Wrestling with God's mercy

This week’s gospel reading (Luke 18: 9-14) invites us to wrestle with the same questions from last week, which is not surprising given this is the follow on story from last week -  Who is this God we pray to? Does God hear about prayers? Does God act? What is prayer anyway? Why pray?
It is also a hard reading. It is very tempting to pass judgement on the Pharisee’s motivations, assumptions and understanding of God, and in doing so assume barriers between him and God. And then there we are, giving thanks to god that we have found the true path in Christ, unlike that self-seeking deluded Pharisee over there. Thank god we are not like him. Oh!
When we make these kinds of assumptions about anyone, and about God, we set up a divide between us and them and narrow the wideness of God’s mercy. We deny the outrageous generosity of God’s love lived in Jesus. We separate loving God with all our heart and soul and mind from loving our neighbours as ourselves. We separate ourselves from life in God.
In our prayers
-         what limits do we place on God?
-         what barriers do we place between the people we deem unworthy and God’s infinite compassion?
-         what restrictions do we place on God’s generosity to us?

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