Lord, have mercy!

"Lord, have mercy."

It’s a little phrase which Christians seem to have used from the beginning: the humble tax-collector in Jesus’ parable says, ‘God have mercy on me a sinner.’ It is the natural response of someone who knows himself to the God who knows him even better. But I wonder what it really means?

One approach is to see it as, essentially, ‘Don’t hit me!’ It assumes that God is there to begin with to punish. But when the tax-collector says it to God in Jesus’ little story, I think it has a different meaning. The little invocation used widely in Islam, ‘In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful’ might help us, especially if we remember that this was probably taken from Christian usage by the first Muslims. The Arabic words are Rahman and Raheem. The root of both words is R-H-M, and it the word for womb. I like to think that this little invocation is ‘In the name of God, the womblike, the womblike.’ The womb is the place of nurturing, of security, and creation and creativity. SO when we turn to God aware of our shortcomings, when we say, ‘Lord, have mercy’ we are really saying ‘nurture and protect me, grant me the great virtues which are your will for me.’

As Charles Wesley wrote,

Other refuge have I none, hangs my helpless soul on Thee;

Leave, ah! leave me not alone, still support and comfort me.

All my trust on Thee is stayed, all my help from Thee I bring;

Cover my defenceless head with the shadow of Thy wing.

In eastern Christianity, ‘Lord, have mercy’ is not used in confession but in intercession, in prayer for others. The first time it occurs in the Eucharist in Orthodox Churches, as in Russia and Greece, is this:

Deacon:

In peace let us pray to the Lord.

People:

Lord, have mercy.

Deacon:

For the peace of God and the salvation of our souls, let us pray to the Lord.

People:

Lord, have mercy.

Deacon:

For peace of the whole world, for the stability of the holy churches of God, and for the unity of all, let us pray to the Lord.

People:

Lord, have mercy.

The deacon then lists such things are rulers, weather, this place, and tells the people to pray, and the response is to say, ‘Lord, have mercy.’ This opening litany was used in the west, but for some reason the deacon’s list of those for whom we should pray is removed and all that remains is Lord, have mercy. At some point they added, ‘Christ’ to this, and we have the very different little litany which is often found in the Eucharist and Morning and Evening Prayer. But it is ripped from the great prayer for everything and has no context.

In recent years (I think because choirs liked to sing settings of the Kyrie, eleison) this became attached to the Confession, adding a little bit extra when we had said that we have things for which we need forgiveness, and the Kyries, the Lord, have mercies, became penitential. It’s not a good idea. When the Confession is replaced by the Lord, have mercies just like the deacon’s prayers, our confession has disappeared and we have removed those powerful words, admitting that we have sinned in though, word and deed, and replaced with vague scriptural sentences which sound nice, but aren’t an admission of sin, so that we don’t bring to mind the things we have left undone, or the things we have done, and we get forgiven anyway. Cheap grace as someone once said.