Coronavirus Talk 16
Let us begin with an Our Father
Before we finish this section on Jesus’ teaching, I wanted to take some time to let Jesus teach us about the most important aspect of our faith: the gift and the duty of mercy. Every other doctrine of our Christian belief, what we believe about God and what we believe about ourselves, flows from the concept of mercy. Pope Francis put it beautifully: “We need constantly to contemplate the mystery of mercy. It is a wellspring of joy, serenity, and peace. Our salvation depends on it. Mercy: the word reveals the very essence of the Most Holy Trinity. Mercy: the ultimate and supreme act by which God comes to meet us. Mercy: the fundamental law that dwells in every person who looks sincerely into the eyes of their brothers and sisters on the path of life. Mercy: the bridge that connects God and human, opening our hearts to a hope of being loved forever despite our sinfulness.” – Misericordiae Vultus
I said in one of the earlier talks that mercy has two faces: gift and duty; and I would like to spend tonight reflecting with you on what Jesus teaches us about the gift of mercy and, tomorrow, reflecting on what Jesus teaches us about the duty of mercy.
So, what, exactly, is mercy? Like so many other realities, it is more useful to describe it than to define it.
When I was a freshman in high school, we had to memorize a passage from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice in which, Portia, the heroine, disguised as a judge, is about to deliver her verdict in a lawsuit brought by Shylock, the play’s antagonist, against Antonio, the play’s hero. Shylock is hoping to win the judgment which was a pound of Antonio’s flesh. In this passage, Portia makes an appeal to Shylock to have mercy on Antonio and reflects aloud on what mercy looks like. She says: “The quality of mercy is not strained. It drops onto the world as a gentle rain does – from heaven. Mercy is doubly blessed; it blesses both the receiver and the giver. Mercy is most powerful when granted by those who hold power over others. Mercy is more important to a king than his crown. The king’s scepter shows the level of his temporal power, it is a symbol of awe and majesty in which lies the dread and fear of kings. But mercy is above that power of the scepter. Mercy is enthroned in the hearts of kings. Mercy is an attribute of God Himself. And the power of kings most closely resembles God’s power when justice is guided by mercy. So, Shylock, though you are asking for justice, think about this: If justice were the only thing God considered about us, none of us could ever be saved. That is why we beg for mercy, and that same prayer impels us to be merciful ourselves, to render the deeds of mercy.”
That quote describes mercy perfectly, but if we had to really define it, I would say that mercy is: God’s unconditional love directed intentionally and specifically toward the sinner. Perhaps Shakespeare, when he was searching for inspiration in writing Portia’s speech came across this passage from the letter to the Ephesians: But God, being rich is mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we dead in our sins, made us alive together with Christ – by grace have you been saved.” Or maybe Shakespeare read this from the Old Testament book of Lamentations: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.”
That is what the gift of mercy is, and we need this gift. We need mercy because we are wounded, because our world is wounded. Every one of us is damaged goods. We are damaged ourselves and we do damage to one another. We fall prey to forces around us which try to divide us from one another while tearing us apart inside our very selves. Whether we can admit it or not, we face forces every day which we could never overcome were it not for the love and mercy of Jesus Christ: God’s human face.
In the 15th chapter of Luke’s gospel, Jesus tells three mirror parables which challenge the listeners to allow themselves to realize the depth of God’s love for them.
I want to comment first on the context in which Jesus tells the parables. Jesus was hanging around with the tax collectors and sinners and all the others looked down upon in the culture of the time. Another group of people was there too, observing what Jesus was doing. They were the pharisees and other self-righteous people who were quite sure they were doing everything perfectly and had no need for mercy. So, they were, as usual, gossiping about how awful it was that such a gifted and talented young preacher would be associating with “those people.” So, Jesus tells three stories in a row: about a shepherd looking for one sheep who is lost when he had 99 other ones who were safe; a woman who was searching for one silver coin when she had 9 others in her hand; and a father who waits for one of his sons to come home after completely wasting the inheritance he had been given. The shepherd, the woman, and the father, upon finding what they were looking for, call in their friends and relatives to celebrate their finding that which had been lost.
The crowds listening to Jesus must have felt a little uncomfortable with these three stories because the shepherd and the woman and the father seem unrealistic and a little bit crazy. Shepherds were used to losing up to 30 to 40% of their sheep and no shepherd worth his salt would leave 99 sheep unguarded to find one. No thrifty Jewish woman would spend more money planning the joyous celebration than the coin itself was worth. And certainly no father with resources to leave in his will would welcome home an ingrate of a son and give him a robe to cover his shame, a ring to restore him to his family, shoes to indicate that he is a free man, not a slave, and music and dancing to celebrate just because he is home safe and sound. To react the way these three did – the shepherd, the woman, and the father – seems completely excessive, overdone, wasteful, lavish – all synonyms for another word: prodigal. Who does that? Who would react that way?
And that is the point: Jesus teaches us that our God has a preferential option for the lost and is excessive, overdone, wasteful, lavish and prodigal when he finds and restores what was lost.
The three parables of Divine Mercy appear to wrap themselves up nicely, affirming the listeners in their hope of forgiveness of sin while challenging them to understand, on the deepest possible level, that God is crazy in love with us and that nothing we could do, say or become will change that
In the last parable, however, there is a wrinkle: the older son. Let us look at him:
“Meanwhile the elder son was out on the land. As he neared the house on his way home, he heard the sound of music and dancing. He called one of the servants and asked the reason for the dancing and the music. The servant answered, ‘Your brother is home, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has him back in good health.’ The son grew angry and would not go in, but his father came out and began to plead with him.
He said to his father in reply, ‘For years now I have slaved for you. I never disobeyed one of your orders, yet you never gave me so much as a kid goat to celebrate with my friends. Then, when this son of yours returns after having gone through your property with loose women, you kill the fatted calf for him.
‘My son,’ replied the father, you are with me always and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice because this brother of yours was dead and has come back to life. He was lost and is found.” – Luke 15
It is the second part of the parable that really gives the teaching its punch because it is a confrontation, and not a subtle one, to the self-righteous hypocrites who were looking down on sinners and on Jesus because he preferred being in the company of sinners. The father assures the elder son by assuring him that: “everything I have is yours.” We would prefer to hear the parable end with: And the elder son saw the hypocrisy of his ways went in and welcomed his brother home. We do not. The eventual reconciliation is intentionally left unresolved because the happy ending will depend on whether the one who has received the gift of mercy will complete the dynamic of forgiving as they have been forgiven and to show it by performing the duty of “rendering the deeds of mercy” themselves. Tomorrow night, we will look again at the duty of mercy.
So, I know you are wondering how Shylock’s lawsuit ended in The Merchant of Venice. Portia decides in favor of Shylock and grants him his one pound of Antonio’s flesh. However, she notes that, since his lawsuit said nothing about blood, he was not entitled to even one drop of Antonio’s blood and, therefore, his lawsuit was moot. Shylock was then charged with attempted murder of a Venetian citizen, a crime punishable by the forfeiture of all his money. Shylock should have listened to Portia.
Let us conclude tonight with a Hail Mary and a blessing.