Tag: mercy

the tempting evil of unforgiveness

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

In Matthew 6, Jesus gives masterful teaching about prayer. He understands with perfect clarity the way that our egos work as we relate to others in the world.

The usual form of the Lord’s Prayer that most of us know and use is a combination of the versions given here in Matthew 6 and in Luke 11. With this combined form in mind, Matthew’s version seems to end abruptly. And on top of this, the follow up teaching on forgiveness seems a bit late, coming after the final bit about temptation and evil. It can feel like the gospel writers (or Jesus) made a literary mistake and got the order of lines out of whack. Something like:

  • pray this way about forgiveness
  • and finally, pray also about temptation and evil
  • Oh yeah, rewind back to forgiveness, I got a tad more to say on that…

This apparent disorder vanishes when I recall that Jesus (and the gospel writers) were rather intelligent people, and when I recognise that unforgiveness is a very common, tempting, and evil tendency for humans.

Jesus, we must remember, is the one with the most important and accurate information on humanity. He knows precisely how our egos tend to judge others and justify ourselves. He knows this tendency is profoundly common, very tempting, and he rightly uses the language of ‘evil’ directly in the middle of it all. Positively, Jesus knows what how we must think, act, and pray to counter this. With the greatest urgency, we must learn, practice and keep practicing the art of being a forgiving person.

Jesus knows how natural it is for us to point the finger of judgment at ‘them’. Look at what ‘they’ did. He knows how quickly we assume that ‘we’ would not (indeed, could not) ever do what ‘they’ did. Jesus knows that if I insist that I could never do what ‘they’ did (to me or to others), then I don’t think I need the same kind of forgiveness that ‘they’ do. He knows how this self-righteous judgment blocks me from fully savoring – and sharing – the forgiveness that the Father so freely offers me.

So then, I can read these verses more like this…

“Forgive us our various kinds of sins, just as we keep on practicing forgiving others of their various kinds of sins.
After all, do we not all stand in need of forgiveness, and could we not all see ourselves in one another?
Keep us from being tempted away from forgiveness like this.
Deliver us from the evil One who is the source of all blame, finger-pointing, gossip, and discord.
Deliver us into the free and forgiving arms of You, our Father.”
For this is how forgiveness works. It has to be shared to be experienced. Your Father is eagerly watching and waiting for us to get our hearts in a posture that can receive forgiveness and share it. It just doesn’t work any other way.

from resentment to acceptance

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

Many of us will be familiar with the four stages of competence. It’s a really useful framework:

  • Unconscious incompetence – we are unaware of room for improvement
  • Conscious incompetence – we learn we have room for improvement
  • Conscious competence – we are doing better with deliberate concentration
  • Unconscious competence – we do better naturally without having to concentrate

These stages can be helpfully applied to the journey from resentment to acceptance.

  • Unconscious resentment – we are angry, but not aware of it or the ways it is keeping us sick.
  • Conscious resentment – our anger is still hindering our mental health, but at least we are aware of it
  • Conscious acceptance – we make a conscious decision (or multiple decisions!) to let go of our anger and accept others as imperfect like us – we enjoy moments of relief from the effects that anger has on our mental health.
  • Unconscious acceptance – seeing others as equal to us has become an embedded habit – a way of being that we do not have to labour at – more like brushing teeth than solving a complex problem.

the disturbing arrival of just mercy

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

For those of us in contexts with a wealth of technology and media (and a poverty of contentment and patience), many of us are feeling weary, tired and over it. This is an exhaustion that goes deeper than number of hours worked or slept. It is an underlying dissatisfaction with things… something… or maybe everything.

Further Fracturing…

Humans have had their usual military, political and personal dramas for aeons. But something is different. There is growing division and distrust and distance from one another. We are losing hope. Relationships seem more fragile. We have more and more reasons to avoid one another. More and more things are harder and harder to talk about. Discourse is toxic. Extremes widen. We seem strangely eager to uncover wrongs, and understandably terrified of being seen to be affiliated with anything wrong. We are determined to be right, or at least less wrong than ‘them’.

And underneath this, we are slowly waking up to the reality that our greatest boast in the modern world, science, is not the simple saviour we had hoped it was. We are beginning to admit that even an impressively comprehensive collection of accurate factoids cannot itself provide the epistemic basis for meaning, value, justice, human rights, compassion.

Worse still, it seems that our heroic efforts at making a more just world sooner or later take on the broken and fragile characteristics of our individual and collective psychologies. Our demonizing, defensiveness, vengeance, resentment, superiority (so often mixed with inferiority), fear and hopelessness end up pouring fuel on the fires of injustice. Seeking justice, we create more injustice.

As the Psalms frequently invite us to do: “Selah” (reflect on this for a moment)

The God of Just Mercy

The Christmas story, amidst all the consumptive noise, unintentionally exclusive gatherings, Santa hats and holiday ‘meh’, is about the arrival of the God of just mercy.

Luke’s historically-savvy Gospel understood well the reality of Roman oppression of 1st century Israel. Luke captures the song known as Mary’s Magnificat (see Luke 1:45-55), rich with feisty social justice themes of powerful people being cast down and rich being sent away empty, while the humble are lifted up and the poor are filled with good things. Despite what you may hear on streets or screens, the biblical Gospel was never only about individuals going to heaven after they die. God longs for his fair and just rule to be realised here on earth. Now.

To riff off of Isaiah 58, God is the breath in the lungs of the oppressed when they ‘lift up their voice’ (v.1) against oppressors – even (especially!?) religious oppressors (‘my people’ / ‘the descendants of Jacob’ v.1).

The Bible clearly and consistently shows God to despise oppression and injustice, but we should not mistake the Gospel for the kind of popular rage that wants to burn it all down. God doesn’t burn for the sake of burning. Like a farmer burning off a field, the fire is for fresh grass to grow.

The Magnificat ends with mercy.

Yes, the immediate focus is on mercy to the ancestors of Abraham, but those who know Scripture will recall that Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3) and his people had a vocation not simply to burn with judgmental finger-pointing at the nations forever, but to be a channel of blessing to them. The prophet Jeremiah knew that even in exile among their oppressors, the victim mentality that so often justifies violence would do them no good. Before Christ ever said “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”, he told the captives to “seek the peace of the city…” Even in Babylon, a city continually reminding Israel of their oppression, Jeremiah wants them to have a different stronger memory of his words that “in its peace you shall have peace.” (Jeremiah 29)

God is not revealed as a tyrant in the thunderclouds, who gets a real kick every time he gets a chance to topple, expose, shame or punish someone. Yes, God is angry at oppression to be sure. But God knew the familiar patterns of injustice long before we did. God knows that oppressors often justify their oppression with their own claimed (or maybe even real) experience of oppression. God knows the cycle. Nobody’s hands are really clean.

Justice – and Mercy – for Everyone?

God knows that justice has to be mixed with mercy and hope – for everyone.
Obviously the oppressed… but even oppressors.

The Oppressed are offered hope that oppression will not go unpunished in the end, and practical real-world assistance as the God of justice empowers down-to-earth help from their neighbours, allies and prophets.

As for Oppressors, yes they are summoned to repair the damage they’ve done as best they can, but they too are offered the hope of renewal and new life. For Israel who “oppresses all [their] workers” and more, they are challenged to change, for sure.

But… they are also told of the life they can have if they do.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
    with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
    and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always;
    he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
    and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
    like a spring whose waters never fail.

And that is at least one ingredient that missing in our world. A justice that is merciful and vulnerable. A justice for all. Hope for all. A God whose compassionate justice – whose just mercy – is well described from the times of Exodus:

The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished…”

Punishment and Forgiveness.
Justice and Mercy.
Consequences and Restoration.
Held together in redemptive, transformative tension.

This God does not leave oppressors to oppress. The consequences of injustice are firm and full punishment. But nonetheless, even the “wickedness, rebellion and sin” of oppressors can be forgiven and overcome.

The author of the persistently profound hymn extolling the wonder of a Grace that “saved a wretch like me” is none other than an oppressor – the former slave-owner John Newton.

This is a merciful justice that may disrupt our popular rage or political resentment. But it just may be the one solution to injustice that actually works. If we would have the courage, and yes the mercy, to give it a try.

Have a merry and merciful (and just) Christmas.

justice with mercy

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

Mercy must be joined by Justice & Justice must be married to Mercy.
Let’s consider, simply and briefly, what happens when they get disconnected.

Unjust Mercy & the Enabling of Injustice

Simply put, we enable injustice to continue when, in the name of ‘mercy’ we fail to critique, resist, prosecute, report, vote, petition, march, speak out, inquire about or act against an injustice. The oppressed are justified in resisting injustice, and allies are ethically bound to critique oppression. Ironically, more and better ‘standing against injustice’ is needed, even in a culture where ‘standing against injustice’ is trendy and can win you a reputation as a ‘good person’ who ‘hates injustice’. Yes allyship can be performative. But we need more allyship and better allyship.

Letting injustice go unpunished and uncritiqued in the name of ‘mercy’ is not merciful. It’s obviously not merciful to the oppressed. And less obviously, it’s not merciful to oppressors who are also harming themselves by harming others.

Merciless Justice & the Escalation of Injustice

Just as being ‘soft’ on injustice in the name of ‘mercy’ is not truly mercy; so also justice is distorted when we go beyond the truth or to abandon the facts. We do this when we go beyond critiquing an oppressor to demonising them or misrepresenting their injustice.

Performative allyship is again the culprit here. I, wanting to be seen as a ‘good person who hates injustice and protects the world from it’, take self-serving pleasure in declaring how bad ‘they’ are, leaving it obvious to everyone how righteous ‘I’ am. An oppressor can easily ignore such distortions, claiming that they are being misrepresented. Ironically, an oppressor usually feels victimized already, and such demonizing only adds to this, confirming their sense of victimhood. What’s more, when victims go beyond resistance and engage in retaliation or revenge, they unintentionally perpetuate a cycle of violence. The oppressed become oppressors. Justice becomes Injustice.

Just Mercy & the End of Injustice

Only when the persistent pursuit of justice is tempered by mercy is it truly effective. Instead of a ‘good person’ dethroning or locking up a ‘bad person’, everyone retains their human dignity. Justice means consequences – stepping down from leadership role, imprisonment, fines, reparation, whatever is ‘just’ for that situation – nothing less and nothing more. But justice must be merciful – avoiding excessively shaming labels, sticking to the facts and rightly scaling the actions committed.

When mercy is wedded to justice, everyone in the triangle (oppressor, oppressed, ally) is human. Not heinous (villain), helpless (victim) or heroic (ally), but human. And justice, after all, is for humans. It stands to reason that the actions we take to pursue it must therefore be humane.

from the bondage of self

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

When an alcoholic is working the 12 steps using the guidance of the ‘Big Book’ of Alcoholics Anonymous, I am told that it is traditional to pray the “Third Step Prayer” found in Chapter 5 ‘How It Works’. Here is the full prayer:

“God, I offer myself to Thee—to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!’’

There is clearly much to appreciate about this prayer, but in this blog I want to do two things. First, I want to zero in on the significance of one line “Relieve me of the bondage of self”; and Second, I want to use the Lord’s Prayer to demonstrate how it is a prayer that asks the same thing.

The Self

The AA Big Book has a lot to say about an addictive focus on ‘self’. “Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows…” (bold and italics not in original) It says “the alcoholic is an example of self-will run riot.” In one of the appendices, there is a quote from Dr. W. W. Bauer, who observes that helping other fellow alcoholics creates an atmosphere in which “the alcoholic often overcomes his excessive concentration upon himself.”

Modern psychologists may sometimes take issue with what could seem like a negative view of the self in such language. But if we are read these quotes as intended, we can see that it is not the self, as such, that is being critiqued, but the ‘excessive’ focus upon self. ‘Self’ is not the problem, but selfishness. The AA Big Book wants the alcoholic to see that even when trying to be ‘good’ their self-will is at play. Such is the description of the ‘actor’ trying to ‘run the whole show’: “Is he not really a self-seeker even when trying to be kind?”

This wisdom about a counter-productive self-focus is behind one of my favourite lines in the prayer: “Relieve me of the bondage of self.” Through the spiritual programme of action outline in the 12-steps, the alcoholic or addict is guided through a process by which their excessive focus on themselves is relieved by the aid of a Power greater than (who?) themselves.

The Lord’s Prayer

I’d now like to translate this wisdom into Christian key. Of course, it is well known that the Christian faith was the spiritual garden out of which the principles of AA were harvested. Frank Buchman, the Lutheran minister, had his transformational experience with resentment, which led to him establishing the ‘First Century Christian Fellowship’ later known as the ‘Oxford Group’, whose 6 principles were expanded into 12 steps by Bill Wilson and the early AA fellowship.

So, although, it is not needed to re-translate any of this back into Christian faith, it might at least be interesting or useful to show how the Lord’s Prayer relates to this line from the Third Step prayer (indeed the entire prayer!); particularly given that the early AA groups used to open or close their meetings with the Lord’s Prayer (and some still do).

  • Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.
    • Right from the start, my focus on self is violently interrupted by shifting and lifting my spiritual gaze off of my self and onto another. Not just any ‘other’, but the ultimate Other. Consider how the same shift can at least be somewhat attempted in the practice of someone who does not believe in any traditional Monotheistic God. Take a practitioner of yoga (which I am neither criticizing nor commending here). Through their practice of breathing, exercise, community and spiritual worldview, they also shift their focus from their individual self onto their body, the others they might be exercising with, and indeed the Universe. Stresses and difficult mental states are at least temporarily put aside as one focuses on higher and wider things than their self. Monotheism simply takes this as far as the logic can lead – to an ultimate Other, the un-caused Cause behind all causality, the One Creator of all things.
  • Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
    • In contrast to the self-will that wants to run the whole show of life, and aggressively or passive-aggressively trying to get others to do what we think they ought to do, this part of the prayer acknowledges that there are higher laws and higher wills and a higher order of things than mine. I do not need to, and indeed I cannot live well if I persist in trying to, play God. Even the agnostic can at least sense a comparable shift when they acknowledge the vast order of natural law in the Universe. We are but a small part in the whole. Monotheism simply recognises that this higher order is not the an order characterised by ‘blind, pitiless, indifference’ as Richard Dawkins famously wrote, but rather by a purposeful, creational and ‘kingly’ or royal will.
  • Give us this day our daily bread
    • One of the basic fears that a fragile self can have is around the fear of financial insecurity. We fear not being able to secure means for ourselves, and for those who may depend on us. Food security experts talk about the difference between a ‘scarcity’ or ‘abundance’ mindset. One can base their positive affirmation of abundance on factual appreciations of the wealth of resources available to us. This prayer just rests this confidence on the ground of a generous God.
  • And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
    • One of the most profound contributions of the AA Big Book is the focus on cleaning one’s own side of the street. We have many resentments against the wrongs others have done. Sometimes these resentments are essentially justified and we have truly been harmed. However, the wisdom here, is that even an innocent victim can get stuck in justified resentment. As the saying goes, “holding onto resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.” I cannot change the other person who hurt me (in my case, as a young child). I can only focus on changing myself, particularly the ways that I nourish my sense of victimhood and keep the fires of resentment enflamed. Forgiveness, in this context, has nothing to do with absolving or excusing or minimising the harm done to me; nor should it keep me from taking any appropriate action to protect myself or others from present or future harm. It is simply ‘giving’ them up out of my death grip of judgment. The wisdom here is very challenging, because never does the self feel more righteous than when criticizing another for legitimate harms done (think of Israel or Hamas). Whatever forgiveness may do for the one who is forgiven, it is undeniably transformative for the one doing the forgiving.
  • And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One.
    • Here the prayer follows on directly from the previous line. Unforgiving and merciless criticism of another person, and most of all the victim mentality too often leads to various forms of verbal, physical or military retaliation or vengeance. For others, it could lead to various forms of escapism as we feel entitled to a mental or moral holiday. We’ve been harmed, mis-represented, ignored, abandoned, so “Screw ‘them’; they have it coming.” Or “Screw ‘it’, I’m going to numb out…” with food, work, sex, drink or self-harm. Such escalations or self-harm are named here as temptations driven by a force that is malevolent, destructive, anti-creational, counter-productive, distorting, enslaving and thus ‘Evil’.
  • For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever, Amen.
    • My life, my future, my past and present; and the history and activities in the whole world, are all subsumed within a higher order that will be ‘just fine’. This is not the well-meaning distant dualism of hoping that ‘God is watching us… from a distance.’ It is the dogged, insistent hope in the reality of a loving Father who can sort out the baddies ‘out there’, and who is constantly and compassionately available to help me with my fearful and vulnerable badness ‘in here’. God is the one who provides, rules, understands, judges and heals. I need that every day.

So then,
Father of all Creation,
today and every day,
relieve me of the bondage of self.
Make me a vessel of reconciling love
to some of your children today.
Amen.

justice with mercy

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

Mercy is a fundamental quality of both the King and the kingdom.

Mercy is the kind of loving restraint that refrains from inflicting the fullest possible punishment upon someone. In the pursuit of justice, for example, mercy means we do not seek the fullest punishment.

In Aotearoa New Zealand at the moment, a trial is beginning involving a mother who killed her three daughters. Nobody is trying to defend the actions, but the line of defense seems to be the claim that the mother was insane at the time.

I want this trial to characterised by justice, but justice with mercy.

On the one hand, let justice be fully done. Everything that can be factually confirmed and proven in court matters. If she was not insane, let that be shown. Let truth win out. Let the necessary consequences come.

But on the other hand, let justice be done with mercy. May our understandable horror at the murder of innocents not lead us to demonise and destroy. Let us not repay evil with evil. May we hold out loving hope for repentance. May there be ways for this mother to come to terms with what she has done and become useful to others who have either committed similar crimes or may be in similar situations where such crimes are committed.

Let justice be done. With mercy.