09-14-24

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
September 14, 2024
My lip would not stop bleeding! So I’m sitting in the hospital parking lot, ready to go and visit one of our church folk. I get out of the car, but then reach back to grab something, and I hit the right side of my mouth pretty hard. My lip starts bleeding, which is not exactly how you want to greet someone in the hospital. So I sat back down in the car and searched for something to hold against my lip. This is a good reminder to grab a small package of Kleenex to have in the car. The only thing I could find was a mask that I kept in the glove compartment. Twenty minutes later, and the blood from my lip was no longer running down my chin. The mask, which I dropped on the floor of the passenger side, looked as if it belonged at a murder scene. I was able to visit the person I had come to see, though I did share what had occurred just in case the lip started bleeding again during the visit.

Have you ever had something that in the moment seemed to be a bit of a crisis, though a few hours later, you’re laughing about it? I was on a schedule, and I had other stops to make, but in the whole scheme of things, it was rather minor. I am thankful that I was not pulled over by a police officer on my way back to the church, as it would have been difficult to explain the blood-covered mask in the front seat. I’ve seen a few too many Law & Order episodes.

I do not consider myself a highly anxious person, but I have been pondering how I react to certain situations. When something interrupts my flow, my plan, or my schedule, my first reaction is to see it as a crisis of sorts. There are days when my schedule is a bit more relaxed, but on those days when I need to check off a number of items from the to-do list, an interruption, especially something as stupid as smacking my mouth hard enough to cause my lip to bleed, can borderline catastrophic.

This Sunday, I am talking about compassion and mercy, and I sort of wonder whether some of us are much more likely to show compassion and offer mercy to others than we are to ourselves. It’s not like I went searching for a way to bloody my lip. It was an accident—a sort of stupid happening, but not intentional. We think about compassion and mercy as something given to someone else, but I wonder if we would give those gifts even more abundance if we first were able to offer them to ourselves.

O Good and Gracious God, you show us more compassion and mercy than we could ever imagine or need. Thank you! Now help us to understand the power of those gifts, including when we are willing to show ourselves a little grace. Amen.