Mercy or Permission?
“Jesus has this message for us: mercy. I think – and I say it with humility – that this is the Lord’s most powerful message: mercy.” That’s what Pope Francis said in one of his many homilies last year – that the Lord’s message is mercy. But let’s take the next step and remind ourselves that it’s often not mercy we come seeking, but permission. That’s why it’s so hard to live Christ’s teachings – because he’s all about mercy, not about permission.
Take the gospel we have today, for example.
Jesus is teaching the narrow way. He says that God’s law stands – every phrase and letter of it – and everyone, no matter what their personal beliefs or their personal interpretations are, will be held accountable for living the law of God, be they believers or not. Where’s the mercy in that? Where’s the mercy in disallowing divorce? Where’s the mercy in saying that anyone who marries a divorced person commits adultery? Where’s the mercy in telling people that if they are angry with someone that they will be condemned instead? Where’s the mercy in telling people to dismember themselves rather than using their members to commit sin? Where’s the mercy in all that? Mercy is Jesus’ message, but perhaps why his teachings seem so unbending and hurtful – and perhaps why we’re tempted to ignore them – is that we sometimes come looking for permission, not mercy.
Jesus doesn’t burden people – God’s law isn’t a burden – it’s liberty enshrined.
When something Jesus teaches – or when something the Church teaches – irritates and angers us – it’s most likely a sign that our minds and hearts aren’t in the right place. God gave his people the Commandments as a sign of how deeply he loved them, and as a reassurance of how great his mercy for them was. It’s the same for us. God’s commandments and the teachings of his Church are only burdensome for us when we’re trying to follow our own wills and when we’re determined to go our own way. In today’s gospel passage Jesus isn’t burdening people – instead he’s addressing the very things people do that cause them to be burdened. He’s dealing, although in a very indirect manner, with the loneliness, confusion, frustration, anxiety and anger that often motivates us to choose incorrectly. In this gospel passage and in other challenging passages, Jesus is trying to lift the burden by helping us realize that lonely, confused, frustrated, anxious, and angry hearts lean in the direction of trouble. And to lean in that direction is to drift away from God – to choose to walk alone, toward hollow victories and a dismal end.
Jesus’ point is that obedience and not independence leads us to happiness. Yet we live and must contend with a world that is teaching us every day that obedience is an evil thing, as if somehow it does violence to our human dignity. This world of ours calls good, evil and evil, good. It echoes what Sirach says in today’s first reading, “If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you; if you trust in God, you too shall live; he has set before you fire and water; to whichever you choose, stretch forth your hand. Before man are life and death, good and evil, whichever he chooses shall be given him.” The horror of it all is that we often convince ourselves that whatever we desire must be good, and whatever we choose for ourselves must be right. And we realize our mistake often only after it’s too late to do anything about it. It’s a repeating cycle. Yet instead of learning from it we often embrace the falsehood of a worldly attitude and decide before we consider God, and we include God – quite frequently – only after we’ve decided what we’re going to do.
It’s poor old Father Michael all over again, “Go ahead and do what you want because you’re going to do it anyway.” Maybe that’s why – if you remember him from last week’s homily – he said that so often. Maybe because many of the people who came to him only came to him looking for permission and not mercy.
To receive God’s mercy we must be able to acknowledge our sin, but for those who decide for themselves what is right and wrong, sin does not exist. That’s why they rarely experience God’s mercy – because that’s not what they come looking for.