The readings for this past weekend are hard readings for those of us who actually listen to them. It is a part of human nature for us to harbor anger against those who knowingly commit acts of injustice and violence against others. Which one of us, when watching some action movie, do not cheer the heroes who avenge the evil that some villain has caused to those who are innocent. Which one of us, do not support and cheer on those who “get even” with those who have acted unjustly and violently against those who are vulnerable? There is a reason why there are laws protecting the innocent, with consequences for those who prey upon the vulnerable.
I am no different than any other human being. For those of you who know me personally, it is no secret that I harbor great anger toward the present occupant of the White House, for the crimes against humanity that he and his administration have committed against immigrant families, against our environment, culminating in his present, criminal neglect about the Covid-19 pandemic endangering not only all of the population of our nation, but targeting especially those who support him blindly. To knowingly endanger human life is a sin.
Is it wrong for me to harbor this anger? Not really, for Jesus harbored anger toward the money changers in the Temple, actually fashioning a whip and violently whipping those who defiled the Temple with their greed and commerce and overturning their tables. Jesus, in spite of his divine origin, is just as human as we are.
So what is Jesus telling us today? If you study the Gospels, and for that matter most of scripture, you will find that the tremendous acts of God’s mercy outnumber those accounts of God’s violence. What Jesus tells us is that it is to God alone who holds divine accountability. Pope Francis 1 has written copiously about the mercy of God.
Note that in the Gospel, while the wicked servant is held accountable for the crimes he committed against another, e.g. being tortured until his debt is fully paid, Jesus rules out that that wicked servant would be abandoned by God to eternal torturing. Rather, after having fully paid back the evil he has done, the wicked servant would finally experience the fullness of God’s mercy and love.
With humanity, we may look upon those who have committed the most grievous and evil acts upon other humans as utterly unredeemable. God looks upon them differently. They will have to “pay the piper”, they will be held accountable by God for the evil they have caused, but God’s mercy is far greater than the evil they have caused others.
This does not mean that we allow those who commit evil to “get away with murder.” But it is not for us to damn them, precisely because that is a power that does not belong to us. Jesus, dying on the cross, forgave those who plotted his execution, those who tortured him beyond human endurance, and those who cursed while he was dying on the cross. He called upon his Abba and our Abba to have mercy on them. His call for God to be merciful was the last act of love Jesus did prior to his death.
This is the lesson that we, as human beings, must learn. These are very difficult times when injustice committed by many of those we have trusted have wounded us and has caused great human suffering and death. We can be angry toward them. We can vote them out of office and hold them accountable for the crimes they have committed while in public office. However, we must also look upon them through the merciful and loving eyes of God.
I remember listening to a program upon Minnesota Public Radio a number of years ago, in which a Jewish rabbi was speaking about the drowning of the Egyptian Pharoah and his army in the Red Sea. The rabbi said, that while not written in the Exodus account, in the Talmud a story is written about that mass drowning of human life. As the story goes, the angels approach God and tell him that he must be rejoicing that his chosen people were saved from the slavery and wrath of the Egyptians. However, they find God not rejoicing, but weeping, and ask why God is so sorrowful. God tells them that the Egyptians were his children, too. God was weeping over the deaths of his children, the Egyptians.
In the first two chapters of the prophet, Isaiah, God’s love and God’s mercy for all of humanity is revealed. The first chapter has God very angry against the Jewish people. God calls their religious rituals an abomination, stating that God’s ears were closed to all their prayers, their rituals, and chants. Why? Because they are bathed in the blood of the vulnerable they have destroyed. They have mistakenly thought that their wealth and their finery, their elaborate rituals and sacrifices would suffice God. However, God tells them that they are buried in the corpses of the widows and orphans (Biblical metaphors for the poor and the vulnerable). Until they made reparation for their crimes against humanity, God would condemn them.
In the second chapter of Isaiah, the prophet paints the scene of ALL humanity, ALL nations, including the enemies of Israel, coming to God’s holy mountain, whereupon they will be seated around the great table of God for a feast of food and drink. In the sharing of this great eschatological meal, God would teach them divine love and mercy. Weapons of war would be transformed from instruments of torture and death into plows and pruning hooks, and war would no longer exist. The passage ends with God inviting all to walk in God’s light.
In light of these two readings from Isaiah, I composed the following poem.
HYMN TO THE GOD OF MANY FACES
God of many names and faces,
Hymns of how our lives interlace
With you, whom we have known
And think of you as ours alone.
Our rituals, doors to our salvation,
Incense, music, food oblations,
Cultic gestures, words, and symbols,
Is this Salvation for the lazy and simple?
Truth be told, O God omnipotent,
Our feeble rituals sadly impotent,
Until we love all people on earth
To whom your love has given birth.
For every people, culture, nation
You equally love and grant salvation,
Our foes, our lives, you equally cherish,
And grieve the deaths of all who perish.
O God of many names and faces,
All human life your love graces,
Transform into flesh our hearts of stone,
For you are flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone.
(c) 2020 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
