Where Mercy Flows

Here in Muscatine, we live alongside “The River.” From Trinity, we can look toward the Mississippi and see water that has traveled hundreds of miles before reaching us. It has passed cities and farms, forests and factories, places we know and places we have never seen. And after passing Muscatine, it keeps moving.

That is what rivers do.

They flow.

There is something about that image that helps me hear the words we will pray from Psalm 67 this Sunday. The psalm begins with a prayer that God will be gracious to us and bless us. On its own, that might sound like a prayer focused upon ourselves. Bless us. Care for us. Give us what we need.

But the psalm does not stop there.

God's blessing immediately begins moving outward. The psalmist prays that God's way may be known upon earth and God's saving power among all nations. Soon all the peoples are being invited to praise God.

The blessing flows.

Perhaps that is one of the things we sometimes forget about God's blessings. We can begin to treat them as something we have received for ourselves. We may even become protective of them, as though there might not be enough to go around.

But God's blessing was never intended to be contained.

We hear something similar in another of this Sunday's readings, from Paul's letter to the Romans. Paul's argument in this part of the letter is complicated, but in the verses we will hear, he arrives at an astonishingly expansive conclusion: God's purpose is mercy for all.

Not mercy for a select few.

Not mercy only for those who have everything figured out.

Not mercy only for those whose lives, beliefs, or choices look like ours.

Mercy for all and restorative justice when needed.

God's mercy has a way of flowing beyond the boundaries of who we think deserves it.

That can be good news when we are the ones who need mercy. When we have failed, when we carry regret, when life has become complicated, or when we wonder whether we have wandered too far from God, we can trust that God's mercy continues to flow toward us.

But the same truth can become challenging when mercy flows toward someone else.

We human beings are remarkably good at creating boundaries. We divide ourselves into insiders and outsiders, deserving and undeserving, people like us and people who are not. We can even convince ourselves that God must surely recognize the same boundaries we do.

And then mercy keeps flowing.

Like the River, it moves beyond the places where we might try to contain it. God's grace reaches people we would not have chosen. God's compassion extends beyond the lines we have drawn. God's love refuses to become our private possession.

That should challenge us as the Church.

If we have received mercy, then our lives should become places where mercy continues to flow. If we have received compassion, compassion should flow through us toward others. If we have experienced welcome, then welcome should not stop with us.

This does not mean that we control God's mercy or decide where it should go. The River was flowing long before any of us stood beside it, and it will continue flowing after we are gone. In much the same way, God's mercy does not begin with us.

Our calling is not to control its course.

Our calling is to participate in its movement.

So perhaps when we look toward the River, we can allow it to remind us of something about the God we worship.

Grace moves.

Blessing flows.

Mercy reaches beyond the boundaries we create.

And by God's grace, may our lives help that mercy flow toward places and people we never expected.

Kevin+