Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67, Romans 7:15-25a,
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Judgment and mercy…for four weeks we have been hearing about judgment and mercy through our readings from Job in the Old Testament, Hebrews in the New Testament, and the Gospel of Mark. We have heard blistering judgment in Job. Listen once again to a portion of last week’s reading: “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth” (Job 38:1-4a)? And we have heard about mercy in our New Testament readings. Listen to a portion of our lesson from Hebrews from two weeks ago: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16). And today in the Gospel of Mark, we learn about Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, who cries out to Jesus for mercy, and Jesus heals him, he restores his sight. Judgment and mercy…not an easy matter to deal with…judgment…doesn’t it help to think of the God of the Old Testament, the God of Job, the God of long, long ago before Christ, as the God of judgment…and to think of the God of the New Testament, the God of Hebrews and the Gospel of Mark, the God who sent his son to save us, the God of our existence, doesn’t it help to think of this God as the God of mercy? It is easier to deal with the matter of judgment with this dual understanding of God, but life just isn’t that simple.
The God of the New Testament is the God of the Old Testament. Let us look more carefully at the Old Testament. The God of the Old Testament is a loving God. Recall the Book of Genesis, the story of our Creation passed down from Ancient Israel. As a whole, our creation story is not unique – it draws on creation stories from other Ancient Near East texts. However, our story is unique in this way: the gods of the Ancient Near East created man to serve the gods. In our story, in our history, in our existence, God created man in God’s image. What does it mean to be created in the image of God? Our Catechism explains: “It means that we are free to make choices: to love, to create, to reason, and to live in harmony with creation and with God” (BCP, p. 845). We are co-creators in life. The God of the Old Testament is a loving God. And, God wants for us what is good. In the second Creation story, God creates a companion for man. In the first Creation story, in Genesis 1 through chapter 2, verse 4, God creates the world in seven days. In the second Creation story, told through the rest of Genesis chapter 2, God forms man from the dust of the earth and breathes life into him. And, then, God puts the man to sleep, and takes one of his ribs, and forms a woman from the rib. God forms woman so that man will not be alone, so that the man has a companion, a partner. The God of the Old Testament is a loving God. God forbids Adam and Eve from eating the fruit from the tree in the Garden of Eden and tells them they will die if they do eat the fruit. Then, they eat the fruit – and, yet, God forgives them, he even clothes them. The God of the Old Testament is a loving God. In the Book of Exodus, when God introduces the 10 commandments, God does not say, “You must do as I say.” Rather, God tells them, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exodus 20:1). In other words, “I have always been there for you.”
There is judgment and there is mercy in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. In the Gospel of Mark there is judgment. We heard two weeks ago: “‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God’” (Mark 10:23)! And, in our Old Testament lesson today from Job, there is mercy: “And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:10). Judgment and mercy are a fact of life. Judgment and mercy confront us. We might be quick to judge others, but we don’t want to be judged ourselves. We desire mercy, but might have great difficult forgiving others who have harmed us or our loved ones. If we allow ourselves to give the topic due diligence, how do we cope with judgment and mercy?
Back in 1995, a movie came out entitled Dead Man Walking starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. Dead Man Walking is a story about Sister Helen Prejean, a nun, and Matthew Poncelet, a convicted murderer on Death Row. Poncelet participated with another man in a horrific murder of two teenagers. He contacts Sister Prejean seeking help in gaining a stay of execution. He is not a good person, shall we say. He is a racist, a murderer, and a liar, unable to admit his full participation in the crime. The stay of execution is denied, and Sister Prejean decides to stay on as Poncelet’s spiritual advisor during the last days of his life. In this role, she is required to spend several hours with him every day for a week, and spend the entire day with him on the day of execution. She wants desperately for him to acknowledge and repent of his sins that he might have eternal life. Sister Prejean and the prison chaplain have an interesting exchange on the subject of judgment and mercy. The chaplain, who believes Poncelet is getting his due, quotes from the Old Testament: God said to Noah, “Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person’s blood be shed” (Gen 9:6). Sister Prejean responds that in the New Testament, Jesus teaches us about grace and reconciliation. The chaplain, however, is not to be outdone. He points to judgment in the New Testament, quoting from Romans: “Whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment” (Romans 13:2).
For me, here is the crux of all the emotion of this movie. There is judgment and there is mercy. A horrible crime has been committed. Two teenagers are dead. Two families are bereaved. The parents of these two teenagers simply can not understand how this nun can minister to a man who has committed an unforgivable crime. How can she be compassionate to these parents and minister to them in their grief and at the same time minister to the convicted murderer? In the final hour, Poncelet does acknowledge his participation in the crime and he does repent, and so the message is that he will live in eternal live…forgiveness is granted to a murderer. And, even more to cope with, will Poncelet’s execution bring relief to the families of the victims? Their children are still dead, a horrible crime was still committed, and now another man is dead.
I walked out of this movie when I went to see it, for what turned out to be the last 10 minutes, because I simply could not contain all of the emotion of this story, all of the emotion of good and evil, of judgment and mercy. We are called to understand that there is right and wrong, there is a right way to live life and a wrong way to live life. We must strive to love and care and honor and respect one another. We are called to “live in harmony with creation and with God.” At times, we will fail, but we are always loved. We are forgiven in our desire to do right, and when others fail, we are called to forgive, and if we can’t forgive, God will forgive. Are we forgiven if we do not repent? I imagine we are forgiven. God loves us unconditionally. But, my guess is that without repentance, we do not know that forgiveness, and the loss is living with hardness of heart, with bitterness, and with pain. Judgment and mercy….not an easy matter to deal with. It is all of life…it is bigger than we are. In Dead Man Walking, Sister Prejean consoles the parents of one of the victims with these words: “There are places of sorrow only God can touch.” Life is bigger than we are, but God is always with us loving us, guiding us, carrying us. How can we not love God back? Amen.
