Parakalein

Recently I preached in the flood ravaged area of the Schoharie Valley of New York State.  Flood waters to 10 feet and when those waters receded they left 2 feet of mud in their sanctuary.

It was also the 10th Anniversary of September 11th.   They were remembering the past devastation of the day and resilient under the present devastation of the flood.  The service included a tribute to the bravery and resiliency of both times, the loss of life in both tragedies, and the service of responders in both.  At the end of the service we sang a popular Christian song, "Shine Jesus Shine".  It includes a line, "flow river flow, flood the nations with grace and mercy".  I was asking them to do a hard thing: to set aside their experience of the rising river and the resulting flood that caused devastation, and imagine the river of God's eternal and everlasting grace and mercy flow like a river.

So imagine a "river of grace and mercy flooding all the nations of earth". All people of earth would experience what there heart yearns for the love and acceptance of a flood of grace and mercy.  Some would say that some do not deserve grace or mercy.  Is not that the definition of grace and mercy.  Grace is giving what a person does not deserve, unconditional and agenda free loving.  Mercy is not giving what a person does deserve, punishment.  Could it be that hidden in the obnoxious atrocities of hatred and the justified acts of withholding kindness and forgiveness is the scandalous and transformational truth that all of us benefit from and non of us deserve:  that "just as we are" we are loved and that transformational "grace and mercy" creates an overwhelming flood. Those flood waters wash away all the things that we think are necessary and important and leave behind the thick mud of God's transformation.  Could it be that that mud that Jesus put on the blind man's eyes would help us all to see each other not from the human assessment of deservedness but from the divine acceptance of "grace and mercy".  If we see all people as God sees us we would see all people as already forgiven and set free from their anger that directs them to hate and be unforgiving and set free of their fears that restrict them from loving or forgiving.

These flood waters offer to victims and villains of all nations of all people the same transformational grace and mercy.  All nations and all people and all victims and villains are welcome into the flood waters of acceptance that transforms the best among us into better and the worst among us into the best.

Flow river flow fill the nations (all nations, all cultures, all religions, all people) with grace and mercy.

I thank God for the experience of being with these courageous people and for the lesson God teaches the preacher from the people and all of us in the tragic events.  Maybe that is how God turns the worst into good.