Community in Mission

We recently pondered the story of Hosea’s marriage and through it had a glimpse into the heart of God. In today’s reading from Hosea, we get another look into the heart of the Father, not from the perspective of God as husband, but as Father to Israel. In this passage we get another moving portrait of a God who loves tenderly and immensely but who is also grieved at His son’s rebelliousness and all the trouble it brings.

By examining chapter 11 of Hosea, we can grow in deeper knowledge and appreciation of God’s love for us as a Father. In the reflection below, I have varied the order of the verses so as to group together parallel thoughts in the text. I show the verse numbers as superscripts so that you can see my changes to the normal order. The text from Hosea is shown in bold, black italics; my comments are in red.

I. Fond memories – When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son … ³ It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. ⁴ I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them.

God the Father has always loved us. Jeremiah 1:4 attests that God knew and loved us before He ever formed us in our mother’s womb. This is a moving image of a Father who loves and is proud of His son. It is the tender image of God, like a father, stooping down to feed His son. There are the cords of love and kindness that are tied, almost reminiscent of the swaddling clothes of an infant.

This young son had wandered to Egypt and there was vexed and troubled (by 400 years of slavery). God called for His son to come forth from that awful and fearful state.

I once was in a store and noticed that a child had become separated from his father. Suddenly he realized he did not know where his father was and cried out, “Daddy! Daddy!” Then the father, a mere aisle over, leaned back from around the end cap and said “Here I am; come!” It was a tender moment of rescue and bonding for father and son.

Clearly God’s son Israel was in a far worse jam than being lost in a store. When Israel cried out to God, He (through Moses and Aaron) said, “Here I am; come!” It was a tender moment of rescue and of bonding for Father and son. And so God describes with great fondness His tender love for Israel from infancy and youth.

II. Wandering son – ²But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me.  They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images ….⁵ Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? ⁶ Swords will flash in their cities, will destroy the bars of their gates and put an end to their plans.

We have all had the experience of trying to hug or console a young child, only to have him run away from us. Perhaps he was just fidgety or maybe sulking, but as we reached out he turned away and ran off as if trying to escape something he feared or misunderstood. Under certain circumstances this can be painful for us. In this passage, God expresses such a pain. He calls to His son, but His son runs further away. Perhaps it is fear, perhaps misunderstanding, perhaps aversion, perhaps not wanting to be under authority.

But hear the “grief” in the Father’s heart. I put grief in quotation marks because the way God experiences passions such as grief, anger, and sorrow is mysterious to us. In Scripture these things are said by way of metaphor and analogy. They say something that is very real, but exactly how God experiences something like grief is mysterious to us.

God’s grief extends to what happens next. When His son Israel runs off, bad things begin to happen. His son turns to the false and fearsome gods of the Canaanites, who even demanded child sacrifices. He also forms alliances with Egypt and thus incurs the wrath of Assyria. Israel’s wandering brings war and calamity. All of this grieves the heart of God. God also grieves what our sin and wandering does to us today.

I have had the sad duty of burying more than a few young men who got involved in gang activity and died violently. It is often the case that the parents, like God in this passage, reminisce about their son’s more innocent years, times when he was a joyful young child, at home instead of out running in the streets. Yes, I have seen the same grief on the faces of parents that God expresses of Himself here.

III. Hardened sinner – ⁷My people are determined to turn from me. Even if they call to the Most High, they will by no means exalt them…. ¹²Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, the house of Israel with deceit. And Judah is unruly against God, even against the faithful Holy One.

God is grieved at Israel’s hard, impenitent heart. Occasionally Israel pays God lip service and the people go through ritual observances, but they are not really worshipping God. Lies, deceit, and unruly behavior are the norm. As God says in verse 8 below, this angers Him and causes Him pain and grief. We, too, are sometimes guilty of paying lip service, of going through the motions with ritualistic, half-hearted observance. Meanwhile, we stubbornly refuse to repent. We can become hardened in sin, unruly, and deceitful toward God. God is not indifferent to this.

IV. Grieved and moved Father – ⁸How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is moved within me; all my compassion is aroused. ⁹ I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For I am God, and not man—the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath.

Admah and Zeboiim were two cities destroyed along with Sodom and Gomorrah. But though God considers venting His anger on them, He recoils from it. God’s heart is moved with compassion. He will not punish them as he did at Sodom. God’s mercy is stirred; He reminds us that He is not like a man who, when angry, always seems to vent that anger. God does not seek revenge; He has no egotistical need to get back at people. If He does punish, it is always with our conversion in mind.  God’s punishment is medicine. Despite our lack of love, God renews His love and extends His mercy. Thanks be to God! I live, says the Lord, I do not wish the death of the sinner, but rather that he turn to me and live (Ex 33:11).

V. Homeward bound – ¹⁰“They will follow the LORD; he will roar like a lion. When he roars, his children will come trembling from the west. ¹¹ They will come trembling like birds from Egypt, like doves from Assyria. I will settle them in their homes,” declares the LORD.

The Father’s ultimate goal for us is that we be with Him forever in Heaven, true home. God restored ancient Israel after the Babylonian captivity. Once again the people (his son Israel) were settled in their homes. This prefigures a far greater settling that the Father provided for us through Christ’s passion and resurrection. In the Father’s heavenly kingdom are many mansions; He wants to settle us there in our home. This is what is in the Father’s heart and what He desires for us.

Hell does not exist because the Father desires it for us, but rather because He respects our choice. He will not force His love upon us nor force us to accept the Kingdom of God and its values. We are summoned to love and this love must be given freely. Thus Hell is real and many (according to Scripture) choose it and its values over Heaven.

Have no mistake about what God desires for us: a great homecoming wherein He will settle us in our true home.

Here then is another look into the heart of God—God the Father. Do not doubt His love and His truest desire for you.

Below is a video I put together. The song is a plaintive, almost mournful spiritual. The lyrics say, “Sinner, please don’t let this harvest pass … before you die and lose your soul at last.” Consider the words as coming from the Father.

We are currently reading from the Book of the Prophet Hosea at daily Mass. The story of the Prophet Hosea’s troubled marriage is a powerful testimony to two things: our own tendency to be unfaithful to God, but also of God’s passionate love for us. We do well to recall the story, especially given the “great debate” among some in the Church today over the question of divorce and remarriage. And while there are many painful stories of what some have had to endure in difficult marriages, remember that God is in a very painful marriage with His people—yes, very painful! God knows the pain of a difficult marriage and a difficult spouse. The story of Hosea depicts some of God’s grief and what He chooses to do about it.

The precise details of Hosea’s troubled marriage are sketchy; we are left to fill in some of the details with our imagination. But here are the basic facts along with some “fill in”:

1. Hosea receives an unusual instruction from God: Go, take a harlot wife and harlot’s children, for the land gives itself to harlotry, turning away from the LORD. So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim (Hosea 1:2).

2. Together they have three children, each with a symbolic name: Jezreel (for God is about to humble Israel in the Jezreel valley), Lo-Ruhama (not pitied), and Lo-Ammi (not my people). It is also possible that these children were not of Hosea but rather of Gomer’s various lovers, for although they are born during the marriage, God later refers to them as children of harlotry.

3. At some point, though the text does not specify when or under what circumstances, Gomer leaves Hosea for another lover and enters into an adulterous relationship. We can only imagine Hosea’s pain and anger at this rejection. The text remains silent as to Hosea’s reaction, but as we shall see, God’s reaction is well-documented.

4. Hosea takes her back. After an unspecified period of time, God instructs Hosea, Give your love to a woman beloved of a paramour, an adulteress; Even as the LORD loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods and are fond of raisin cakes (Hosea 3:1). Now while the quoted text does not clearly specify that this is the same woman he is to love, the overall context of chapters 1-3 of Hosea demand that this is the same unfaithful wife, Gomer. God tells Hosea to redeem, to buy back, Gomer and re-establish his marital bonds with her.

5. Hosea has to pay a rather hefty price indeed to purchase Gomer back from her paramour: So I bought her for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley (Hosea 3:2). The willingness of her paramour to “sell her back” indicates quite poetically that the apparent love of the world and of all false lovers is not real love at all. It is for sale to the highest bidder.

6. Prior to restoring her to any intimacy, a period of purification and testing will be necessary: Then I said to her: “Many days you shall wait for me; you shall not play the harlot Or belong to any man; I in turn will wait for you” (Hosea 3:3).

This story is both difficult and beautiful. Its purpose, as you likely know, is not merely to tell us of the troubled and painful marriage of Hosea. Its truer purpose is to show forth the troubled marriage of the Lord, who has a bride—a people—who are unfaithful to Him. We, both collectively and individually, have entered into a (marital) covenant with God. Our vows were pronounced at our baptism and we renewed them on many other occasions.

But all too often we casually “sleep with” other gods and worldly paramours. Perhaps it is money, popularity, possessions, or power. Perhaps we have forsaken God for our careers, politics, philosophies, or arts and sciences. Some have outright left God; others keep two or more beds, still speaking of their love for God but involved with many other dalliances as well. Yes, this is a troubled marriage, not on God’s part, but surely on ours.

And through it all, what does God decide to do? In the end, as Hosea’s story illustrates, God chooses to redeem, to buy back, his bride—and at quite a cost: For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect (1 Peter 3:19-20). Yes, God paid dearly to draw us back to Him. And yet still we stray and often show little appreciation of His love. An old Gospel song says, “Oh Lord I’ve sinned but you’re still calling my name.”

A deeper look into the story of Hosea reveals a view into the grieving heart of God. Reading these Old Testament passages requires a bit of sophistication. The text we are about to look at describes God as grieving, angry, and weighing out His options; but it also shows Him as loving and almost romantic. On one level, we must remember that these attributes are applied to God in an analogical and metaphorical sense. Although God is said to be like this, He is not angry the way we are angry. He does not grieve the way we do; He is not romantic the way we are. Although we see these texts in terms of analogy and metaphor, we cannot wholly set them aside as having no meaning. In some sense, God is grieving, angry, loving, and even “romantic” in response to our wanderings. Exactly how He experiences these is mysterious to us but He does choose to use these metaphors to describe Himself to us.

With this balanced caution, let’s take a look at excerpts from the second chapter of Hosea, in which God decodes the story of Hosea and applies it to us. He describes to us His grieving heart as well as His plan of action to win back His lover and bride.

1. Thoughts of Divorce! Protest against your mother, protest! for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. The text suggests that God is weighing His options. But perhaps the better explanation is that this line is for us readers, so that we will consider that God could rightfully divorce us. But as we will see, He will not do that. For although we break the covenant, He will not. Though we are unfaithful, God will not be unfaithful. If we are unfaithful he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself (2 Tim 2:13).

2. The bitter charge against her – Let her remove her harlotry from before her, her adultery from between her breasts … “I will go after my lovers,” she said, “who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.” Since she has not known that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, And her abundance of silver, and of gold, which they used for Baal. God’s charge here is not merely that we are unfaithful but also that we are ungrateful. God is the giver of every good thing. But so often we do not thank Him. We run after the world and after the powerful, thinking it is they who provide our wealth. They do not—it is God who does so. But instead we love the world and forget about God. We “sleep with” the world. We give credit to medicine, science, and human ingenuity, but do not acknowledge or thank God. Our ingratitude contributes to our harlotry, for we are enamored of secondary causes and not of God, who is the cause of all. So we get into bed with the world and its agenda, and adulterously unite ourselves with it. God is distressed by our ingratitude and adultery and is presented here as a wounded and jealous lover. Is God a wounded and jealous lover? Remember these things are said by way of analogy and metaphor. God is neither hurt nor angered by the way we are. And yet we cannot wholly dismiss these words as having no meaning. God has inspired this text and wants us to understand that although He is not passionate as we are, neither is He indifferent to our infidelity.

3. Grief-stricken but issuing purifying punishment – I will strip her naked, leaving her as on the day of her birth; I will make her like the desert, reduce her to an arid land, and slay her with thirst. I will have no pity on her children, for they are the children of harlotry. Yes, their mother has played the harlot; she that conceived them has acted shamefully. … I will lay bare her shame before the eyes of her lovers. … I will bring an end to all her joy, her feasts, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her solemnities. … I will punish her for the days of the Baals, for whom she burnt incense. … If she runs after her lovers, she shall not overtake them; if she looks for them she shall not find them. This text could be seen as describing God in a jealous rage. But as we shall see, God has a result in mind. He does not punish as some uncontrolled despot exacting revenge. He punishes as medicine. He punishes as one who loves and seeks to restore. We are not sinners in the hands of an angry God; we are sinners in the hands of a loving God who seeks reunion.

4. The hoped-for result – Then she shall say, “I will go back to my first husband, for it was better with me then than now.” God’s intent was to bring His bride back to sanity, to bring her to a place where she is ready to seek union once again. For without this union she will perish, but with it she will be united with the only one who ever loved her and who can save her.

5. Passionate lover – So I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart. From there I will give her the vineyards she had, and the valley of Achor as a door of hope. She shall respond there as in the days of her youth, when she came up from the land of Egypt. On that day, says the LORD, She shall call me “My husband,” and never again “My baal.” Then will I remove from her mouth the names of the Baals, so that they shall no longer be invoked. See how God wants to get alone with His bride and woo her once again! God will speak lovingly to her heart and declare again His love for her in a kind of Marriage Encounter She, now repentant and devoted, will renew her love as well. There is also an image of purgatory or purgation here. It is likely that when we die we will still have some attachments to “former lovers” in this world: creature comforts, power, pride, misplaced priorities, and the like. So as we die, God lures us into the desert of purgatory, speaks to our heart, and cleanses us of our final attachments. After this He restores to us the vineyards of paradise that once were ours.

6. Renewed Covenant – I will make a covenant for them on that day. … I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the LORD. … and I will have pity on Lo-ruhama. I will say to Lo-ammi, “You are my people,” and he shall say, “My God!” God renews the marriage bond with us, both corporately in the Church and individually!

Here, then, is the astonishing, undying, and pursuing love of God for His bride, the Church, and for each of us individually. After all our whoring and infidelity, we do not deserve it. But God is a passionate lover. As He commanded Hosea to buy back his adulterous wife, so too did God buy us back at a high price. Now to be sure, God did not pay Satan. Rather, the payment He rendered was an indication of the high sacrifice He had to make to win back our hearts. We had wandered far and He had to journey far and then carry us back.

I am not here to render a personal judgment on those who have struggled to save a marriage but were unable to do so. Rather, my purpose is to reach those who are currently struggling, striving to persevere, so that you realize that God knows your pain—he too experiences it from us, time and time again. Yet each day He renews His covenant with us and offers us mercy. If it helps to realize that God knows your pain, please understand that He does. In the words of the old spiritual, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows but Jesus.”

One of the paradoxes of God’s mercy is that through it He punishes wrongdoing. At first glance, mercy and punishment seem contradictory.

But the apparent contradiction is rooted in the premise that punishment is the same as vengeance. This premise holds that the one who punishes is merely exacting revenge for some offense, or that the punishment is merely a way for the more powerful to vent their anger on the less powerful. It is true that parents sometimes punish their children with mixed motives; at times they may be venting their anger as they punish. But this is because they are imperfect parents. God, however, is a perfect Father. And when He punishes it is not mixed with these sinful qualities.

A proper understanding of punishment is that it allows the one punished to experience the negative effects of his bad behavior in a small way, so that he does not experience far worse effects.

Consider a young boy who has been commanded by his parents not to cross the busy street without an older person to escort him. This warning is issued in love. The parents are not trying to take away his fun or limit his freedom; they are trying to protect him from harm. But what if the boy does cross the street unescorted and his parents find out about it? Likely they will, and should, punish him. Perhaps as punishment the boy is confined to his room to three hours.

Notice what is happening in this example. A smaller injury is inflicted in order to avoid a much more serious one. After all, which is worse, a three hour “time out” or being struck by a car? It is clear that the purpose of the punishment is to allow a small amount of pain in order to avoid a much worse situation.

When God punishes, He is often acting in the same manner. He will allow or inflict pain so that we avoid the pain that would be caused if our bad behavior spiraled downward into more serious matters and ended in the far worse pain of eternal Hell. When properly applied (and it always is so when applied by God), punishment is salutary. It helps bring an end to bad and ultimately hurtful behavior, and usually results in good and constructive behavior.

Hence punishment is integral to mercy and love. But love here must be understood as the strong and vigorous love that speaks the truth and insists upon it as the only basis for real and lasting fulfillment.

The Letter to the Hebrews has a remarkable passage that spells out the true contours of punishment and discipline rooted in God the Father’s true and vigorous love for us:

My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges every son he acknowledges. Endure your trials as “discipline”; God treats you as sons. For what “son” is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are without discipline, in which all have shared, you are not sons but bastards. Besides this, we have had our earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not (then) submit all the more to the Father of spirits and live? They disciplined us for a short time as seemed right to them, but he does so for our benefit, in order that we may share his holiness. At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it. So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed (Heb 12:5-13).

Note that those who are without discipline are provocatively called “bastards.” It is interesting that this word, which originally referred simply to a child born out of wedlock, has come to mean someone who is obnoxious, self-centered, or incorrigible. When a child grows up without the discipline of a father, he often becomes a “bastard” in both the ancient and modern senses of the word. In our use of this rather impolite word we are describing what happens to a person who does not know discipline.

Many children today have not known proper discipline. This leads to any number of ills: bad and self-destructive behavior, arrogance, a disrespectful attitude, incorrigibility, hostility, selfishness, greed, insensitivity, lack of self-control, and many other sociopathic tendencies.

Scripture says,

Whoever loves a son will chastise him often,
that he may be his joy when he grows up.
Whoever disciplines a son will benefit from him,
and boast of him among acquaintances…
Whoever spoils a son will have wounds to bandage,
and will suffer heartache at every cry.
An untamed horse turns out stubborn;
and a son left to himself grows up unruly.
Pamper a child and he will be a terror for you,
indulge him, and he will bring you grief….
Do not give him his own way in his youth,
and do not ignore his follies.
Bow down his head in his youth,
beat his sides while he is still young,
Lest he become stubborn and disobey you,
and leave you disconsolate (Sirach 30).

We need to rediscover the fact that punishment is part of love and is an act of mercy. It is not love to leave a child undisciplined. We are not helping the child in any way when we fail to discipline him. Surely discipline must be rooted in love. When it is, it leads to many positive effects. God, too, shows us His love in disciplining and punishing us.

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, [F]raternal correction properly so called, is directed to the amendment of the sinner. Now to do away with anyone’s evil is the same as to procure his good: and to procure a person’s good is an act of charity, whereby we wish and do our friend well (Summa Theologica II, IIae, 33.1).

Mirror image – Up until now we have considered God’s punishment as a positive, if paradoxical, quality of His mercy and love. But now let’s consider a more negative approach that ponders what happens when God withdraws his merciful punishment.

It is indeed frightening that at some point God ceases to directly punish certain hardened sinners, be they individuals or nations. He no longer restrains them by His hand. Scripture speaks to this reality by saying, “God gave them up” to their sinful ways. Here are just a few such texts:

1. And be not like your fathers, and like your brethren, who trespassed against the
   LORD God of their fathers, who therefore gave them up to desolation (2 Chon 30:7).
2. But my people did not hearken to my voice, and Israel did not love me. So I gave them up unto the hardness of their heart, and they walked in their own counsels. Oh, if my people would hearken unto me and Israel would walk in my ways! I would soon subdue their enemies (Ps 81:12-14).
3. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves …. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done … (Romans 1:24,26-28).

It would seem that this is God’s last-ditch effort to bring about conversion. St. Alphonsus teaches, [God] deprives them of his abundant graces and leaves them [only] with sufficient grace with which they can, but [likely] will not, save their souls (Considerations on the Eternal Maxims 17.2).

It has gotten so bad that only this last thing remains for God: to hand them over to the full experience of their sins. St. Alphonsus quotes Isaiah 5:5: I shall take away the hedge thereof and it shall be wasted. For indeed, gone is the hedge of holy fear, which brought divine protection.

While sinners may seem to have escaped unscathed for a while, the worst day of their life was the day when the Lord said to the sinner (or to the sinful nation), “Thy will, O sinner, be done.”

For indeed, to be punished no longer by the Lord is the worst punishment of all. Why? God punishes with mercy, but the sinner punishes himself without mercy. As King David once said, Let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is very great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man (1 Chron 21:13). Further, it has been said that God forgives but nature does not. One cannot act contrary to the nature of things and expect to thrive in this world. Sooner or later, the consequences come—and without mercy. There is no greater suffering than when sin itself is the punishment for sin.

St. Alphonsus also notes,

God appears not to be enraged against certain sinners, “My jealousy will depart from you and I will cease to be angry” (Ez 16:42). He appears to allow them all they desire in this life. “I let them go according to the desires of their heart” (Ps 80:13). “Why”, says Jeremiah, “does the way of the wicked prosper?” (Jer 12:1) He then answers, “Gather them as sheep for the sacrifice” (Jer 12:3). There is no punishment great than when God … permits a sinner to add sin upon sin.

For their sake, one can only hope that the earthly consequences of their sin will stir them to final conversion. But if they do not, St. Alphonsus imagines that God will say to the finally unrepentant, “I will place before your eyes the mercies I have shown you, and will make these very mercies judge and condemn you” (Ibid, 17.3).

And thus in this negative way, we see that God’s punishments are far more merciful than any punishment the sinner will cause himself, or which nature or Satan will mete out.

Therefore, God’s punishments are an aspect of his mercy. Without them, the worst will surely befall us. Keep us in your mercy, O Lord, even a mercy that punishes. For it is far better to suffer blows from your hand than to suffer at the hands of men or nature. Mercy, Lord, mercy!

This year in particular (the year of mercy), we are summoned to reflect on the concept of mercy. Many think of mercy as an overlooking of sin rather than as a remedy for it. To some, the fact of God’s mercy is a sign that He doesn’t care about sin and is content to leave us in it. Those who speak to the reality of mercy are often called harsh, mean-spirited, etc. Many set mercy and sin in opposition to one another.

The Lord Jesus unites these realities together. For the Lord, mercy is necessary because there is sin, not because sin is “no big deal.” It is because sin is a big deal that mercy is needed and is glorious.

Bishop Robert Barron aptly states, Many receive the message of divine mercy as tantamount to a denial of the reality of sin, as though sin no longer matters. But just the contrary is the case. To speak of mercy is to be intensely aware of sin and its peculiar form of destructiveness (Vibrant Paradoxes: The Both/And of Catholicism, p. 1).

So mercy does not deny sin; it acknowledges it and supplies an often-challenging remedy. Jesus shows mercy by calling us from our sin and healing us from its effects.

This understanding is evident in the Gospel from Friday (Matt. 9:9-13 – Friday of the 13^th week of the year).

As Jesus passed by,
he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post.
He said to him, “Follow me.”
And he got up and followed him.
While he was at table in his house,
many tax collectors and sinners came
and sat with Jesus and his disciples.
The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples,
“Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
He heard this and said,
“Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.
Go and learn the meaning of the words,
I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

Notice three things from this Gospel about the relationship of mercy to sin.

I. In His mercy, Jesus reckons us as sinners and regards us as sick. Jesus states plainly, “I have come to call sinners” (this means us). He also says that those who are well do not need a doctor, but the sick do (this means us).

We live in times when many have been deceived; they call their sin good and something to be proud of. They say, “God made me this way,” or “God likes me just the way I am.” No, to those such as these the Lord Jesus says, “You are sick. You are a sinner.” An antiphon in the Breviary says, God sees all men as sinners, that he might show them his mercy.

So in His mercy Jesus does not overlook sin or call it something good; he calls it what it is: sin and sickness.

II. In His mercy, Jesus summons us to change. In this Gospel, Jesus calls Matthew away from His tax post. He says, “Follow me.” The translation is “Stop what you are doing, come away from it, and follow me out of here.” To the woman caught in adultery He says, “Do not sin again.” Jesus began His ministry by saying, “Repent and believe the Gospel.” To repent (metanoiete) means to change, to come to a new and different mind.

The changes Jesus insists upon are too numerous to list in their entirety, but among them are that we become free of vengeful anger, lust, greed, retaliation, and unforgiveness, and that we become more generous, loving, serene, faithful, and trusting.

Thus in His mercy Jesus does not confirm us in our sin; He summons us away from it. He summons us to change and equips us to do so. His merciful call is, “Come away from here. Enough of this; follow me.”

III. In His mercy, Jesus heals sinners of sin – Jesus uses the image of a doctor and states plainly that sick people (sinners) need a doctor. Jesus is that doctor. A doctor does not look at a sick patient and say, “You’re just fine the way you are” or “I affirm you.” That would be malpractice. Jesus sees sin for what it is. He calls it such and prescribes the necessary medicines. He will also likely speak to a person’s lifestyle and recommend needed changes. This is how a doctor heals.

Jesus invokes the image of a doctor for what he does. He diagnoses and says, “This is bad. This is sickness. This is sin.” He then applies healing remedies such as the Sacraments, the Holy Liturgy, His Word, the carrying of the cross, active and passive purifications, punishments due to sin, solid moral teaching, and holy fellowship. Like a doctor, Jesus summons us from a bad and unhealthy life to a good and healthy one.

Thus, in his mercy Jesus heals our sins. He does not ignore them or approve them and certainly does not call them good or something to celebrate. In his mercy he heals them, he ends them.

So mercy is not a bland kindness. It is not mere flattery that pretends sin does not exist or matter. Beware of fake, flattering mercy. True mercy says, “Sin is awful. Let’s get out of here and go to a far better place.”

Matthew got up and followed Jesus. How about us?

As we continue to read from the Book of the Prophet Amos it becomes clear that a grave sin among the people of that age was injustice to the poor. Consider an excerpt from today’s passage (Friday of the 13th Week of the Year):

Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end … [you] buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat. The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who dwells in it? (Amos 8:4-8)

Elsewhere in the Book of Amos, the Lord also denounces injustice to the poor:

1. They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed (Amos 2:7).
2. Therefore, because you impose heavy rent on the poor and exact a tribute of grain from them, Though you have built houses of well-hewn stone, yet you will not live in them! You have planted pleasant vineyards, yet you will not drink their wine! For I know your transgressions are many and your sins are great; You who distress the righteous and accept bribes, and turn aside the poor at the gate (Amos 5:11-12).
3. Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, “Bring now, that we may drink!” The Lord God has sworn by His holiness, “Behold, the days are coming upon you when they will take you away with meat hooks, and the last of you with fishhooks” (Amos 4:1-2).

Yikes, that last one was insulting—and scary! Actually all of them are scary, because the Lord indicates that injustice to the poor is a big part of what is causing the coming destruction. We, too, who often live in luxurious houses and enjoy choice food and drink, should be sober and not neglect justice to the poor.

What exactly is injustice toward the poor? If we have more than we need, we owe certain things to the poor. Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none. And however has food should do likewise. (Luke 3:11).

In our times we often speak of our care for the poor under the themes of mercy and kindness. But the biblical truth is that we also have duties to them in justice.

Pope St. Gregory the Great puts it this way:

They [i.e., those who are stingy] should be advised to learn carefully that the earth from which they come is common to all. Therefore, it is foolish to presume themselves innocent who proclaim that the common gift of God belongs in their own private stocks …. They are daily responsible to the poor. And when we minister what is necessary to the indigent, we bestow not what is ours, but what rightly belongs to them. In fact, we pay a debt of justice, not an act of mercy (Pastoral Rule III.21).

The Catechism speaks to the theme of injustice to the poor by placing the consideration of this sin in the treatise on 7^th Commandment, “Thou shall not steal.” To fail to care for the poor when one can reasonably do so amounts to a form of theft. Our excess belongs to the poor because God intends all the goods of the earth for all the people of the earth. The Catechism refers to this principle as “The Universal Destination of Goods” and says,

In the beginning God entrusted the earth and its resources to the common stewardship of mankind to take care of them, master them by labor, and enjoy their fruits. The goods of creation are destined for the whole human race. However, the earth is divided up among men to assure the security of their lives, endangered by poverty and threatened by violence. The appropriation of property is legitimate for guaranteeing the freedom and dignity of persons and for helping each of them to meet his basic needs and the needs of those in his charge. It should allow for a natural solidarity to develop between men …. In his use of things man should regard the external goods he legitimately owns not merely as exclusive to himself but common to others also, in the sense that they can benefit others as well as himself. The ownership of any property makes its holder a steward of Providence, with the task of making it fruitful and communicating its benefits to others, first of all his family (CCC 2402, 2404).

This does not mean that all excess should be recklessly and indiscriminately cast about. There may be value in using excess to develop businesses and other enterprises that can benefit others with employment or other resources. Further, there are legitimate concerns that the destitute not simply become dependent on welfare, something that indiscriminate giving can cause. The poor are usually best assisted by finding solutions to the causes of their destitution. The poor are to be treated justly, to be respected and assisted in a way that regards their humanity and moral agency.

Note that the Scriptures, the text from Pope Gregory, and the quote from the Catechism, all speak to us as individuals. This is a duty each of us has in justice. Too often we seek to push this obligation to the government. There may be a prudential assessment, in certain times and places, that government can play a role in rendering justice to the poor. But none of the texts above necessarily calls for big government solutions.

Whatever the prudential decisions, the point remains that individuals, communities, nations, and cultures are bound in justice to give to the poor. Amos makes it clear that the coming judgment of destruction on Israel is due in good part to its injustice to the poor. We live in times of abundance today and many live excessively. This is surely part of the judgment of God that is upon us today, along with our sexual promiscuity, abortion, easy divorce, widespread unbelief, lack of worship, narcissistic self-centeredness, etc.

What do I have that really belongs to the poor? What excesses could I end so that I would be more able to contribute to the good of the poor and others? Do I really need that latest upgrade, the addition to the house, etc.?

The Lord speaks to us through Amos in these recent daily readings. Are we listening or is greed always the other guy’s problem?

Finally, here is a quote attributed to St. Vincent De Paul that is almost shocking (and Amos-like) in its final sting:

You will find out that Charity is a heavy burden to carry, heavier than the kettle of soup and the full basket. But you will keep your gentleness and your smile. It is not enough to give soup and bread. This the rich can do. You are the servant of the poor, always smiling and good-humored. They are your masters, terribly sensitive and exacting masters you will see. And the uglier and the dirtier they will be, the more unjust and insulting, the more love you must give them. It is only for your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give to them.