Let Mercy Begin

“… they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.“
~ Genesis 11:1-9

“The Gospel of John in the Bible, speaking of the creation of the universe says, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the Word is God. Through the word you express your creative power. It is through the word that you manifest everything. Regardless of the language you speak, your intent manifests through the word.
~ The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz

Today let’s consider our words.
How we talk to each other, how we talk to ourselves, and perhaps how, should we dare to, talk with God.
Many years ago I saw a beautiful depiction of mercy, on, of all places, CBS Nightly News.
Dan Rather was interviewing Mother Teresa on the streets of the ironically named City of Joy.
For those of you familiar with Asheville, picture the corner of Haywood and Patton at 10pm on a Friday, or anywhere on the South Slope in the middle of tourist season.

Rather asked Teresa how she prays:
“What happens when you talk with God?
“He listens.”
“And what happens when he talks to you?”
“I listen.”

In my spiritual practice, which is defined by 12 steps, this is called:
prayer and meditation.
Talking and Listening.
Often when I talk to myself I am speaking as I would to an idiot.
Someone I despise, and my tone and choice of words is, well let’s say colorful.
I use my first name, which closely rhymes with the words “yucker” and “mucker.” I don’t show myself much mercy.
I kick my own donkey, if you catch my drift.
And if I am honest my conversations with God aren’t much better.
They are definitely more HBOMax than Disney+.
I like to think I do a bit better with the people I love. With my children. With you beloved Jubilants! but in my haste, in my fear, in my desire to get stuff done, no matter how carefully I may choose my words, no matter how hard I might bite my tongue, you can hear in my body language, in my tone, in my sighs and groans, how hard this man made of mud, and not stone, is straining for the stars and coming up short.

If grace is not getting what you deserve, but better than you deserve, then mercy is surely the action of grace in our life.
If grace is a noun; mercy is the verb that conjugates.
If grace is pleading, straining, fussing and fighting, then mercy is loving, listening, kissing and hugging.
Grace is dialing the phone, mercy is picking it up … and listening.
In today’s ancient words we go back to the middle of the beginning.
To a tribe still shaken by the Flood.
Wandering, struggling with the task set before them- to repopulate the Earth.
One has to look no further than the last few years to imagine their state of mind. They were a bit overwhelmed, a bit lost, perhaps a bit frightened. But this was a family of families, with a common purpose, a common bond, and most significantly a common language.
They looked alike, talked alike, and maybe thought alike. They came to a rich plain and maybe thought, “hey, this is nice, this is safe, let’s build a wall.”
Yup, a wall.
What is often overlooked in this story is that the Tower of Babel was designed as a watchtower, the corner of a wall.
To keep people in. To keep people out.
And this was not what a merciful, graceful, intentional God had in mind- these folks were supposed to spread out - to carry the message.
So as an act of mercy, God made communication difficult.
As an act of mercy God frustrated his children.
SHE heightened the political and economical divides so we could see those left behind as we chase after the latest technology, be it bricks instead of stones, or iPhones and Androids.
HE exposed the divides of race and culture to reveal the original sin of a nation and a state built on the backs of the native American and the African.
SHE flooded the market with painkillers to shed light into the mine-shafts of West Virginia and Ohio where generations of Americans die slowly of backbreaking labor, neglect, and silicosis, while we drive down to Starbucks for a latte.
HE interfered with the civil and reproductive rights of generations of women to the degree that it was easier to find information on planned parenting published by Ben Franklin in the 1700’s than it is today in some states of the Union.
Or maybe, just maybe, we did all that to ourselves.
By our choice not to listen.
Maybe the first step taken on the path of mercy is listening.
Listening for the Grace of God.
Listening with compassion to ourselves as we would with someone we love.
Listening with empathy to each other.

Seeking understanding, not our own desired outcome or expectation. One of our founding fathers, Howard Hanger, said it well:
“You must never miss a golden opportunity to shut the hell up … and listen.”
Or, put another way, as Liam Neeson did to Brian Tyree Henry in season 3 of the TV show Atlanta:

”The most wonderful thing and the most terrible thing about being white is you don’t have to listen to anything you don’t want to.”

Maybe, if we are brave enough to listen, we can dwell in the house of the Lord, which we at Jubilee! Community define as all of Creation, all of me, all of you.
All that is offered in love.
Maybe we can live with grace and mercy, all the days of our life.
Maybe by practicing that skillful communication we can make this whole world the paradise it most surely, and most truly is.
Forever and ever.
Amen and O’yeah!