Divine Mercy Parish
Nineteenth Sunday | 9 August 2026 | Lect. 115 | William C. Graham

The Prophet Elijah waited for the Lord. He waited expectantly and alertly. Along came a strong and heavy wind that crushed rocks. But “the LORD was not in the wind.”

Next, “there was an earthquake— / but the LORD was not in the earthquake.”

After that, “there was fire— / but the LORD was not in the fire.”

Wouldn’t you expect that the Lord would come loudly and with great drama? That’s what Elijah thought, I think. 

But after all that cataclysm, “there was a tiny whispering sound. / When he heard this, / Elijah hid his face in his cloak / and went and stood at the entrance of the cave.”

How the Lord will come is always a surprise. What we know for sure is that we must pay attention, even in places and at times that seem unlikely to us.

So, what is it the activity that will let us know that God is near? The psalmist sings of that wonderful visitation: “Kindness and truth shall meet; / justice and peace shall kiss. / Truth shall spring out of the earth, /and justice shall look down from heaven.”

Like, Elijah, we too must be ever alert. Notice then that when we pray the Confiteor, we ask God to forgive us for what we have done and what we have failed to do. We often find it difficult to focus on what we have done or neglected to do that might merit punishment or even
wrath. It is easier to see the sins of our neighbors, sins either real or imagined, and focus on them rather than to ponder and seek to correct our own failings.

I often remember a little boy coming mischievously to me as a parish penance service was about to begin. He said gleefully, “Wait until you hear what my sister has to say!” I’m pretty sure that the kid is all grown up now and way less mischievous today; if I could remember his name, I’d call him up to ask. I feel sure that today he would recognize that it is a cruel and useless position to see oneself as virtuous, while speaking out against the sins of others based on incomplete or erroneous information, and a very certain lack of charity.

While God could condemn us in justice, he offers mercy to the repentant. The church invites us to focus on our own sin and repentance, our own developing sense of compassion, and the offer of mercy by God to all the waiting world. That’s what we asked in the Collect, the opening prayer this morning:

“Almighty ever-living God, whom, taught by the Holy Spirit, / we dare to call our Father, / bring … to perfection in our hearts the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters, / that we may merit to enter into the inheritance which you have promised.”

In the Lord’s Prayer, the only prayer Jesus gave us, we are invited to acknowledge our own inadequacy and dependence. We frail humans ask God to sustain us day by day, holding us up in creation, giving us day by day the bread that we need. Note, too, that we ask to be forgiven. But, and alarmingly, we ask to be forgiven in the way that we have forgiven others. This prayer, usually recited three times daily by early Christians, calls us, then, to lives of mercy and compassion even if we are not good enough to do good for the sake of goodness but only in expectation of a reward: we want to know and experience and be saved by God’s mercy and compassion. When we seek to be merciful and compassionate, as Jesus is merciful and compassionate, our hearts will change to be like the heart of Jesus. We who seek this transformation must then attend with newly opened ears to the call of Jesus.

Note that the church, in prayer, asks God, the protector of all who hope in him, to bestow in abundance his mercy upon us. We do not ask for that divine mercy because we deserve it. Instead, we look to God as our ruler and guide, and ask that we may use the good things of earth
in a way that will assist us to hold fast to those things that endure. And surely mercy and compassion are among the things and the virtues that endure. We ask, too, that God’s powerful
working of grace in the sacred mysteries sanctify our present way of life and lead us to eternal
gladness. The perpetual memorial of the passion of Christ, the gift he gave with love beyond all
telling, will profit us for salvation.

Note as well that the church does not single out particular sins or sinners but presumes the sinfulness of us all, and the overwhelming gift of love beyond all telling is given to us, unworthy as we all are. This is the attitude of Jesus and his compassionate heart; it is the heart of the prayer and the teaching of the church; it is the call extended to each of us: to live in mercy, in compassion, and in imitation of the saving heart of Jesus.