In Remembrance of Mercy
Mary's Song of Praise (Luke 1:46-55)
part four (v 54)
"God has helped God's servant Israel, in remembrance of God's mercy..."
I am tempted to talk about loving one's enemies - but that comes too quickly to my heart.
This comes in the context of describing the salvic acts of God, three "revolutions" being ushered in through the birth of Jesus: a moral one (v 51) where arrogance and pride are overturned, a social one (v 52) where class and station are erased, and an economic on (v 53) where the dispossessed are lifted up and the rich are taken away from. This is a lot of upsetting happening here! This is the context of God's mercy, this is God's mercy?
It certainly won't be "merciful" toward the rich and powerful - unless we stretch the meaning of "mercy" to include "liberating" the rich and powerful of the chains of their riches and power. (This is a legitimate reading, of course, but something in it seems stretched thin to me.)
Perhaps God's mercy is the setting-right of social relations. God's mercy are those forces and acts that put us in right relation to other people (and, more broadly, to all life). "Sin" and "evil" thus would be those forces and acts that put us in wrong relation to others: economic inequality, arrogance, nationalism, capitalism, property, style and fashion, and so on, ad infinitum. Or perhaps God's mercy is God's will or wish that we should live in right relations with each other - and our acts are our remembrance of that mercy. (Is there a difference between God's will and God's acts?)
God's mercy, it seems to me now, is God's will for us to be in right relations with each other and the confidence that right relations are both possible and certain in the future. We speak of these things with such confidence that we speak of them as if they've already happened, even though they clearly have not (have only begun?). This has been the ongoing story of the children of Abraham - to which the verse makes reference - and is the story we take up in our discipleship of Jesus.
Social and economic justice are the hallmarks of God's Rule and Mercy. God does not forget this, and neither should we - especially on this very special occasion.
part four (v 54)
"God has helped God's servant Israel, in remembrance of God's mercy..."
I am tempted to talk about loving one's enemies - but that comes too quickly to my heart.
This comes in the context of describing the salvic acts of God, three "revolutions" being ushered in through the birth of Jesus: a moral one (v 51) where arrogance and pride are overturned, a social one (v 52) where class and station are erased, and an economic on (v 53) where the dispossessed are lifted up and the rich are taken away from. This is a lot of upsetting happening here! This is the context of God's mercy, this is God's mercy?
It certainly won't be "merciful" toward the rich and powerful - unless we stretch the meaning of "mercy" to include "liberating" the rich and powerful of the chains of their riches and power. (This is a legitimate reading, of course, but something in it seems stretched thin to me.)
Perhaps God's mercy is the setting-right of social relations. God's mercy are those forces and acts that put us in right relation to other people (and, more broadly, to all life). "Sin" and "evil" thus would be those forces and acts that put us in wrong relation to others: economic inequality, arrogance, nationalism, capitalism, property, style and fashion, and so on, ad infinitum. Or perhaps God's mercy is God's will or wish that we should live in right relations with each other - and our acts are our remembrance of that mercy. (Is there a difference between God's will and God's acts?)
God's mercy, it seems to me now, is God's will for us to be in right relations with each other and the confidence that right relations are both possible and certain in the future. We speak of these things with such confidence that we speak of them as if they've already happened, even though they clearly have not (have only begun?). This has been the ongoing story of the children of Abraham - to which the verse makes reference - and is the story we take up in our discipleship of Jesus.
Social and economic justice are the hallmarks of God's Rule and Mercy. God does not forget this, and neither should we - especially on this very special occasion.
posted by Christian at 8:29 AM
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