"With truth, there is always mercy.
And with mercy, there is always truth.
And this truthful mercy does not end with bad kings and a good God. It tells the truth about us as well."
2nd Sunday of Lent
By Chad Hyatt
Jesus is doing some serious truth-telling.
He names the puppet king out to kill him a fox, nothing more than a sinister trickster. Jesus knows exactly the sort of political animal Herod is.
Threats will not keep him from the work God has set before him.
Then, in a provocative pairing of images, he likens himself to a hen, wanting nothing more than to gather her chicks and care for them.
Jesus knows Herod and the powers that be that are arrayed against him—and he knows the kind of God whose rule he proclaims in the face of such tyrant kings.
His truth-telling is hard, provocative, unflinching. But the thrust of the truth as Jesus tells it always points beyond our injustices and self-aggrandizement. The truth Jesus tells is grounded in and moves steadfastly toward God’s compassionate will for our liberation and well-being.
With truth, there is always mercy.
And with mercy, there is always truth.
And this truthful mercy does not end with bad kings and a good God. It tells the truth about us as well.
Jesus reminds us that, like Jerusalem, we can get too caught up in our comfort, wealth, and power. We have ahistory of killing prophets who are sent to save us.
More often than not, we tend to reject the compassionate overtures of our God, the one who wants nothing more than to gather us together and lead us toward life and peace.
Truth is hard. But mercy gives hope.
Beloved, may it yet be true that the time has come for us to say once more, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’
May we choose to welcome the poor, the outcast, and the sick, just as Jesus did.
May we put away violence and threats as a form of political discourse.
May we tell the truth about ourselves and our world without fear.
But may the truth we tell always be grounded in compassion and point us toward merciful ways of living together.
May we welcome the prophets and hear their message.
May we bless those who come to us in the name of the Lord.