love and harmony

October 17, 2007

Ephesians 2:4-6

“But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus . . .”

This past weekend, together with one of my sisters, my mother and my grandmother, we set off for Edenton, North Carolina to spend just a little time with my great grandmother who has been diagnosed with colon, lung and liver cancers. She is not expected to make through the end of this year but she doesn’t know that and she refuses to be slowed by cancer. She is inspiring to us. Nonetheless, as we traveled, we prayed for our trip, because all four of us knew that when we all get together we can push each other’s buttons like nobody’s business! We so wanted this last time together to be one of love and harmony.

The author of Ephesians, as we mentioned last week is focused on taking us through the journey of the church. Last week he noted our bent for sinning and this week he offers us the very gift that binds sinners together. Grace in the form of Christ Jesus. It was the gift of Christ to our world that enables us to find grace and thus to be able to open our eyes, hearts, minds and our whole beings to God’s mercy.

I think I’ve shared this with you before but every time I use that word mercy I think of its interpretation in sign language. It consists of using your middle finger to essentially trace your sternum from bottom to almost top and then placing your hand upright in front of you and using the middle finger to trace an imaginary person’s sternum from top to bottom. It is to suggest that mercy involves my feeling what you feel and vice versa. It suggests an effort to understand each other. Such mercy can only produce love in its most sincere form. The Ephesians author wants the hearers not to miss the fact that they can look back at who they were but the great gift that came to us in Christ comes as God’s mercy to us and as something we can offer to each other.

Our time with my great grandmother was delightful. As we journeyed home, we talked about all of the issues that her dying will most certainly create within our family and we talked about the fact that the answer to those problems is our praying for ourselves and for each other that we can embrace God’s mercy as we deal with each other and that by so doing, we can practice love and experience the gift of harmony.

I do not know what issues you face in your family or what struggles may be yours but I do know that God’s mercy is available to you and often in faces that live very near. I encourage you to seek God’s mercy for the aching and difficult places of your lives and to offer God’s mercy to those you know are in need. May we be faces of love and harmony this week and always! Amen.