Contrast this image with the present American experience. A sizeable portion of the USA thinks that Trump is a fascist dictator. In this way, he is no different from the two groups of people in the Gospel today. The Pharisees and Scribes have rigid rituals and are restricted by religious boundaries whereas Trump just wants to exclude and restrict migration into the US. What is more? Jesus is supposed to be an observant Jew and so they complained to Him about His choices of dining companions. Since ritual purity is central in a Jewish religious outlook, any engagement with outcasts will render one a social pariah. As they say, guilty by association.
Since Jesus welcomes sinners, the only logical assessment of the complaining Pharisees and Scribes is that they are basically hypocritical, unforgiving and unwelcoming. It is ironical though. While we may pride ourself as merciful, tolerant and much more enlightened than the hypocritical Pharisees and Scribes, all a person needs is to commit a grave sexual sin and he will be condemned for life. We are not as forgiving or welcoming as we would like to believe we are. Maybe we use a less graphic example. Remember David Walliams, one of the judges in Britain’s Got Talent. For something he had said in private he has lost his place as a judge in the show. Our merciful mindset has a particular measure or metric whereby one must not breach.
It brings us to this Sunday’s parable, found only in Luke’s Gospel and no other. In response to the Pharisees and the Scribes’ criticism, Jesus related a compelling parable highlighting God’s mercy. He profoundly welcomes those who are deemed unacceptable by whatever metrics we have of people. However, in the matter of God’s mercy towards us, we might want to think of our mercy towards God. This is such a weird perspective, not to mention arrogant too. Who are we to extend “mercy” towards God?
This view makes sense if we accept that we have been socialised into entitlement. We have been trained through our talks and theology to expect a God whose compassion envelops us. For example, a recurring motif of Pope Francis’ papacy has been on mercy as a way of leading us to back to God. The sad reality is how we may have corrupted the image of a merciful God to one who is possibly weak and incapable of anything but forgiveness. What appears to be God’s mercy toward us, we may have turn that gift into an entitlement.
When mercy becomes an entitlement, then repentance and conversion will no longer be necessary. St Thomas cautioned that mercy without justice is indulgence but he also balanced his warning by alerting us to the fact that justice without mercy is cruelty. An entitled generation is an indulgent lot andwe project that attitude into God. A good illustration is how we tend to frame God’s attitude towards what we have come to deem as the “Pharisaical concerns”, that is, we presume that this is how a merciful God views ritual or religious taboos. He is not bothered by our petty nit-picking attitude. “Does God really care how one dresses?”. Or “Do you think God is upset that we did not abstain on Friday?”.
Such questions may betray a presumptuousness. We presume that little things are unimportant because God is unaffected when in reality, it is we who have become apathetic. In a way, we sanctify our disregard by presuming God’s mercy. Perhaps, a good way to understand this presumption or our apathy is to look at how we treat a person of importance.
What happens when the King visits or a special person makes an appearance? We dress up and go out of our way to welcome them. When we assume that they do not care about our appearance, the truth is, we are just not bothered to honour them. In other words, God’s mercy must be reciprocated by a changed behaviour towards Him. In the context of Lent, when we ask God for His mercy, like the Prodigal Son, our response should be “I will return to my Father”. Conversion is a response to mercy.
Interestingly, the young man’s conversion is described of as a journey. “He came to his senses”. Thus, a pilgrimage is not just any excursion but rather a journey of conversion. It requires that we come to our senses by recognising our sinfulness and by repenting as we seek forgiveness.
The Elect this Sunday are meditating on the Gospel of the Man born Blind. He was healed by Jesus but the greatest gift that he received was not the gift of physical sight but rather the gift of spiritual sight to recognise Jesus as Lord. For the blind man, his healing was a chronicle of conversion. At first, Christ performed a sacramental act. He spat onto some earth, made a paste and daubed it on his eyes. Recall the ashes on our forehead that was made into a paste by Holy Water? The first sacramental act was followed by another as the blind man was asked to wash himself in the pool of Siloam. Thus, for the Elect,the aim of the Scrutinies is to deepen their Sacramental journey.
In conclusion, Laetare Sunday symbolises the forgotten joys that accompany conversion. Both the Prodigal Son and the Man born Blind are diaries of change and conversion. It appears that for the Pharisees and Scribes, conversion has been reduced to a dreadful duty—much like having to submit to Lenten fast and abstinence. Take the recent incident where a boy was slapped for eating publicly during fasting month. Imagine a squad who goes around enforcing the duty to fast or abstain highlighting that one can be lost in the chore of “doing” Lent correctly while missing out that conversion is a joyful pilgrimage. We are not compelled to make this pilgrimage. Conversion is a journey we joyfully desire and trustingly embrace because of God’s welcoming and compassionate mercy.
