Mercy and the Merciful

*Over the next several weeks, I will be reflecting on the beatitudes of Jesus.

~Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy~

It is interesting that, at the heart of Jesus’s teaching about mercy, is his insistence upon the way in which God’s mercy works together with human mercy. “Forgive us our trespasses,” he teaches us to ask God, “as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Mt 6:12). The two types of mercy cannot be isolated from each other.

When he gives the beatitudes in Luke’s gospel, Jesus, a moment later, makes this same point: “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Lk 6:37). We’re familiar with this language. These are old hat Jesus quotes, really. Everybody knows them. We think we know what Jesus means. “Don’t judge or we’ll be judged. Right. What’s next?”

But what Jesus said next – though it’s a little more cryptic for modern readers – is actually where things get most interesting. Indeed, Jesus said far more than “don’t judge or you’ll be judged.” In fact, he provided a vivid visual metaphor of what Christian mercy should look like: “Give,” Jesus immediately went on to say, “and it will be given to you. A good measure, one pressed down, shaken up and running over, will be poured into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back” (Lk 6:38). What does all this mean exactly? What is all this about pressing down and shaking up? About stuff running over and being poured into one’s lap? To an ancient Palestinian, all of this would have made sense. But to us, it sounds odd, and we usually just skip it and quote the old hat stuff.

So what is Jesus talking about? And how does this image reveal something important about the nature of mercy, about not judging others? The “good measure” that Jesus mentions was a common image for a basket of grain in the ancient world. He’s referring to a good measure of grain. Indeed, he’s referring to a measure so generous it’s been “pressed down.” That is, one that’s been sat upon, stomped upon, and crammed with all one’s might into the bottom of the basket in order to make room for more. He’s referring, too, to a measure of grain that’s been “shaken up.” That is, a measure that’s been stirred up and rattled around to make the grains settle so that even more can be pressed down upon the top. This is also the way my mother packs a cooler – “there just must be more room!” – as she rattles the thing around with a wild look in her eye. Even beyond that, Jesus says this measure of grain is “running over” and, if you were to put it in someone’s lap, it would pour all over them.

The point is this: This is the image Jesus uses to depict how generous Christians should be with their mercy. This is what your mercy should look like. Our mercy is usually heavily qualified: “I will forgive him if he asks my forgiveness. I will forgive her, if she makes some changes. I won’t judge them, lest I be judged.” Jesus says you owe people quite a bit more than that. We should be like my mother with a cooler, manhandling the thing in order to fit just one more soda. That is how we should be when we interpret the lives of other people, especially the people we think the least of. We should be manhandling the portion of mercy we mete out in order to offer more: “There just must be more I can give them. There just must be a reason they think and act this way.” Christians should be ruthless with their mercy.

Consider the people who have disappointed you the most. If the circumstances of your life had been different, might you think the same way they think? Are you in any way responsible for the way they act? Don’t wait for them to shape up or ask for your forgiveness. Shake up the barrel. Press down the grain. Press as hard as you can. Fill it up with mercy and let it run over. And when you pour it all out for someone, see that it spills all over their lap. That is how they will be transformed. And it just so happens that “the measure you give will be the measure you get back” (Lk 6:38).

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~Anthony Rosselli (PhD cand., theology, University of Dayton) writes out of St. Luke and Ascension Parishes in Franklin County, Vermont. These columns are archived here.

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The Sweaty and Dirty Fingers of Jesus - For Divine Mercy Sunday

In the year 2000, Pope John Paul II dubbed the Sunday in the Octave of Easter “Divine Mercy Sunday.” The feast is named on account of the visions of Jesus that were given to his fellow Pole, St. Maria Faustina Kowalska. Fourteen times, St. Faustina says, Jesus requested a feast of Divine Mercy on precisely the Sunday following Easter. Some sixty years after Faustina’s death, the Pope instituted the feast.

But what exactly is the Church celebrating when it commemorates divine mercy? Are we sure we know what forgiveness and mercy are? In the creed, we mention “one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” We ask God to “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We go to confession. But the words “mercy” and “forgiveness” have become so common we’re sometimes unable to attend to their essential meaning. They’ve become  Christian platitudes.

When we hear the word “mercy,” we assume it means something like the psychological decision to “forgive and forget.” It’s something that takes place in the mind. Indeed, the person doesn’t need to be standing in front of you in order for you to forgive them. But how useful is that conception, really?

A few weeks ago, when Pope Francis asked the world to join him in prayer for a world suffering under the grip of this new coronavirus, he directed our attention to the image of Jesus sleeping in the storm-tossed boat (Mk 4). “Do you not care if we die?” the Apostles yelled at him. It is a powerful scene. It is a scene that is often invoked in times of crisis, a powerful reminder of the peace Jesus offers: “Why are you afraid?” 

But we often neglect to reflect on what Jesus and the apostles were actually up to that night. Why were they in the boat in the first place? Jesus had the apostles travel with him across the lake where, after this stormy night, they reached the opposite shore in the morning. Upon arriving, he delivered a man there from a legion of devils (Mk 5:1-20). But then, oddly enough, Jesus and the apostles got straight back into the boat and returned to the side of the lake they’d come from (Mk 5:21). 

Now Jesus could have healed this man from a distance. He healed the centurion’s servant that way ― “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof” (Lk 7:6). What this means, then, is that the entire purpose of that terrifying night time voyage was to encounter this single man in need of God’s healing presence. [1]

And we should notice that, as Jesus was climbing back into the boat to return to the other side, he turned to the man and said one last thing: “Go home to your friends. Tell them how much the Lord has done for you. Tell them how he has had mercy on you” (Mk 5:19).

“Tell them how he has had mercy on you.” We should allow Jesus’ words and actions here to rewrite our conception of mercy a bit. Mercy is not something that only takes place in our heads, something we can do without getting dirty. Jesus put the apostles through a treacherous journey in order to be physically present with this man, in order to have mercy on him. More than that, though, mercy does not necessarily have to be about forgiving someone who has wronged you. It can also be about drawing near to someone who has been beaten by the world, someone who is “living near the tombs,” like this Gerasene demoniac that Jesus healed (Mk 5:3). To draw near to them, to enter into their pain and accompany them toward someplace new is an act of profound mercy, even if no sin has been present.

We have seen that the entire purpose of the apostles' stormy voyage was to bring the merciful and healing presence of God to just one man. But this is just a microcosm of Jesus’ whole life. Indeed, the entire project of Jesus’ terrifying earthly “voyage” – his Incarnation – is to encounter you with his merciful presence, and to encounter you in person. The Incarnation is God’s grand insistence that mercy is best delivered not from afar, but up close. The Incarnation is God’s grand affirmation that your trauma is worth visiting in person, that your sins ought to be healed by his presence and not simply by declaring them forgiven and forgotten.

It is Divine Mercy Sunday. We should remember that God could have had mercy upon us in any number of ways. A teacher of mine liked to say that God could have declared us forgiven via a loudspeaker from the moon: “I’m OK; you’re OK!” But that’s not who God is.

The great affirmation of Christianity is that “God has visited his people” (Lk 7:16). And God has visited them in order to hear us confess sins with his own ears, to cast out our demons with his own mouth, to look at our pain with his own eyes, to wipe away our tears with his own fingers. And he has done this, not metaphorically, but literally ― with sweaty and dirty fingers. The living God has run his fingers through your misery. Indeed, it is in the sweaty and dirty fingers of Jesus that one begins to see what it means to truly forgive someone. It is in the sweaty and dirty fingers of Jesus that one gets a glimpse of the nature of the God who would not heal us without also holding us. And it is in the sweaty and dirty fingers of Jesus that one can begin to see most vividly the true nature of mercy. 

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Endnote:

[1] See F.X. Durrwell, In the Redeeming Christ, trans. Rosemary Sheed (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), 127-128.

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~Anthony Rosselli (PhD cand., theology, University of Dayton) writes out of St. Luke and Ascension Parishes in Franklin County, Vermont. These columns are archived here.

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You Must Be Perfect - 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Matthew 5:38-48
Jesus said to his disciples:
“You have heard that it was said,
An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil.
When someone strikes you on your right cheek,
turn the other one as well.
If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic,
hand over your cloak as well.
Should anyone press you into service for one mile,
go for two miles.
Give to the one who asks of you,
and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.
“You have heard that it was said,
You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
But I say to you, love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your heavenly Father,
for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good,
and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?
Do not the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brothers only,
what is unusual about that?
Do not the pagans do the same?
So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

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Many Christians have been puzzled by Jesus’ words at the close of today’s Gospel: “You must be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). This is unattainable, isn’t it? Christians very clearly affirm that all of us will sin. And doesn’t Jesus’ entire ministry grate against this kind of thinking? His parables, the way he treats sinners ― it all privileges mercy over against a kind of “lift-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps” brand of spiritual perfection. So what’s going on here? How should we interpret Jesus’ exhortation to perfection?

To answer this, let’s look at the examples Jesus gives leading up to his words here. He tells us that when someone strikes you on the cheek, you should just offer them your other cheek too. And should someone sue you for your inner garment, you should just give them your coat too (which, by law, you could not also be sued for, because then you’d be naked!). This almost makes Jesus’ words even more unsettling. Not only does he want us to be perfect, but perfection looks like taking two shots to the face and going around naked! Again, what’s the point of all this?

For Jesus, human beings too often live by a misguided logic of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” ― if someone wrongs me, I get to wrong them back. Jesus’ command to debase yourself instead of retaliate undercuts all that. “You have heard that it was said, ‘you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies” (Mt 5:43-44). Jesus wants to introduce a new logic, a logic of mercy.

Jesus’ command to “be perfect” is meant to gather together all the radical things he’s said about loving your enemy. What it means to “be perfect,” then, is to love your enemies, is to love the people who despise you. The point that Jesus seems to be making is not that it’s somehow incumbent upon you to lift yourself up by your bootstraps and make yourself perfect like God is perfect. Obviously, no one can do that. Neither are you required to present some impossible spiritual résumé upon your death. 

The point Jesus seems to be making, rather, is that when you do these kinds of things ― when you turn the other cheek, when you find a way to love your enemy, when you forgive someone who has seriously hurt you ― you are moving toward perfection, even if you have not yet finally arrived there. Being merciful toward one’s enemies is the road to perfection. Indeed, we should notice that, in Luke’s Gospel ― when Jesus’ same teachings on turning the other cheek are recorded ― Jesus finishes with this: “Be merciful even as your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36). Jesus appears to use the word “perfect” interchangeably with “merciful.” To be “perfect” is to be merciful.

Look closely at what Jesus says in today’s Gospel. “You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” First and foremost, then, Jesus has been describing for us the way in which God is perfect. And the way in which God is perfect ― the way in which God loves ― is by forgiving those who have wronged him, by loving his enemies. Recall Jesus’ prayer while he is being nailed to the Cross: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34). 

Indeed, when we learn to love our enemies we begin to move toward perfection. We begin to look more like God. We begin to bear a resemblance to our heavenly Father, our Father who is perfect, even if we know that ― this side of heaven ― we will never ultimately arrive at perfection. 

And here’s the thing about Jesus’ command from today’s Gospel ― “you must be perfect.” Grammatically, in the original Greek, the command is in the future indicative. That means it could be translated as, “you will be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” So perhaps there’s a broader way to interpret Jesus’ words: they are a promise. We don’t need to squint to see that our lives today are far from perfect. But Jesus’ words are a promise that someday they will be. His words are a promise that someday ― unless we shipwreck our whole faith ― we will love in a way that is reminiscent of the Father’s love, even if that’s not until the next world.

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~Anthony Rosselli (PhD cand., theology, University of Dayton) writes out of St. Luke and Ascension Parishes in Franklin County, Vermont. These columns are archived here.

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"While he was still a long way off" - 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus,
but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying,
“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
So to them he addressed this parable.
...
“A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father,
‘Father give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’
So the father divided the property between them.
After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings
and set off to a distant country
where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation.
When he had freely spent everything,
a severe famine struck that country,
and he found himself in dire need.
So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens
who sent him to his farm to tend the swine.
And he longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed,
but nobody gave him any.
Coming to his senses he thought,
‘How many of my father’s hired workers
have more than enough food to eat,
but here am I, dying from hunger.
I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him,
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
I no longer deserve to be called your son;
treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.”’
So he got up and went back to his father.
While he was still a long way off,
his father caught sight of him,
and was filled with compassion.
He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.
His son said to him,
‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you;
I no longer deserve to be called your son.’
But his father ordered his servants,
‘Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him;
put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
Take the fattened calf and slaughter it.
Then let us celebrate with a feast,
because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again;
he was lost, and has been found.’
Then the celebration began.
Now the older son had been out in the field
and, on his way back, as he neared the house,
he heard the sound of music and dancing.
He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean.
The servant said to him,
‘Your brother has returned
and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf
because he has him back safe and sound.’
He became angry,
and when he refused to enter the house,
his father came out and pleaded with him.
He said to his father in reply,
‘Look, all these years I served you
and not once did I disobey your orders;
yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns,
who swallowed up your property with prostitutes,
for him you slaughter the fattened calf.’
He said to him,
‘My son, you are here with me always;
everything I have is yours.
But now we must celebrate and rejoice,
because your brother was dead and has come to life again;
he was lost and has been found.’”

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Jesus’ “parable of the prodigal son” is one of his most famous. There are a few ways to read the story, but I’d like to offer one that is less common. We know the first part well: the son, after taking his father’s money, sets off for a “distant country where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation.” He finds himself out of money, out of food, and working in the filthiest conditions. The common reading is that, under these circumstances, the son recognizes his pitiful state, repents, and returns home into his father’s forgiving arms. But if we look closely at the text we’ll see something altogether different. 

Let’s look at the story in sequence. While living that “life of dissipation,” we see that he was not even able to eat. At this moment, he thinks to himself, “how many of my father’s hired workers have more than enough food to eat, but here am I, dying from hunger. I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.’” Do you see what he is doing? It has dawned on him that, if he can just get his father to let him live among his hired workers, he’ll have enough food to eat. This isn’t exactly profound remorse for the sins of his past. Look closely: it never actually says he repented. He simply wants to eat. And confessing to having “sinned against heaven and against you”? That is merely the ruse by which he intends to trick his father. 

This should totally reframe how we read what happens next: “while [the son] was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.” The father’s unrepentant son has come home in order to trick him. He owes him nothing. Yet, overwhelmed with compassion, he leaps off the porch to embrace him. Notice now that, upon being embraced, the son is moved to true repentance. He does say “I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son,” which was his rehearsed line. But he does not ask to be treated as a hired servant. He has abandoned the ruse. He now means his confession. But he has only been brought to true contrition upon this encounter with the extravagant compassion of his father.

It’s significant, I think, that we typically assume the son has repented before he returns to the father’s house. It is true to our basic conception of how forgiveness should work.  We might be ready to offer mercy when people seek our forgiveness. We even think ourselves heroic and Christ-like for offering our pardon in these situations. If my son was the unrepentant prodigal son, I would not have leapt off the porch. I would probably have waited for an explanation and a sincere apology. But the mercy Jesus describes is nothing short of excessive. Real mercy makes the first move. It forgives those who have not sought our forgiveness. It forgives even those who are “still a long way off” from seeking our forgiveness.

The behavior of the father might strike us as disordered, as “too much.” But this is the character of the God we worship. Let’s be clear: you have not yet adequately estimated God’s mercy. It is reckless, immoderate, and unreasonable. But it’s the encounter with this radical mercy that bursts open the human heart. Indeed, it was only when the son encountered the extravagance of the father’s compassion that he found a reason to live differently. It was only when he encountered the sheer excessiveness of the father’s mercy that he was able to repent. It is this mercy ― and only this mercy ― that can, to use father’s words, bring the dead back to life.

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