Lent Week Four: Show Mercy Through Your Politics
NETWORK Staff
March 6, 2024
Scripture: Fourth Sunday of Lent
Reflection: Lent week four readings focus on God’s mercy, even in the face of so much gone awry in the world due to human wickedness. Today, that wickedness shows up most fully in our society in racism, poverty, and all forms of oppression, exclusion, and alienation.
As we enter the fourth week of Lent, we turn to our deep need to both accept God’s mercy and extend mercy to others. To show mercy to others (and to oneself!) means joining in God’s merciful, broad, and inclusive invitation to work together for the common good, and to transform our structures of racial, economic, and social injustice.
We can only do this together. In this week’s Gospel, Jesus says, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” This Lent, let us condemn injustice, not each other.
With mercy, we can interrupt the cycles of violence and exclusion that characterize our politics and many of our social systems. With mercy, we can renew our politics, and our world. With mercy, we can build the Beloved Community, and create a society in which every person—with no exceptions—has what they need to thrive.
How will you add mercy to your Lenten practice? What does it mean to you to show mercy in your politics?
in this week’s first reading, we hear the lament of the Israelites in Babylon–which is much like the laments of the justice-seekers of our time. They warn us again and again about what white Christian nationalism will do — and is already doing — to tear apart the fabric of democracy in this country. We are warned, for example, by Fr. Bryan Massingale, Dr. Robbie P. Jones, and other experts in NETWORK’s White Supremacy and American Christianity series. Will we ignore their warnings, like the people in this Sunday’s first reading? Or, will we engage in the 2024 election as a critical opportunity to root our politics in mercy, and begin to transform the wickedness of racism, Christian nationalism, and more?
Lenten Prayer
Prayer by Seattle-based spiritual writer Cameron Bellm:
Tune our ears to hear your messengers of mercy, O God,
The ones who call us to lead with loving kindness,
The ones who encourage us to lay down the arms of vengeance,
To embrace not retaliation but reconciliation.
Guide our hearts to be ever watchful for the lost sheep.
Turn our eyes to seek the forgotten and the mistreated,
Not resting until we bring them home.
Bless our hands to build better structures,
A nation that nurtures, a society that is safe for all.
Transform us with your rich mercy, O God,
Until it is the only language we can speak.
Amen.
Online event
Saturday, April 6
Noon Eastern / 9:00 AM Pacific
If you are unable to attend live, please register to receive a link to the recording.
What could it look like to overcome the wickedness of racism and Christian nationalism, and build a society rooted in the mercy we explored in today’s reflection? This is exactly the topic of the fourth installation of our White Supremacy and American Christianity series, happening on April 6.
So far in NETWORK’s White Supremacy and American Christianity series, we have explored the roots of white supremacy and its connection to Christianity in the United States. We took a deep dive into how it continues to manifest in our churches, our society, and our politics. We also looked at how this consistent ethic of hate poses an existential threat to democracy.
Now, in White Supremacy and American Christianity: Moving Towards Beloved Community, we will look to the future and explore how we can move beyond white Christian nationalism in the U.S. and promote a vibrant, multi-faith, multi-racial democracy where every person can thrive, without exception.
We will dialogue once more with Fr. Bryan Massingale, the James and Nancy Buckman Chair in Applied Christian Ethics at Fordham University; Dr. Robert P. Jones, President and Founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI); and Joan F. Neal, Deputy Executive Director and Chief Equity Officer at NETWORK. We will hear what it means — especially in this election year — to build a better tomorrow by eradicating the structures and attitudes of racism that perpetuate harm in our society. We will also meet young adults who are actively building the beloved community, who will share with us how their faith guides their work and how they are engaging in the 2024 Election.
Register now for the event, and join us in building a Beloved Community!