I write today with a heavy heart. Last night while coming home from a meeting Deb and I were made aware that a 23 year old young woman that we knew was killed in an automobile accident. Her father is the new pastor of the church that I recently left and her mother was my secretary for a number of years.
I have two adult daughters of my own that are not far from her age and so it gave me pause to think about life, death, and God's mercy and grace.
St. Gregory Palamas, a 14th century bishop of Thessoloniki in Macedonia, taught his disciples to pray the Jesus prayer found in Luke 18:13. "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me a sinner."
He taught that if one kept praying that prayer over and over, not in a mindless mantra but in a concentrated effort to assimilate the truth, that one could actually be brought into an experiential presence of the Lord.
"God have mercy on me a sinner." After I prayed for comfort and strength for the family, those words came rushing in to my own soul. "God have mercy on me." I was essentially saying, "Please don't let that happen to me." In my frail humanity I don't want to bear the pain of losing a child or a grandchild. But I was also saying, "Please help me to understand."
When we cry out for God's mercy we are rightly saying that God has the right to allow these types of things to happen to us all. His children are not immune as we saw last night. But it doesn't preclude us from beseeching God's divine goodness and desiring to live a peaceful, non-tragic life. Human frailty as it is, however, we often look through the eyes of Job's friends in order to justify our perceived gift of mercy from the hand of God and in order to understand why tragedy happened to someone else.
I remember the words of Jesus recorded in Luke 13.
"Now there were some present at the time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, 'Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them -- do you think they were more guilty than all the other living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."
Whether it is a car accident or cancer or a stroke or a heart-attack, or a brutal rape or murder...we live in a world where bad things happen to redeemed people. It doesn't mean that one is better than another; that one is worse than another. It falls within the providential mystery of God. And so we cry out, "God have mercy."
I immediately prayed for my own children and grandchildren as if to imply that this will always keep at bay the tragedies of this world. I'm not saying that God does not honor prayers of protection and that we shouldn't pray for the safety of our families, but it is also not the magic shield either. If I miss a day of prayer...if I forget...and something happens...am I to blame?...am I to bear the guilt of the wickedness or pain that might enter my world? I think too highly of myself...as if the world rises and falls upon my desires and my humble requests. God have mercy.
"Father, if it is Thy will, take this cup from me..." Jesus prayed. And he was murdered. Am I not glad for this unanswered prayer? Do I not celebrate this act of evil? Was it not for my good? Is this not the key? Has God not shown us the reason for allowing such evil -- that good should come of it and that God might receive praise and glory? God have mercy.
God have mercy....and in the midst of the pain give us the strength to embrace your will. Perhaps we will never know the reason why but we can trust that it was for someone's eternal good, for His eternal glory, and a reminder that we should all, with deepest contrition and humility, be daily crying out, "God have mercy!"
