A Little Mercy

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
November 4, 2018
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
austinuu.org

What does the word “mercy” mean to you? When do you need it? When do you give it? Where does it come from?

Meditation Reading
Gretchen Haley

Before reaching out
Start by sinking in
Before lifting your eyes
To strangers and friends
Before scrolling still another headline,
another status update,
another family photo,
another election prediction
Still your heart here
For a time
Take stock of your breath, your pulse, your body
Give thanks
For all of these things that have conspired
To bring you here
Where there is no problem to be solved
No news to absorb
No worry to turn over and over and over
In your mind
No wondering what you came here for
Or what you were meant to do, or buy, or say
There is only the remembering who you are
And to whom you belong
And the space
For bringing in, and letting go
For mending, and waiting
With a purposeful patience
So that here in the vast, unfamiliar quiet
We might awaken again
To this wide world
and the light that breaks
through the thick autumn sky
And the beauty that
Persists
and the partners that are
everywhere
breathing, and remembering too

Sermon

My friend and colleague Joanna Fontaine Crawford, the minister at Live Oak, posted this on Facebook this week.

I don’t know if we’re all conscious about it, but right now, we’re just waiting for Tuesday. I see so many posts where people are commenting on how hard it is to get motivated to do their normal routines. We’re waiting for Tuesday. Because next Tuesday is bigger than the politicians we’re voting for.

On Tuesday, we find out about us. About the US. We find out what kind of country we’re living in. Is it a country that shrugs (or cheers) at hate? Or a country that firmly says NO?

And so it’s really no wonder that we’re having trouble continuing with “normal life.” We’re not quite sure that what we thought was normal life, is. Our country is in Schrodinger’s box right now, It could be that the last two years have been a fluke, a temporary reaction to progress, OR that they are the reality of who we are as a nation. “This is not normal,” we’ve been saying. Next Tuesday we find out.

The mass the choir is singing this morning begins with Kyrie Eleison, Lord have mercy. I’ve been thinking hard about mercy this week.

I’ve had a Mary Gauthier song, Need a Little Mercy Now, stuck in my head. Rolling Stone called it “the saddest song ever written.”

Mercy Now
Mary Gauthier

My father could use a little mercy now
The fruits of his labor fall and rot slowly on the ground
His work is almost over it won’t be long, he won’t be around
I love my father, he could use some mercy now
My brother could use a little mercy now
He’s a stranger to freedom, he’s shackled to his fear and his doubt
The pain that he lives in it’s almost more than living will allow

I love my church and country, they could use some mercy now
Every living thing could use a little mercy now
Only the hand of grace can end the race towards another mushroom cloud People in power, they’ll do anything to keep their crown
I love life and life itself could use some mercy now

Yeah, we all could use a little mercy now
I know we don’t deserve it but we need it anyhow
We hang in the balance dangle ‘tween hell and hallowed ground
And every single one of us could use some mercy now
Every single one of us could use some mercy now
Every single one of us could use some mercy now

Mercy was such a creamy word, such a balm, a healing sound. I think about the refugees and asylum seekers on the long walk, hot and weary, blistered and hopeful. I read about the kindness they are being shown by the people in Mexico, the mercy they are being given along the way. I see the UU Service Committee raising funds to meet them with mercy at the border. My heart cries out for mercy for the people of color terrorized by racist violence, for the Jews who have lost eleven people to US racist violence, for the transgender people who are threatened more intensely by individuals and by policies under this administration.

We are living in another ugly time for vulnerable people. My heart cries for mercy. I suffer for the suffering, but then I ask myself whether my being twisted up and anguished helps them. No. My actions help them. The money I can send can help them. My being in pain only adds to the pain of the situation, and I am having a very good life right now. I want to stand against the ugliness, but I’m going to burn out if I keep feeling like I have been feeling. If I burn out by suffering over other people’s suffering, I’ve made it all about me, I’ve centered myself, my feelings, and that doesn’t help the people who are in danger.

Too much in me is riding on this election. For survival in the struggle for the long haul, I need a little mercy for me, for you, for our hearts and our spirits now. So many of us have been so twisted up, so horrified. We watch what’s been happening to our country, and we can’t stand it. Some of us are impatient with that despair, and say “Just work, just call, just write, vote vote. Some will have scorn for this longing for mercy. Some people have told me they worry about having any kind of Mercy on themselves for fear that if they started they would end up in a puddle on the couch for the rest of their lives.

The word as it is used in our culture comes from the Hebrew hesed, meaning long running loving kindness. It’s a word that is used when someone has more power than someone else. The powerful one can have mercy on the one who is less powerful. A parent can have mercy on a child. A teacher can have mercy on a student. A judge can have mercy on the accused. Husbands wives and partners can have mercy on each other. What does that look like? We can not keep score of every slight. We can make as many excuses for them as we do for ourselves. We can seek to understand the other before seeking to be understood. We can speak sweetly, with love. We can refuse to “bring a lawsuit” against them. That is the language used in the I Ching to talk about deciding someone is hopeless, that they will never change, making a bar they have to reach, and always watching and evaluating to see if they have reached it. Having mercy on your partner or spouse also may mean letting them go if you realize you are out of love or hope for the relationship.

I wonder if I just long to have mercy on myself. Sue Monk Kidd wrote,

“The world will give you that once in awhile, a brief timeout; the boxing bell rings and you go to your corner, where somebody dabs mercy on your beat-up life.”
– Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

Many among us have been in the struggle for years. Many among us in this congregation were active in the civil rights work of the 60’s. In the struggle for reproductive rights in the 70’s and all along the way until we get here. The struggle will continue, as rights have to be won over and over. I didn’t know that, really. I heard Congressman John Lewis say that a few months ago. It’s a long haul, without a steady trajectory. It feels like we’re moving backwards now, on LGBTQ rights, on voting rights, on protections for the environment, on relationships with allies, on aid given to help other countries … Some people like that we’re moving backward. It feels safer to them.

I think mercy must be there for our opponents. Susan Sontag said

“10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.”
– Susan Sontag

That helps me, to think that the people at the rallies, yelling “Lock her up” and hating the media have just been radicalized, infected with the terrible joy of being with other like minded people who say out loud something that you have thought and felt ashamed of thinking …. And the permission to not be ashamed is given, and for a time you are a member of the religion of your baser instincts. We might try Mercy on ourselves and our families our friends. Does mercy mean to look at someone with soft eyes? To hold on to the goodness in them? Maybe Mercy for humans means just understanding that there are creative and destructive impulses within you. That if it were the culture of progressives to have a big rally and start shouting your anger about current elected officials, can you see yourself in an ecstasy of togetherness shouting “lock him up! lock him up” with other progressives? Do you have fun at football games shouting things with other people? Exhilarating “Harass them! Harass them! Make them relinquish the ball” – nerd cheers.

Mercy doesn’t mean going to the mushy moral middle, it can mean disagreeing fiercely, standing against wicked policies, and it means not giving up on the goodness of the middle 80% of people who can be persuaded toward kindness or cruelty, some of whom are in an ecstasy of cruelty right now. And let us pour out mercy on those their cruelty is hurting.

Hate cannot convince hate to end. Mercy could? Maybe. That is what Lincoln said when he wrote:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
– Abraham Lincoln

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