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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.

Easter Sunday 2009

Sunday April 12, 2009

Mandatum

As I reflected on the Easter feast, I found myself returning to the liturgy of Holy Thursday and in particular, the ‘mandatum’ or the ‘washing of the feet.’ For priests and pastors, this action is more than a ritual. It is at the heart of his vocation as a priest. In fact it is at the heart of the vocation of every Christian. It is the tone-setter for our life as Christians.

During the washing of the feet, the priest kneels before the symbolic apostles, women and men selected from the congregation and in a gesture of deep humility, pours water over their feet, dries them and kisses them. He does this in imitation of Jesus. But there is a difference for the priest. He does so in the consciousness of his own sinfulness. There was no sin in Jesus but he took on the sins of humanity that we might be washed clean of sin and rise above the misdeeds that have handicapped our potential for goodness. Thus the many miraculous healing stories recorded by all four evangelists. .Jesus was an itinerant preacher and healer of the mind, body and spirit.

Actually the celebration of Easter does not begin on Easter Sunday morning but on Ash Wednesday and Holy Thursday is really the day which disposes us for this miraculous feast because in this one gesture that took place during the final meal with his disciples, Jesus epitomized the miraculous nature of his entire mission and ministry, the core of which was service.

It is curious that John’s Gospel, which is also known as the ‘Book of Signs,’ or miracles does not contain the words of institution or consecration of the Eucharist. More than likely, this was due to the fact that by the time he wrote his narrative, Christians were already gathering in their homes for the celebration of the Eucharist on Sunday, the day of Resurrection. It appears that John wanted to make a connection between the ‘breaking of the bread’ and the ritual washing of the feet of his disciples.

After the washing, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have just done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that what I have done for you, you should also do.” [Chapter 13:12-15]

This humble act of Jesus was indeed a tone setter for the meal that was to follow as it was for his entire life.

I stated earlier that John did not include the words of institution in his narrative because the ritual celebration of this memorial meal was already well established among the early Christians. When the presider took the bread and repeated the words of Jesus, “Take this all of you and eat, this is my body… Take this cup and drink from it, this is the blood of the new covenant…” those at table knew that it was not just about the miracle of bread becoming flesh but about the miracle of their becoming the bread of Jesus’ life that he had shared long before his disciples arrived at the supper and long before these early Christians arrived at a common table in house churches.

There is an intimate connection between what we do at this table and what we do at our family table and at the table of humanity. This is why we must keep these tables connected. The washing of the feet in ritual form is called the “Mandatum,” a Latin word meaning, command. It also has the meaning of being sent out to act. We are sent at the conclusion of every Mass “to love and serve the Lord in all people.”

Resurrection is not about an empty tomb or is it an isolated feast that occurs once a year. It is celebration of human life in context—in the context of your life and mine.

“Love cannot remain by itself—it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action and that action is service. How do we put the love for God into action? By being faithful to our family. And to the duties that God has entrusted to us. Whatever form we are, able or disabled, rich or poor, it is not how much we do but how much love we put in the doing—a lifelong sharing of love with others.” [Mother Teresa, Love Seeks to Serve]

In a recent commentary entitled “Declarations” on the current economic crisis published in the Wall Street Journal, Notre Dame professor of law quoted writer and philosopher Laurens vander Post, in his memoir of his friendship with Carl Jung: “We live not only our own lives but, whether we know it or not, also the life of our time.” Peggy added: “We are actors in a moment of history, taking part in it, moving it this way or that as we move forward or back. The moment we are living now is a strange one, a disquieting one, a time that seems full of endings.”

And scripture commentator, Pat Sanchez has this to say about the feast and about the miracle of participation in the miracle of resurrection: “At the heart of all our proclaiming and celebrating and remembering, the fact remains that the resurrection is, as Karl Barth once asserted, ‘a difficult dark truth and a word that can scarcely be tolerated by our ears’ because we are ‘threatened by resurrection’ because we do not like to admit that we are deeply imprisoned in our world of sin and death and that we are incapable of helping ourselves. ‘Admit it,’ dared Barth, ‘there is no way out of this life with its thousand festering needs. Nothing except the possibility of a miracle can help us. Resentful of this infringement on our self-sufficiency and reluctance to rely on anyone else, even God, we are threatened by the need that the very idea of resurrection raises.’ Resurrection cannot be achieved by human progress, evolution or even enlightenment. Resurrection is a call from God into the depths of human suffering and dying. ‘Rise up!’ says God. ‘You are dead, but I call you to live.’

“This is what we celebrate today: the call to life from our God. Take away this summons, said Barth, and make of it something smaller and less than the absolute ultimate or all-powerful, and you have taken away the last hope for humankind.” [Pat Sanchez, Preaching Resources, Celebration, NCR Publications, Kansas City, Mo 2009]

Peggy Noonan says there’s no pill we can take to make it easy. Indeed, it is a matter of giving up control to a higher power and it is in the giving up of power that we are ultimately empowered to do what Jesus did and in so doing, we are participating in the miracle of resurrection.

We are here to connect with three realities—the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We are here to celebrate our participation in all three in our own lives individually and collectively by our active engagement with the world through works of justice, love and peace.

We are here to testify that Jesus Christ is indeed risen, in you and me.

A Blessed Easter!