Becoming Communities of God’s Mercy and Delight
Opening Eucharist of the 141st Convention of the Diocese of Fond du Lac
The Rt. Rev. Matt Gunter, VIII Bishop of Fond du Lac
St. John, Wausau, WI October 23, 2015
Are you paying attention?
What are you paying attention to?
A monk needed to go for a day-trip to a big city, accompanied by an acquaintance. In the
midst of urban’ uproar the monk claimed to have heard a cricket, though his companion did not
believe him. Crossing the road and looking carefully under a tree the monk found the cricket, to
the astonishment of his companion.
- You must have a superhuman hearing!
- No. My ears aren’t different from yours, said the monk. But everything depends on
what you’re used to listening for
- No! I would not be able to hear a cricket in this noise!
- It all depends on what is important to you, reiterated the monk. Let’s make a
demonstration. So the monk took out few coins from his packet and dropped them on the
pavement. And despite of the loud noise of the city, all the people around them turned their
heads thinking that the scattered coins could have fallen from their pockets.
- Do you understand now? It all depends on what is important to people … If we watch
or listen to the contentions daily news on television, our ears become accustomed only to
what is ugly and evil. We become fearful and helpless! Then we’ll say: “Life is hard, people
are evil, we live in an insecure and ugly world, you cannot trust anyone or anything …”
And meanwhile the crickets sing, the leaves rustle, the waters flow,… and we do not hear
them.
Are you paying attention? What are you paying attention to? What are you listening for?
What are you looking for?
We live in a world that has lost its way. People are distracted and anxious. We have
forgotten or ignore that there is more going on than what is in front of our noses.
People “self-medicate” by shopping for more stuff or distracting themselves with technology
and entertainment or general busyness. Thus they avoid dealing with the deep and disturbing
questions about the meaning of life and death.
We have been trained – catechized – to understand ourselves as no more than individual
bundles of appetites to be satisfied by any means at any cost.
We allow our hopes and fears, appetites and anxieties, to be manipulated by economic and
political powers.
We have become complacent and self-indulgent.
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What do we (as Christians, this diocese, our congregations) have to offer this world? Are
we really all that different? Fundamentally our message is one of grace – the grace we know in
Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. As we just heard from the Letter to the Ephesians,
“He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good
pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in
the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our
trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us.”
“The riches of his grace that he lavished on us.” Is that not beautiful? What we have to offer
the world is that grace. And we ourselves need to experience more and more of that grace. I
suggest there are two movements to God’s grace – Mercy and Delight. We need to start
paying closer attention to God’s mercy and delight. We need to become better channels of that
mercy and delight to this sin-sick, suffering world. I want us as a diocese and each
congregation to become a people of God’s mercy and delight.
Delight
Part of the meaning of grace is God’s gift of creation.
When God finished creating this world, he saw that it was good, tov in Hebrew. Tov can
also be translated "beautiful." God delights in the beauty of his creation and God delights in
each of human being created in his image. One possible meaning of the Garden of Eden is the
“Garden of Delight.” The Hebrew word most often translated “delight” is chephets, the root
meaning of which is to bend toward
Delight = Love + Joy + Attention. And that is have received from God through Jesus Christ
by the Holy Spirit.
God delights in us
In the lesson we heard from Proverbs 8, the Wisdom of God – prefiguring Jesus –
proclaims, “[At creation] I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”
Julian of Norwich, one of the Church’s great theologians of God’s mercy and delight
declared, “For we are his bliss, because he endlessly delights in us; and so with his grace shall
we delight in him.”
Pay attention to that. Do you believe it? God delights in the human race. God delights in
you.
The Incarnation confirms God’s delight in his material creation and in each of us as part of
that creation. In Jesus Christ God has bent toward us in love, in delight.
We are made to delight in God
“Taste and see that the LORD is good; happy are they who trust in him!” (Psalm 34:8)
“Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:5)
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We are made to delight in God’s good creation.
Creation is sacramental – it is always and everywhere a potential encounter with God’s
goodness
“The whole earth is full of His glory." (Isaiah 6:3)
“Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received
with thanksgiving.” (1 Timothy 4:4)
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
– Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur
Are you paying attention to God’s delightful creation? Do you delight in it? Or are you too
busy, too distracted?
We are made delight in one another as images of God
“God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female
he created them.” (Genesis 1:27)
“What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet
you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.” (Psalm
8:4-5)
Each human being, created in God’s image and for whom Christ died, is sacramental – an
icon of God right in from of us. Are we paying attention? In his essay, The Weight of Glory,
C.S. Lewis wrote, “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object
presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way.”
Can we learn to delight in other people the way we will delight to receive the sacrament of
bread and wine in a few minutes? Are we paying attention to the holy object that is every other
person?
Perhaps we can even delight in ourselves – delighting in the delight God has in us as holy
images of God. Pay attention.
Obstacles to Experiencing God’s Delight
We are made for delight. But our sinfulness, brokenness, and weakness prevent us from
seeing or entering into God’s delight, delighting in him, in his creation, or in other persons
created in his image. I know I am not all that delightful much of the time. And I do not always
think about, talk about, or treat others with mercy and delight.
Imagine for a moment . . . There was once a beautiful silver chalice decorated with
precious gems. It was a cherished sacred vessel od e medieval cathedral. But the cathedral
was raided by Vikings and the chalice was carried off. The Viking who stole it buried it with
other plunder intending to return to claim it another day. And it was lost. Centuries later when it
was discovered, the chalice was crushed and dented. It was missing some of the gems. It was
tarnished encrusted with dirt and rust. But the man who uncovered it recognized it worth. He
knew it was an object of inherent beauty. And he set about repairing and restoring it.
The world is that chalice. Each of us is that chalice. We are in great need of repair and
restoration. We need transfiguration. We cannot fix ourselves.
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We need mercy
We are finite, fragile, fallible, and fearful. We bruise we break we bleed. We are sinful and
broken and weak Too often we fail to see or share God’s mercy and delight
Rather than renouncing the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the
creatures of God, we turn away or, worse, we collaborate with those powers. We contribute to
the damaging of the chalice that is the world. And the chalice that is other people. And the
chalice that is ourselves. Rather than renouncing all sinful desires that draw us from the love of
God, we indulge or excuse them. We contribute to the damaging of the chalice that we,
ourselves, are meant to be. Though God created us for delight we are a mess and have made
a mess of the world.
Our world needs mercy. We need mercy. Thanks be to God, in sending Jesus and giving
the Holy Spirit, God has lavished his mercy upon us. Like a fine art restorer, God desires to
clean the chalice and bend it back into shape, restoring it to its original beauty.
Three Aspects of Mercy
Look at Psalm 103 with me. The psalmist points out three aspects of mercy.
1. God knows us
In verse 14 we read, “For he himself knows whereof we are made; he remembers that
we are but dust.” God pays attention to us knows us as we are. We see this even more
clearly in the incarnation. In Jesus, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to
sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested
as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)
If God knows us and is patient with us, we can seek to know each other and be patient
with one another and ourselves. Pay attention.
2. God forgives us
Look at verse 3, “He forgives all your sins.”
We know we need forgiveness and that is what God offers. “He has rescued us from the
power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we
have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13-14)
If we have received the mercy of God’s forgiveness, we can forgive as the Lord has
forgiven us. Pay attention.
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3. God heals us
In verse 3 we also hear that God “heals all your infirmities.” Each of us is broken in one
way or another. If we are honest we know that each of us is among the walking wounded.
We don’t have to look hard to see that brokenness in our own families and among our
friends. And the world is broken by war and hatred, greed and sorrow.
One of the things Jesus was about more than anything else was healing. “Jesus went
through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good
news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.” (Matthew 9:35)
Toward the end of the Book of revelation we hear the promise of a greater healing,
“Through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with
its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the
healing of the nations.” (Revelation 22:2)
As we experience the mercy of God’s healing we can being a healing and reconciling
presence to those we encounter and in the world. Pay attention.
Becoming a People of God’s Mercy and Delight
We are meant to delight in what God delights in and to extend mercy to others, to be
agents of God’s mercy and delight in a world hungry and thirsty for both. Our Lord commanded
us to “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:36)
But, we are neglectful, distractible, and disobedient. Because we do not attend to God’s
mercy and delight, we are restless, anxious, bored, angry, impatient, contentious, lacking inner
peace, etc. And we find it hard to delight in one another or to extend mercy to one another.
The Church is meant to be communities of people who see each other with the eyes of
God, who welcome each other with mercy and delight. And that is what I will be challenging us
in the Diocese of Fond du Lac to become – a people of God’s mercy and delight in the way of
Jesus.
How do we become this kind of people? We start by repenting and calling on the Holy Spirit
to work transformation on us. We cannot fix ourselves. But we can attend more seriously to the
things in our own hearts and lives that get in the way of experiencing more of God’s delight,
the things in our own hearts and lives that keep us from delighting in God, in God’s creation,
and in one another. We can attend more seriously to the things in our own hearts and lives that
get in the way of experiencing more of God’s mercy and channeling that mercy to the world
around us.
We need to lighten up and get serious. We can lighten up because God has already
lavished his grace – his mercy and delight – on us. There is nothing we have to prove. We are
free. You are free. So, lighten up.
But we also need to get serious. Each of us is a chalice far from being restored. God
promises to transform and transfigure us – but, with our cooperation. Let’s get serious about
cooperating in God’s work to restore us to beings of mercy and delight. Let’s get serious about
cooperating in God’s work to restore God’s creation. That will require some effort on our part.
We cannot be complacent. We cannot be self-indulgent. We need to learn self-control. We
need to learn and relearn to pay attention to the state of our hearts. We need to pay attention
to how and whether we engage other people with mercy and delight. .And we need to pay less
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attention to the things that distract us from attending to God’s mercy and delight, the things
that distract us from Jesus.
Being people of mercy and delight is not an easy or sentimental thing. It is actually a call to
deny ourselves and take up the cross. It is about protracted and difficult, sometimes
uncomfortable transformations. The chalice does not necessarily appreciate being bent back
into shape, cleaned, and restored. Julian of Norwich heard Jesus say,
“I shall completely break down in you your empty affections and your vicious pride, and then I
shall gather you and make you meek and mild and holy through union with me.”
Being people of mercy and delight will mean daring to follow Jesus into the messy
neediness of others. Rowan Williams wrote,
“Christians will be found in the neighbourhood of Jesus – but Jesus is found in the
neighbourhood of human confusion and suffering, defencelessly alongside those in
need. If being baptized is being led to where Jesus is, then being baptized is being led
towards the chaos and the neediness of a humanity that has forgotten its own destiny.”
(Being Christian)
I’ll be talking more tomorrow about some of things that can help attend more carefully to
God’s mercy and delight. It won’t be easy. But, we can continue our transfiguration into beings
– and congregations – of mercy and delight.
Are you paying attention?