The Scandal of God’s Mercy
2023년 9월 24일The Scandal of God’s Mercy
< Twenty-Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time >
What did Jesus do that angered religious leaders so much they wanted him dead? What was Jesus’ message so dangerous that people wanted to kill him? Boiled down to its basic question, why was Jesus crucified? We know the “official” reason: Jesus died for our sins, or Jesus died to save us. This, of course, is true enough, but that’s not what his enemies were thinking at the time. That’s the meaning Christians gave to comprehend the incompressible truth that we crucified the Son of God. Not the Romans. Not the Jews. All of us. We want God to reward those who are good and destroy those who are bad. So when we see good people suffer and bad people flourish, it offends our sense of fairness.
But life is not fair. And neither is God. But God is just. Who needs a doctor more? Healthy people or sick people? Clearly sick people need healing and healthy people do not. Several years ago, I was interviewing a Franciscan friar from Medjugorje, where the Blessed Virgin Mary appears to six young visionaries. When Mary first appeared, the young people were very confused. They weren’t particularly religious. They were in every way normal teenagers. One young woman was very distraught as she was engaged to be married and now felt she was obligated to become a nun. Knowing her thoughts, the Virgin told her, “What makes you think marriage is not your holy calling?” Pilgrims return from Medjugorje changed. That’s the real miracle. They realize God is always with them, in their homes and schools no less than at a holy shrine. That’s the real scandal of God’s mercy. God loves us just as we are. Put another way, we don’t repent to win God’s love, but we repent in response to God loving us as we are, in our ordinariness. I asked the Franciscan who was pastor of the church in Medjugorje why the Virgin Mary never warned the people about the terrible war that was coming? He said, “She did warn us, by appearing every day. We should have realized a doctor comes every day to the patient in the greatest danger.” Let us recognize God is with us and receive his grace and mercy with gratitude.