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Daily Scripture

In You, O Lord, Justice and Mercy Meet

Today’s gospel reading triggered off in my memory the number of times I have jumped the gun by passing judgment on someone before knowing all the facts — the soft data as well as the hard data. It’s clear to me now that prejudice and bias covered up by pride have a great deal to do with this jump; our comrades can do no wrong; our foes can do no right! Of course, it’s easy to meet out mercy to those we like and easier to meet out justice to those we don’t like.

The words of Isaiah introduce the theme of mercy and pave the way for the encounter of Jesus with the adulterous woman recorded in the gospel of John. The people of Israel had prostituted themselves if not in truth, at least metaphorically. God had espoused himself to them, for better or worse for richer or poorer forever. It was an irrevocable covenant that remains to this day. The people of Israel to whom Isaiah addressed these words abandoned their God and aligned themselves with foreign powers for political and economic gain. In effect, they entered an adulterous alliance and were literally carried away to a foreign land by their greed and lust for power.

In the name of their God, a disciple of Isaiah writing in his name and style reminds them of the great exodus when God led the people out of Egypt through the Red Sea into the Land of Canaan, the land they called home for centuries. In words similar to these, the prophet declares, “You think that was great? Forget about it; you ain’t seen noth’in yet! I’m about to do something even more spectacular. I’ll pave a way through the wilderness and bring you home again. I will forgive your unfaithfulness and forget your affair. Your misery will meet mercy and you will be saved.”

It has been said that pride is the worst of all sins because it distorts the truth of who we are. In fact, pride is a lie. But more than this it is a distortion of who God is. Recall that the sin of Adam and Eve was not that they wanted to be like God but that they did not recognize that they were already like God — made in God’s image and likeness.

There was another encounter taking place in John’s story beyond that of the meeting between Jesus and the woman. It was between Jesus and the woman’s accusers. In was in this encounter that justice was enjoined to the ‘trial’. “Let the one who is without sin be the first to cast the stone!” Their pride blinded them to their own sins. Jesus exposed their hypocrisy as his mercy engulfed the sinful woman.

Was he being soft on sin? Hardly. “Go now”, he said to the woman “and avoid this sin.” Might we not rightly assume that this initiative of mercy effected a dramatic change in her life? God’s saving grace was fully manifested in Jesus. Oddly enough, the same mercy resulted in the hardening of her accusers. They drifted away one by one from the eldest to the youngest but they sought another opportunity to trick him into mercy mending.

John’s story about the woman caught in the act of adultery revealed the depth to which Jesus extended himself to the sinner. “In you, O Lord, justice and mercy meet! [Psalm 85] or in the words of St. Augustine, “Misery meets mercy” in the person of Jesus.

Lent is about opening ourselves up to the saving grace of God but repentance is not something we do. It is allowing the forgiving power of God to touch our life, indeed, to engulf us and point us in a new direction. It’s about God empowering us to goodness and about our initiating a new pattern of life.

Lent is also about dropping stones and the acceptance of the humanity of others, despite their sins and failures. It is about entrusting others and ourselves to the tender mercy of God. More than that, it is about allowing ourselves to become conduits of God’s mercy and saving grace—helping others to find their way out of the wilderness of failure, sin and rejection.

“To err is human; to forgive is divine.”

At the same time, to forgive is not so much an act of the will as a disposition of the heart and in many situations, the conclusion of a very long process. We dare not be presumptuous or simplistic about it.

Forgiveness does not absolve the sinner from taking responsibility for the sin or from its consequences. Thus the mantra, “There is no forgiveness without justice, no justice without truth, no truth without full accountability.”

Here is the story that a rabbi colleague shared with me many years ago. A man went into the temple for the observance of Yom Kippur, which is the Jewish observance of atonement. As he entered the Temple, he noticed all his sins were listed on the board at the entrance. He tried to erase them but he was unable to do so. Then he went inside to participate in the penitential service. As he left the temple, he attempted once more to erase his sins but again was unable to do so. He departed and set about making amends for his sins and then returned to the temple. Lo and behold, his sins had disappeared.

This story is akin to the teaching of Jesus, “When you are bringing your gift to the altar and recall that your brother or sister has something against you, go first to be reconciled and then return with your gift.”

The Scriptures set the tone not only for our Lenten journey but also for our life long journey. Our destiny is not Jerusalem the earthly city but Jerusalem the heavenly city. Mercy is our mission but we must first pass through the gateway of justice and truth. In you O Lord, justice and mercy meet and when they do, reconciliation is complete.

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 'A'

Sunday July 20, 2008

Saint or Sinner or Both?

My maternal grandfather was a farmer—of sorts. Born in Brooklyn when farmlands could still be found, his mother abandoned his father and their children when ‘Pop’ was still a young boy. He was sent by his father to an orphanage operated by a Methodist minister in Millstone New Jersey where farmlands were a-plenty. At the age of emancipation he moved to Jersey City for more gainful employment as a plumber. Even in those days, farmhands didn’t earn enough to support a family.

A victim of the depression, he lost his home in Jersey City and moved to Morristown with a quarter in his pocket got a job at Picatinny Arsenal. Although he never became a professional farmer in the green pastures of Morristown, Pop Mooney’s boyhood days on the farm in Millstone gave him unique instincts and talents enjoyed only by authentic growers. He could uproot trees and move the earth around with the strength of a man twice his size. His backyard gardens were worthy of any in the garden state. They were his pride and joy—tomatoes, corn, string beans, carrots, beets, peppers, radishes, parsley—a veritable victory garden. But he didn’t grow wheat! It’s not a native New Jersey crop. But I do remember his pointing to the winter rye which, like wheat in its early stages, looks like rich green wide-blade grass but weeds tend to camouflage themselves among the rye. Pop knew the difference!

Although ‘Pop Moon’ as he was affectionately called, remained Catholic to the core, thanks to his Methodist foster father he was quick to weave Bible passages into his daily commentaries on life’s events and was alert to see the creative hand of God in nature and in all the circumstances of his life.

Somehow, I never inherited his garden instincts. I can still remember giving potted weeds to my mother to be placed among her treasured plants, which she accepted graciously despite her hay fever. A sacrificial gesture on her part for sure.

Matthew’s rendering of Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds is a simple but meaningful allegorical image of the reign of God. The parable has two lessons:

First, there is room in God’s garden for everyone, saint and sinner and sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. I think it is fair to state that there is a saint and sinner in all of us. In the final analysis, judgement must be left to God.

Secondly, there is evil in the world. People are not inherently evil but people—sometimes good people—do evil things for a variety of reasons. Some because of the evil done to them; others because they were never affirmed in their inherent goodness—“God does not make junk!” Still others deceived by evil have adopted a warped view of the world. Some of these present themselves as ‘religious people,’ but their religion is distorted. They have never really grasped the full revelation of their God, whoever that God is for them.

There is indeed evil in the world but the worst kind of evil is disguised—the wolf in sheep’s clothing. This is the evil that has penetrated the most noble of religious ideals evidenced in the racism that pervaded Christian Europe centuries ago and in our own country to this day. We see it once again in the distorted thinking of terrorists. We see it in the rape of children and the greed of those who through trickery and deceit, rob employees and investors of their just compensation and future security. We have witnessed it in the greed of those sub-prime lenders who under false pretenses exploited unwary elderly borrowers who had no ability to pay back what they borrowed in equity loans.

”’Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’”

But sometimes the enemy is within and goes unrecognized, thus Jesus’ response to the servant’s request, ”’Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ … ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

In other words, time will tell where virtue lives and truth flourishes and God will be the final judge and God will not be exploited or mocked.

There is yet another lesson in the second parable about the mustard seed. Although it is not really the smallest of all seeds that grows into the largest tree—the Cypress seed is smaller and the Cypress tree is larger—nevertheless, Jesus’ intent was to stretch the simile to challenge the Pharisees who considered the strength of the Jews equal to the Cypress trees of Lebanon.

The mustard tree is really a large bush and not all that attractive but it attracts all kinds of birds who come and nest in its branches to feast on its seeds. This is what the reign of God is like. Get the point?

We Catholics are a diverse group of every race and nations, saint and sinner—here comes everybody - messy at times but which attracts all kinds of birds (present company included) who nest within its branches to feed on the seed of God’s word.

Those who persevere in faithfulness are those who commit themselves not to be great but to be faithful and grateful.

An idea that begins with one person can change the direction of civilization. A witness to truth must begin with one individual but can spread very quickly to thousands. But words are not as strong a witness as the actions people of good will. A speaker at a church missionary conference on evangelization put it this way:

“When we want to take Christianity to one of our villages, we don’t send them books. We take a Christian family and send them to live in the village.” Isn’t it true that in any group-school, commercial/corporate, or society at large, one person filled with the Spirit of Christ can kindle the hearts of thousands.”

It may take a long time to distinguish one voice from another and separate the good from the bad, but eventually we find our call and at St. Paul assures us in his letter to the Romans, the Spirit intercedes for us with God until we finally get it right.

“Write thy blessed name, O Lord, upon my heart, there to remain so indelibly engraved, that no prosperity, no adversity shall ever move me from thy love. Be thou to me a strong power of defense, a comforter in tribulation, a deliverer in distress, a very present help in trouble, and a guide to heaven through the many temptations and dangers of this life.” [Thomas a Kempis, c 1380-1471, quoted in The Complete Book of Christian Prayer, Continuum, New York, 1996]
And I would add, let us live joyfully and gratefully even amidst the mess and the weeds.