Have Mercy On Me The Sinner – A Reflection:
When Friday’s Clarion post hit my inbox my heart skipped a beat. “Me a Sinner – A Jesus Prayer Conversation.” I had been turning those very words around and around all week. Just the night before I’d written my thoughts out and sent them to a friend.
Within that letter arose a theme not unlike the conversation Brad and Andrew shared with us. My heart was asking an important question: “Is it okay to keep calling myself a sinner?”
It isn’t popular language.
Over the past year, the Jesus Prayer has become a precious mantra of mine. I have played with different ways of saying it but I mostly stick with the tradition. For me, the prayer brings my attention to the closeness of God and the companionship of Jesus who is with me, a sinner, pouring out mercy. I say this prayer most often when I am somehow stuck in the grip of my sinful condition. Usually this hits me in the form of severe self-doubt, shame/guilt and a felt unworthiness that can torment and paralyze. This prayer helps me to confess these thoughts and feelings rather than deny they exist, and then to accept the love and mercy that is there for me, and to move on. Moving on looks different at different times. Sometimes it only gets me moving into the next breath –and I say it again. But, I think this prayer is changing me. It is certainly changing the way I experience the compassion of Christ.
In his book The Orthodox Way, Bishop Kallistos Ware teaches that “in its literal meaning the Greek text is yet more emphatic, saying, ‘on me the sinner,’ as if I were the only one.”
My church is in the middle of finding a way to talk about things we disagree on. I’m really proud of them – of us. So often our diversity is left uncelebrated in faith communities, and we attempt to pretend that we are all the same. I see so much courage in what we are aiming to do in this season. But as the night approaches in which the topic most dear to my heart will be engaged, I find myself anxious and caught in the throes of frustration. As I’ve worked to gather my thoughts, the words of St. Paul to Timothy keep coming to me. “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst.” (1 Timothy 1:15)
When I read those words and when I say them – they ground me somehow. I am the sinner. I am the one in need of saving. Me.
Perhaps that is the place we need to begin.
In David Moore’s book, Making America Great Again, he points out that the Jesus prayer is not about humiliation but humility. He explains: “When I say these words, which is often, it reminds me of my place, my role within all humankind. It helps me with much-needed humility.”
When we offer these confessions and acknowledge our sin, it is not a denial of our innate worth, or of the glory of God in each of us, or of the ultimate healing and restoration of all things through Christ.
I think it is just a place we go within ourselves to meet with Mercy and Love.
And perhaps the more we go there, the more we become it too.
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