Failing Lent

The Season of Mercy

If Lent was a question I think it would be: “What is mercy?”

By the time Lent comes around we should know that the Gospels tell us that mercy is a King, a Master, a Father who forgives a debt, a grievous offense, a sly deception, a willful moral failure, a blindness to what is right and good, shooting for the moon or for a good ‘nuff showing and coming up short, and restores the offender. He saves simply because He wants to and because He can. He saves because of who HE is, not in response to what the offender offers up to attain reconciliation with Him. He reconciles Himself to us, we embrace that reconciliation.

In offering mercy, He never draws up a contract for a deferred re-payment plan with penalties and interest if not repaid in full by a deadline. He does not exact retribution, take vengeance, or require satisfactory compensation from an innocent third party on behalf of the offender in order to appease Himself, balance His books, or assuage His anger at the transgressor whom He loves.

During the rigors of ascetical disciplines and intensified focus on being pious during Lent it is easy to forget that God has mercy on screwed up humans, not because of our sobbing repentance, great (or even mediocre) acts of pious penance, recitation of long contrite self-deprecating prayers, our ability to FEEEEL penitential (as if His mercy is measured out by the intensity of our “spiritual” feelings), making Him a promise of future holiness He cannot refuse, nor a carefully fabricated deal that we know is a low-ball scam we’re incapable of pulling off even now, much less in the long run after Pascha/Easter.

The “great faith that saves” is defined in the Gospels inside and outside of Lent: It is being un-cool and un-cooly climbing a tree to catch a glimpse of what all the cool kids are talking about. It is being outcast lepers or someone blind to the real world and wanting to get healed so badly you yell at God to get his attention so loud his apostolic bodyguards tell you to STFU because you’re disturbing the sanctity of the procession and you’re bugging their Holy Master.

It is walking toward home in bad need of a bath, your stomach growling, and rehearsing a calculated elevator speech crafted for your Father that neither you nor your older brother understand. It is crawling on the ground getting stepped on just to secretly touch a dirty string of the hem of a garment. It is crashing a dinner party of notoriously pious influencers who all know you’re a social media click bait whore to pour Clive Christian No. 1 Passant Guardant on the popular viral guy they’re all envious of. It is sneaking around in the dark back alleys to find truth because you fear the consequences of losing your current status in your community.

The Gospels tell us that “great faith” isn’t so much boldness, emotional piety, intense performance of prescribed rituals, or even our anticipation of a response or result if we do a particular thing we THINK is spiritually efficacious. Faith that saves is more like a last ditch, grasping at straws, shooting in the dark, absolute desperation. We’re saved when there’s nothing to lose if we become a fool, offend properly religious folks, go for broke and risk annoying or hit up a guy who said he is God for a favor because well…, you just never know. What’s to lose either way in our hopeless situation, right?

If we think we did Lent good and are impressed that we did it (partly, more, mostly) right we got it wrong. If we did Lent right, we know we did it wrong. St. John Chrysostom’s Paschal Homily ends up telling us that the correct answer to the question of the entire Triodion is: We ALL fall under God’s mercy and He meets all of us sinners where we are and how we are, no matter how screwed up, devout, impious, fervent, lazy, gung-ho, doubtful, faithful, inconsistent, dutiful, inattentive, or intentional we are. Publican, Pharisee, Elder Brother, Prodigal, Sheep, Goats, Wise or Foolish Virgins, Pilate, Barabbas, Fickle Crowds, Soldiers, Dismas, Judas, Peter, John…, that’s us in need of mercy.

Pascha is ultimately about God who is in the business of healing and saving His creation, not sending it to hell if it can be avoided at any cost..., including the life of His Son.

He loves us to death.

Which gives us a clue about how serious He is about the whole mercy thing.