’t think the latter prayer – the request to be forgiven and to forgive – is possible for us unless God grants us the former – a deeper sense of God’s mercy.  Unless and until I begin to understand the fullness of God’s mercy, and that mercy becomes a reality in my life, I’m not sure how well I can ever accept God’s forgiveness, or even begin to carry out the ministry of forgiveness myself. 

“Increase and multiply upon us – increase and multiply within me – your mercy, Lord, because without you as our ruler and guide – as my ruler and guide – in this realm of forgiveness, we are lost.  Mercy can be defined as compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom otherwise might be treated harshly or who is in a desperate or hard situation.  And so we pray for God to increase upon and within us God’s mercy – a prayer that we may not be treated harshly when others believe we deserve harshness – and a prayer that we may treat others with compassion and forgiveness even when the most sensible part of our mind says they should be treated otherwise.  “Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.”  “Increase and multiply upon us your mercy.”

It’s important to note that today’s prayerful concern about forgiveness is not Jesus’ first foray into the topic.  There are half a dozen passages earlier in Luke that speak of the centrality of forgiveness for Jesus.  In fact in the midst of his sermon on the Plain – St. Luke’s version of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount – Jesus gets downright hard-nosed about the importance of it all: “‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged” he proclaims; “do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven…’” (Luke 6:37-38). 

Author Anne Lamott writes about her wrestling match with that particular passage: “Now try as I might, I cannot find a loophole in that.  It does not say, ‘Forgive everyone, unless they’ve said something rude about your child.’ And it doesn’t even say, ‘Just try.’  It says, if you want to be forgiven, if you want to experience that kind of love, you have to forgive everyone in your life – everyone, even the very worst boyfriend you ever had – even, for God’s sake, yourself” (Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, 1999 p 134).  This is hard stuff to hear for anyone who has been through deeply painful experiences in life.  Lamott understands that some hurts run too deep to forgive easily.  It’s not an exercise in flippancy – it is a hard challenge, and so we pray,

“Increase and multiply upon us – increase and multiply within me – your mercy, Lord, because without you as our ruler and guide – as my ruler and guide – in this realm of forgiveness, we are lost.

Now, I may be reading more into all this than I should, but it seems to me that unless and until we get the whole mercy and forgiveness stuff down in some manner or form, all the rest that Jesus tells us about prayer in today’s lesson feels just out of reach.  It’s only by God’s mercy, living and active in our lives, that we can see God’s holiness – it’s only by that mercy that we can even begin to see God as a loving parent.  It’s only by God’s mercy, living and active in our lives, that we can ever dare to begin seeking God’s kingdom breaking in not just on this earth – but in our own lives as well.  It’s only by God’s mercy, alive and active in our lives, that we can trust God to give us not just the bread we need for today, but also the bread of the coming kingdom for this world today.

“Increase and multiply upon us your mercy” is a prayer we need every day of our lives – because we – because our world – needs to understand God’s gift of mercy.

Last week we talked about Mary, Martha’s younger sister, desiring above all else to enter into the fullness of Jesus, who is the fullness of God’s Presence with a capital “P.”  In today’s lesson Jesus offers us a way into that Presence as he teaches his disciples, and then vicariously each of us, about prayer – and in the very same teachings, enlightens us about mercy as well.  The tie-in between mercy and prayer is this: Mercy moves us to see one another as fellow human beings, who despite our differences – despite any mutual animosity – despite our brokenness and even our possible desire to cause hurt to one another – mercy moves us to see that we are all created in the image and likeness of the One God.

The Rev. Lorraine Ljunggren writes, “I believe prayer at its deepest, most meaningful level is about relationship.  It is about opening ourselves to  the Mystery – with a capital “M” – the Mystery that Is the Source of All Creation – the Mystery that Binds Us One to Another – the Mystery that Has Power to Help Us Find Wholeness – the Mystery in Which We Can Find Sustenance for Life’s Journey” (July 28, 2013).  Therefore we might say that prayer is a vehicle for relationship that can bring us into the Presence of the Mystery we call God.  Once we find ourselves in the midst of the Mystery that is God, we learn of things like compassion, forgiveness, mercy, and love – all of which are a part of the essence of God.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Prayer is not asking.  It is a longing of the soul.  It is daily admission of one’s weakness.”  He continued, “It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart” (Synthesis, 7/24/2016).

In all this we can say, the gift of mercy most surely is tied to prayer, and it undergirds and it gives life to our prayers.  The beautiful and deeply haunting words Jesus gives us in what we have come to call The Lord’s Prayer lose all meaning if not underwritten – if not underscored – with the gift of God’s mercy in our lives.

In our first lesson it is to God’s mercy that Abraham appeals with boldness and tenacity.  And as our Eucharistic prayer reminds us today, it is because of God’s overwhelming mercy that Jesus comes among us to invite us into the fullness of God – giving himself up for us, and meeting us today in the breaking of the bread.

Ultimately, I suspect, Jesus would have liked mercy and friendship to be the reasons the sleeping man gets up to give his friend the three loaves of bread rather than the friend’s persistence.  In this case persistence has to do.  Ultimately it is mercy and love, gifted by God, which allows us to give to our own children, and to neighbors, friends, and the stranger, what they most need to survive and to thrive. 

My guess is that Jesus realizes left to our own devices compassion and mercy can be a very tall order.  It’s easy when beloved members of our faith community die, but much more difficult when we look at all the violence in our nation, and in the world, that seems to take center stage on an almost hourly basis these days. 

Which is why coming together to be a community of God’s people helps so much.  It is in the midst of community that Jesus teaches the disciples, and now teaches us, to pray.  It’s in parables Jesus shows us how important it is to have mercy.  In the examples of his own life and ministry Jesus reveals that love is the power which undergirds and gives life to our prayers.

           

“Increase and multiply upon us your mercy,” Lord – especially when our hearts are heavy with grief and we cannot understand all that is unfolding around us.  Teach us to pray, Lord, and then teach us to live our prayers – not only for your sake, but for the sake of our souls, and for the sake of the world.  Amen.