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Dear Church,
This time of year is so special. We are excited to see the first blooms of the season as we anticipate the faithful return of the cherry blossoms. We gather with family, friends, and strangers to cheer on the hard work of our favorite teams with the return of baseball, soccer, and March Madness (Congratulations to DC’s own Howard University for their first ever program win in the tournament!). The church is filled with spring break students coming through our doors with curious minds about the work of God in our space and in our nation’s capital. And of course, we are on a Lenten journey with God and each other as we seek a deeper relationship with our spiritual selves and the divine all around us.
And yet, even as we celebrate the newness in our midst, we can’t help but look faithfully toward the cross. A reminder that life comes with the promise of death, but the Good News is that our faith in Jesus comes with eternal resurrection. With that promise in mind we hope to see you at the memorial of Emma King, this Sunday at 2pm and of course at our Holy Week services.
Our focus theme this week is, “The Good News is rooted in Justice, Mercy, and Faithfulness” and as I pray for all the joyful, harmful, and hopeful needs of our world, this theme feels right on time. So, let us read together our scripture, reflection, and questions and know that our ever-present and resurrecting God is with us and calling us into this time together.
With love and hope in all that is to come,
Pastor Stephanie
Theme:
The Good News is rooted in Justice, Mercy, and Faithfulness
Sacred Text:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. (Matthew 23:23, NRSVUE)
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“At daybreak, he reappeared in the Temple area, and when the people started coming to him, Jesus sat down and began to teach them.
A couple had been caught in the act of adultery, though the scribes and Pharisees brought only the woman, and they made her stand there in front of everyone. “Teacher,” they said, “this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. In the Law of Moses, the punishment for this act is stoning. What do you say about it?” They were posing this question to trap Jesus so that they could charge him with something.
Jesus simply bent down and started tracing on the ground with his finger. When they persisted in their questioning, Jesus straightened up and said to them, “Let the person among you who is without sin throw the first stone at her.” Then he bent down again and wrote on the ground.
The audience drifted away one by one, beginning with the elder. This left Jesus alone with the woman, who continued to stand there. Jesus finally straightened up again and said, “Where did they go? Has no one condemned you?”
“No one, Teacher,” came the reply.
“I don’t condemn you either. Go on your way—but from now on, don’t sin any more.” (John 8:2-11, ILB)
Reflection:
By The Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail
The Inconvenience of Mercy
The inconvenience of mercy is that it's hardly ever merited.
But good grief, does Jesus talk ad nauseam about mercy in the Bible; perhaps most famously telling his disciples—to their great chagrin-they must forgive their siblings seventy-seven times for the same sin (Matthew 18:21-22). He calls the merciful blessed in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:7). And then there are his words as he is dying, on a cross, surrounded by criminals and his weeping mother and the mob that Lynched him: "Father, forgive them" (Luke 23:34). In John 8:2-11, he embodies mercy with a woman whom I am rather inclined to think has received little mercy in her life, but that's my own protective instincts kicking in for women in patriarchal places. It's entirely possible she
"deserves" little of what Jesus is offering her.
Mercy-unmerited, inadvisably offered, and brimming with foolish hope-is the making of a Christ-follower.
It's not that I think practicing mercy is particularly easy.
I doubt Jesus would talk so much about forgiveness and mercy if it were easy-God tends to repeat what we struggle to listen to. No, mercy is brutal.
Mercy is what we ask for when we have messed up so mightily in our relationships, our marriages, our parenting, our friendships, that we face either the death of that relationship or the death of who we thought we were. Perhaps this is the kind of death this woman had experienced in her home, and the anger of the crowd was merely reflective of how hurt they were to see a home torn apart. Maybe she had been dealt a death-dealing marriage and was looking for escape.
How dare she, then, receive…mercy?
And yet, mercy makes no sense. It is not logical, or equally beneficial.
Mercy does not make us money or make us look good. But mercy is what makes us God's own.
The receiving and extending of mercy in the most awful and improbable of places is what makes me know that God is still at work in this world.
Mercy is a practice of hoping and knowing that there is more than the thing that hurts us-more than the thing that haunts us.
This, too, is how mercy is part of God's justice, for God's justice is God's joy. God's justice does not align with our human metrics of justice and punishment. God's justice is the delight God feels at the lost sheep coming home, the coin being found. God's goodness is not retributive. God's goodness is rooted in goodness propagating in the face of death.
Which is, perhaps, why Jesus tells her: Go. Sin no more. And live.
Reflection Questions:
- When you receive mercy, where do you feel it in your body?
- What has been a stumbling block for you to show mercy to another?
- What is the relationship between justice, mercy, and faithfulness? What has helped you form your opinion?
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