An opened hand is your measure

2^nd Week of Lent (M): Daniel 9.4-10 and Luke 6.36-38
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory

Tit for tat. Quid pro quo. Scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. We understand these colorful phrases to mean one thing: you do me a favor, I do you a favor—an equal exchange of labor and good will. Implied in the exchange is the possibility of indebtedness, that if I do you a favor now, but you can’t do one for me immediately, you owe me. The longer I hold your debt the more unequal the exchange is going to be. Eventually, I will end up asking you to do something way out of proportion to the favor I did for you. The difference between favors at this point is to be found in my gentle patience, my all-too-human generosity in allowing you time to repay the favor. You end up repaying the debt and rewarding me for not calling in the favor before you are ready to repay. We call this interest…even if it isn’t strictly calculated as a percentage of value.

In Luke’s gospel this morning, Jesus is teaching his disciples two lessons about forgiveness: 1) forgive always so that the one you forgive will be obligated to forgive you when the time comes and 2) be as generous as you possibly can so that your generosity will be repaid in kind. The key to both these teachings is the last sentence of the reading: “For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”

Jesus tells his disciples to be merciful as their Father is merciful. Not an easy job! Our God is more than merciful. He is Mercy per se. How do mere creatures imitate that? We stop judging others. stop condemning others. This means that we are to stop formulating final decisions about the guilt or innocence of others in sin. We are to stop passing sentence on their sins, drawing conclusions about the state of their souls. This does not mean that we are to close our eyes to sin and refuse to call sin Sin. “Judge not lest ye be judged” is not a biblical way of saying, “Mind your own business and I’ll mind mine!” We know this because our interpretative key—the measure you use to measure will be used to measure for you—this key tells us that we do not want our “business” ignored…I want my business measured in mercy and forgiven! Therefore, I had better be ready to repay that measure of mercy with an equal measure of my own.

The clear intent of Jesus here is to point us to the boundless generosity of the Father’s love and mercy. There is no room for stinginess in a heart once cleansed of sin by divine forgiveness. His grant of redeeming grace through the death and resurrection of His Son is the monumental gift of creation restored to right relationship. How do creatures repay that favor? How do we stand under that gift, accept its benefits, and prepare ourselves to repay the favor? We don’t. We can’t. And in creaturely terms, our debt to the Father grows every minute, every second we fail to repay. Fortunately, our Father calculates interest on debts in divine terms, in terms of limitless abundance, boundless generosity—He has paid the debt for us. No interest accrues on our divine favors, so the measure with which we are measured is no measure at all but the open hand of God pouring gifts in love.

So, be merciful as your Father is merciful.