Grace and Space

Lk 6:36-38

A good measure: The gospel is part of Luke’s Sermon on the Plain which is addressed to a predominantly Gentile Christian audience. At its core is Jesus’ teaching on love of one’s enemies and love of one’s neighbor. Jesus’ proclamation is clearly an invitation to view reality from the perspective of God’s abundant goodness and mercy.

To be “merciful as the Father is merciful” (v 36) is to enter into the sphere of God’s unbounded mercy and experience God’s generosity. Judging or condemning blocks this experience. One who judges or condemns submits the other to close scrutiny according to one’s own standards, norms, and expectations. In short, one measures with one’s own self-righteousness.

Mk 9:2-10

A fictional story titled “The Piano,” passed around by e-mail to “sustain and console” people, tells of a mother, her son, and a concert pianist. A woman arranges piano lessons for her young son. Wishing to encourage him, she takes him to a concert featuring the great pianist Ignace Jan Pade rewski. After they are seated, the mother spots a friend a few rows away and goes over to greet her.

Left alone, the little boy stands and wanders away. He finds himself before a door marked “No Admittance.” The sign means nothing at all to him.

When the house lights are dimmed for the concert to begin, the mother returns to her seat and discovers that her son is missing. The stage curtain rises. At the center of the stage is a Stein way piano. On the keyboard her little boy is innocently picking “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”