February 23/First Friday of Lent
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?
But with you is forgiveness, that you may be revered. ~ Ps 130.3-4
For some time now — ratcheted up in recent years by the turbo engines of social media — one of the ruling dynamics in our civic discourse has been the “gotcha” mode. We revel in calling others out, in catching them in a careless statement or action, in excoriating those whose views differ from ours. In short, most of us behave as if we know exactly what others deserve, and we appoint ourselves to give it to them. Thankfully, God does not “mark iniquities” in this way. For what if each one of us did get exactly what he or she deserved from God? As we consider the unkind thoughts and words that we generate every day, the tasks we perform sloppily or not at all, the corners we cut, the grudges we hold, the acts of kindness we forego because we can’t be bothered, we might shudder at the prospect of getting our just deserts. But when we cry out from the submerging misery of our sin, God doesn’t say, “Gotcha!” Rather, he lavishes his loving-kindness upon us, and lifts us up out of the depths to a place of peace and light. As the 10th-century Armenian monk (and Doctor of the church) St. Gregory of Narek prayed, “remember me, blessed one,/with mercy rather than legalisms, with forbearance rather than vengeance, with lenience rather than evidence, so that you weigh my sins with your kindness and not with judgment.” Instead of trying to “play God” by punishing and banishing those we see as transgressing, perhaps we could “play God” instead by refraining from judgment and extending the hand of forgiveness to our brothers and sisters, mindful of our own propensity to sin.
Compassionate Lord, I thank you this day that you do not give me what I deserve, and ask that you help me treat others with equal forgiveness. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022324.cfm
To hear the Grace Cathedral Choir of Men & Boys (San Francisco) sing Samuel Wesley’s “Si iniquitates observaveris,” click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR_bgcSGQoQ
