Memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
The text we have from Exodus today is truly extraordinary. In it, the Lord not only speaks to Moses directly, which in and of itself is an amazing thing. The Lord chooses to reveal who the Lord is to Moses. And, as readers, we are privileged to hear what the Lord has to say. Incredible!
Listening in, we learn that the Lord is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and rich in kindness and fidelity. Even more, we hear that the Lord is not all of these things in some kind of limited or reluctant way. On the contrary. The Lord is excessively merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and forgiving of sin. Indeed, so excessive is God’s love and grace, that they extend not just to Moses and the Israelites of his day but for the thousandth generation. Again, incredible!
Ours is an excessively loving, merciful, forgiving, and kind God. Praise be to God!
But there is a bit more here.
The Lord continues by saying that the Lord does not declare the guilty guiltless and that the Lord punishes not just the wrongdoer but the wrongdoer’s children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.
Huh? How can that be? How can our excessively loving, merciful, forgiving, and kind God also be a punishing God of the sort who would punish not just us for our sins but also our children and grandchildren and then some? What are we to make of this apparent contradiction?
There can be no doubt that the first part of the Lords’ self-description is true. We know all about the Lord’s excessive love and forgiveness because we know Jesus. His life, death, and resurrection eliminate any doubt about that. But what about the second part?
Honestly, I don’t know. And I think that is a very good thing.
That’s because it means that while I know some things about God, I don’t know God fully. God is loving and merciful and forgiving and . . . perplexing. God is a puzzle. And that means that while I ought always live in deep gratitude for the loving, merciful, and forgiving God I worship, I must always remember God far exceeds my understanding. I must always remain humble about what I think I know about God.
And such humility couldn’t be more important for us today. We live in a time in which a lot of Christians claim to know exactly who God is, what God thinks, who God favors, and who God despises. This text powerfully reminds us that our posture as Christians ought never be a self-righteous one. We ought never think we have God nailed down. God is loving and kind and merciful. And other.
So, what are we to do in the face of a God who is loving and perplexing?
Moses seems to have the answer. Pray. We ought to get down on our knees, confess our “wickedness and sins,” and make our plea to our loving and merciful and perplexing God.
- Sue Trollinger