God's First Act of Mercy?

Mercy is a special kind of love.  It is compassionate love for one who does not deserve it, or for one who desperately needs it but can do nothing on his or her own to get it.  A man who has been bested in a duel, who lies on the ground looking up at the sword point of the victor, has but one request – “Mercy!”  The man who has been robbed and beaten, who lies bleeding on the side of the road, needs but one thing from all the passers-by – mercy. 

A beautiful hidden gem of a verse in the third chapter of Genesis may just be a description of God’s first act of mercy.  Of course we should qualify this by acknowledging that the stories of creation and the fall of humanity are not to be read literally in the sense of historical narratives.  But they are stories of fundamental, essential spiritual truth, and for that reason, we can and should mine them again and again, drawing out of them all the sparkle and richness and value that we possibly can.

The verse I am referring to immediately follows the account of the first sin of Adam and Eve, the self-centered choice that begins a downward spiral of escalating violence and ultimately leads to the destruction of all but a small remnant of humanity (and all of this by Genesis 7!).  The choice made by Adam and Eve to oppose God justly leads to their punishment, including banishment from the Garden of Eden.  But it is this expulsion that prompts God’s mercy.  It is as though he is thinking of the difficulties that await his children (for though they have sinned they are still and always will be his children) beyond the garden.  Although he knows that Adam and Eve must leave the place of their sin, he wants to protect them.  And so, “[f]or the man and his wife, the Lord God made leather garments, with which he clothed them” (Gen. 3:21).

True, you may say God was only covering the newfound shame of Adam and Eve (3:10-11).  But he could have left this task to their own toil.  Instead, he takes it upon himself to clothe them.  He covers their nakedness, and in doing so, he protects them from the brutal sun and the harsher conditions they are likely to find outside the paradisal Eden.

In this verse, we read and imagine an unforgettable scene, an admittedly anthropomorphic image that conveys a very accurate truth about our God.  Even when we bring suffering upon ourselves, he does not abandon us.  He is moved with compassion.  He himself takes up needle and thread and sews up protective garments, handcrafted from the bounty of his own creation, to clothe us in his mercy. 

Memory of the Garden of Eden by Vincent Van Gogh

That Mighty Heart

“Long ago and far away an ordinary man called John laid his head on the breast of Christ and listened to the heartbeats of the Lord. Who can venture to guess what that man felt as he heard the beat of that mighty heart? None of us can ever be in his place, but all of us could hear, if we would but listen, the heartbeats of God, the song of love he sings to us whom he has loved so much.”

 -- Catherine Doherty, The Gospel without Compromise

 Read a longer excerpt here.

A Joyful Life

The word “joy” has the connotation of exuberant happiness, big smiles, and irrepressible optimism.  When we hear people say Christians should be joyful, we might wonder if we measure up.  Doesn’t this kind of joyfulness come more easily to some personalities than others?  In The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis offers an insightful commentary on joy that might give us a better understanding of what the word truly means as a way of life:

“There are Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter.  I realize of course that joy is not expressed the same way at all times in life, especially at moments of great difficulty.  Joy adapts and changes, but it always endures, even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that, when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved.  I understand the grief of people who have to endure great suffering, yet slowly but surely we all have to let the joy of faith slowly revive as a quiet yet firm trust, even amid the greatest distress:  ‘My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is…  But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:  the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.  Great is your faithfulness…  It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord’ (Lam. 3:17, 21-23, 26)” (EG 6).

An elderly woman who was looking back at her life once told me, “I was content.”  She meant that she was not always happy, but she was at peace.  It was a simple way of describing a long life full of good things but fraught with difficulty.  One might describe the life of Christ himself in much the same way.  The joy of a Christian is realistic, genuine, compelling – it is not manufactured or manic.  As Pope Francis wrote, joy adapts and changes.  Sometimes it is exuberant, but sometimes it just “waits quietly.”  The essence, the undercurrent, of Christian joy is a habitual falling back on the steadfast, infinite love of the God who saves and who holds all things in existence.

He's Got a Point

“The word of Scripture is truly the body of Christ and his blood; it is divine doctrine. If at any time we approach the Sacrament — the faithful know what I mean — and a tiny crumb should fall, we are appalled. Even so, if at any time we hear the word of God, through which the body and blood of Christ is being poured into our ears, and we yield carelessly to distraction, how are we not responsible for our failing?”

-- St. Jerome, Reflections on Psalm 147:12-20

Deep Like the Rivers

For the last two weeks, we’ve been acknowledging the cold hard truth that sometimes we turn our back on Scripture, failing to pay attention to it, or not letting its message take root and transform us.  I shared with you an example from Luke’s Gospel – how I realized I was habitually skimming over certain verses because on some subconscious level I had classified them as “unimportant.”  I have had several such experiences with Scripture, and even though it is always a little bit embarrassing (shameful would be a better word!), it is also exciting.  I like discovering things I should have noticed before.  It makes me wonder what other shiny new treasures are waiting for me in familiar places!

I’d like to share another experience, even though it will reveal the extent of my bad habit.  Several years ago I was both appalled and delighted to discover that there were a few verses in the creation stories that I had basically overlooked for my entire life.  When studying theology, it doesn’t get any more basic than the two accounts of creation found in Genesis 1-3.  They lay the groundwork for pretty much everything else.  And when teaching theology and Scripture, I have turned back to these stories again and again.  How could I have missed something here, of all places?

Granted, the passage I am referring to is not necessarily fundamental to understanding the creation stories and their meaning.  This is why I had always read these verses without paying any attention to them.  I was always looking to the “juicy” parts like “in his image he created them” (1:27) and “the eyes of both were opened” (3:7).  It seems that when I came to the passage below, my brain said, “Here’s the part about the rivers.  Skip it.” 

But several years ago, when I read this passage carefully (I think I was reading it out loud), I realized what I had been missing.  First of all, the words are beautiful.  They create in your mind an unforgettable image of what we now call the Fertile Crescent – a land of lush vegetation and gorgeous river views.  You can easily picture a pristine land full of precious minerals and rich resources – gold, onyx, and bdellium (a fragrant resin similar to myrrh).  Second, the passage describes a geographical place on earth, communicating to us a simple truth that the rest of Scripture corroborates and develops:  our God is inextricably intertwined with the lives of human beings, in their times and places.  Although he is mighty – he creates worlds simply by speaking! – he is not removed.  Our ancient stories about God don’t begin “long ago and far away.”  They begin with places like “Assyria” and “the Euphrates” and situate their truths in the “mountains of Ararat” (8:4) and “Ur of the Chaldeans” (11:31).  And finally, I love this passage because now that I have rediscovered its worth, it sounds like a poem to me.  It makes me think of what Langston Hughes wrote:  My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

This passage may not mean as much to you as it does to me.  One reason I like it so much is because of my history with it.  But I share this story and these verses with you because I’m sure you understand my experience and may have had similar moments with Scripture.  It is a reminder for me that Scripture will never be fully known and certainly can never be “mastered.”  It always has something new to divulge.  It is a dynamic phenomenon.  You might say it flows like a river.

"A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates" (Gen. 2:10-14).