Christ the mercy of God…

Mostly we think of people with great authority as higher up, far away, hard to reach. But spiritual authority comes from compassion and emerges from deep inner solidarity with those who are “subject” to authority. The one who is fully like us, who deeply understands our joys and pains or hopes and desires, and who is willing and able to walk with us, that is the one to whom we gladly give authority and whose “subjects” we are willing to be.

It is the compassionate authority that empowers, encourages, calls forth hidden gifts, and enables great things to happen. True spiritual authorities are located in the point of an upside-down triangle, supporting and holding into the light everyone they offer their leadership to.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

Sometimes I think that mercy is all that matters in the universe, ultimately. Easter shows us, if it shows us anything, that the mercy of Christ is the pivot on which all things turn. In the death of Christ, the very sun’s light was dimmed; in his Resurrection, all things are made new.

We don’t know the source of the very early hymn the Apostle Paul quoted in Philippians 2.6-11, but it perfectly sums up our Lord Jesus, the Son and the mercy of God, who

though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

It was good for me to be afflicted…

If religion is not primarily a belonging system, but is truly a transformational system, one would need, it seems to me, a very different kind of authority. One would need the guidance and conviction of one who has actually walked a journey of transformation himself or herself. One would need the authority of a person who can say, “I know what God does with pain. I should be blaming or bitter, but because of God and grace, I am not.” Not just the authority which says, “You must believe in this and you must believe in that” when often there is no evidence that the authority has ever drunk “of the cup that I must drink” as Jesus put it.

This utterly changes the nature of all true spiritual authority. I will offer you a simple litmus test to determine whether a person has healthy or unhealthy religion. What do they do with their pain—even their daily little disappointments? Do they transform their pain or do they transmit it? People who are practiced in transforming actual life pain, like Jesus on the cross, are the only spiritual authorities worth following. They know. They can lead and teach. The rest of us just talk.

Richard Rohr, OFM, Adapted from The Authority of Those Who Have Suffered

I had been meaning to write some notes on this, but I find that not only has Missy at St. Anne Pray for Us posted it also, but Fran has written an excellent meditation. You should click over and read.

“Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word. You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees… It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.” (Psalm 119:67-68;71 NIV)