A friend of mine told me about somebody on her Facebook feed who was saying that she didn't like the name of "Good" Friday because she thinks that it would be more accurate to call it a crappy Friday given that Jesus died. It's definitely a sad Friday, and unfortunately certain "soteriologies" or theories about how salvation works, seem to tell us that Jesus' sins were substituted for our own and that all of the sins we've not even committed yet were responsible for slaying our savior. This theology doesn't lend itself to the healthiest of relationships with God or with ourselves!
When we say Jesus "died for our sins" what does that mean? Well, to understand that, you have to think a little bit about what sin actually is. If you think sin is each individual breaking of the Ten Commandments or the 'love one another' command of Jesus, then it makes sense that you might conclude that Jesus was "substituted" to bear our individual failings by proxy. But this is an incomplete description of what's wrong in the world. After all, can an unborn baby "sin" in its mother's womb and cause it to be miscarried? Is God really so petty that God would punish a mother by killing her child? I don't think so. I think that this definition of sin misses the complexity, both of sin and subsequently God's response to it.
Did you ever ask yourself why Jesus specifically had to DIE in order to be punished enough? I mean, crucifixion, as punishments go, is about the most brutal one humanly possible. Surely being flogged, beaten, dragging a heavy cross, having nails driven through your hands and feet, and slowly asphyxiating while hanging for hours were a steep cost for our every petty dirty thought or whatever. It didn't just take any random guy from the street of Jerusalem to die, it took the son of God, the incarnation of God's vastness in finite human form. Why? Did God really need to make a point by murdering his son instead of just forgiving everybody? I think not.
But think about what it would mean if God created the earth and somehow because of our rebellious actions created a crack in reality that let death seep inside. What if our knowing and free will and ability to turn from God disrupted the harmony of the garden so that instead of simply tending the garden with pleasure all our days, we die. And not only that, but we die in horrible ways, in accidents and natural disasters and of ugly diseases. And we die way too young, as babies or children or young mothers. And we die alone, lonely, unknowing our worth, depressed and anxious and afraid. What if the things we do that hurt each other directly like breaking the Ten Commandments are the consequences of the deeper evil that came into our world, telling us lies about who we are, about our need to acquire goods and about what power means? What then, is sin, but a systematic brokenness that has affected every single molecule in this universe.
Then Jesus becomes a much more complicated answer. No longer is Jesus just lying down for that time you yelled at your sister and the lie you told to your boss when you were hungover and didn't want to come to work. Now Jesus is a supernatural warrior coming to defeat death and all its many consequences in the only way that death can be defeated: by dying and then not being dead after. Now we have a hero who boldly faces what all of us tremble before, the thing that drives us to hurt each other and steal, which tells us that real power means having the most or using people up. Now we have a hero whose death isn't mere substitution but a fundamental attack on the wicked forces which entrap us and drive us to injure one another in body, mind, and spirit. Now we have love so amazing, so divine, that not only took my sins but my death and my suffering and my fear and doubt and addiction and grief and loneliness and chronic pain and sexual assault and purposeless existence and with his great magic and might transformed those things into life, love, light, health, wholeness, community, healing, joy, gratitude, and vocation.
Jesus is the song of victory over not just something as small as individual sins but over every single failure and hurt and pain that has ever existed and ever will exist. Good Friday is good because we are not remembering "Good" Friday as a way to feel guilty for our sin, but because we stand in awe at the foot of the cross for a God whose power is so amazing that s/he became one of us and defeated all evil and buried it forever, planting in its tomb seeds of life. It's "good" because we go to Friday bearing the cross of our humanity and our grief and everything that has ever hurt us or another person, and we lay it down there because we "do not grieve as those who have no hope" (1 Thess 4:13) but as those going to a tomb on Sunday morning which we know will be empty!
Good Friday is a hard day. It's a sad day. Today I prayed for all my patients that they may be healed of their hurts and find their purpose, and my heart was heavy with their sorrows and the sorrows of the world. But I take my burdens to the cross because the cross of Christ is strong enough to hold them all, and point me to the message that on Easter morning the lilies will bloom over the frozen earth of our despair, and that we will one day have Easter morning every morning, every second of every day, and love will flood our world as bold and warm as the light of the sun. That is the "good"est news I can think of, so yeah, I think it's a good, Good Friday. Let the ground at Calvary hold your tears until they bloom into a field of joy when Easter comes. Amen.
I've been thinking a lot lately about that complicated mix of emotions that the lent season elicits in me. As I wrote in a post a while back, lent is the time of year during which we reflect on our mortality, our sins, and the journey toward the cross. But unlike those first followers of Christ who found themselves lost and confused by the cross, we can see the cross as a symbol of triumph. Knowing that the grave leads to new life in that story gives can make it be hard to feel "properly penitential" (as I like to think of it) during these weeks. After all, why should we waste time holding these feelings of loss or guilt or darkness when we know that love wins in the end?
The answer lies, as usual, in the hospital. I'm partly kidding, but I think that the hospital is a great metaphor for life. When IV bags and needles are not just plastic and metal but a means of literal salvation, it starts to feel a little more meaningful; a little more sacred. This week marks six months at my hospital, and I am transitioning from my ICU and med-surg units to behavioral health units on the other campus across the river. Naturally, moving into a new rotation as I am this week is bringing up a mix of emotions that I can't help relating to our lenten journey. It feels strange.
Like graduating from high school, there is this tingly mix of nerves and grief because of saying goodbye and desire for adventure and hope for what might come. I was showing my replacement around my former units this morning, and while I was bouncing a little with excitement for the coming months, I was also realizing that in introducing her to my colleagues there that I was saying goodbye to them at the same time. What an apt metaphor for life, whereby new things almost never come without the end of something else. We move away to college waving farewell to high school friends, and we welcome new babies while the first years of childless marriage fade into a distant memory. Even a divorce from the worst of partners can be bittersweet as new-found freedom and healing come at the cost of familiarity and intimacy. As my dad would say, life is hard.
One of our extended unit interns, Allen Blegen, was working on some things for his own education process, and asked me to take a look at his theological statement of ministry while we were hanging out in the office. What he wrote resonated with me deeply, because he wrote about the "now" of our troubles and the "not yet" we are called to encounter and help others encounter through our lives, love, and ministries. He said: “A person without hope loses the will to live or the ability to envision a future story. Physically, he or she is grounded in the present. One’s body is stuck in the world around him or her and must live moment by moment. However, emotionally and spiritually we all can break out of the present and grow into the future. We can dream, we can imagine tomorrow, we can envision a future and most importantly we can hope that that future will be fulfilling and have meaning.”
His words encapsulated what I have been feeling this last couple weeks with my transition. Both rooted here (on the unit) and there, on planning and making myself ready for the next step. And then I imagined how much harder it would be if, like some of my colleagues, I was not excited for the next step, or even if I were apprehensive of it. We often get through hard stuff because of the reminder that things are going to be okay eventually. Just a few more months of a crappy job, or just another day until Friday. But when we lose our new venture or weekend, what do we have? Sometimes the hand we're dealt is not a pleasant one and it will not be okay tomorrow. My husband grieves as his home country is invaded and the world watches silently. It's not okay now, and it's not okay tomorrow. But hope is the thing that calls you forward one step at a time knowing that a future that is not possible right now will be possible by the power of Christ Jesus. That is the power of our lenten journey. It is walking in the uncertain with faith that even when it's not okay (and often it's not okay), Christ is doing a new thing. It is grieving for loss, holding onto the power of love that transcends death. It is being held up in hope by the community of believers when you have not a single ounce of it remaining. It is living into our darkness with honor and respect for the light that it reveals.
In the end, I'm realizing that lent is not about being "properly penitential" but rather it is about holding the despair and deaths we encounter in a holy place, savoring the very human mix of death and new life so that we may always move through every change, loss, gift, challenge, or growth with the integrity of hope surrounding us and guiding each step. Life is hard. It has been hard since death first touched the face of the world, and it will continue to be hard as we encounter unexpected trials, loss, failure, and change. But I think that lent can remind us that in the same way that we look toward the resurrection on this journey toward the cross, that we can look toward our future with imagination and hope, even if all we see around us are ashes. Blessings to you on your lenten journey. Amen.
I visited a young man on the ICU, 23 years old,
to offer ashes yesterday.
His mother, teary yet unwilling to talk to me,
Nonetheless agreed for me to give her little boy with cancer this mark of his mortality.
The young man could understand but could make no reply.
I approached him and explained what I would do,
and when I touched his brow with the dusty blackness of death,
tears fell from his eyes.
It occurred to me how little I understood of him and his pain, or his mother's;
indeed how little we know of anyone.
And yet we are all here together bound up in this mortal cloak,
hoping to one day be wrapped again in life.
A handful of years ago, a new
chancellor came to power in a European nation. His election followed
a politically tumultuous time, and many people were excited about his
promises of prosperity and justice in a country that had seen its
fair share of conflict and economic problems. Two days following this
election, a young nobleman took to the airwaves to share his opinion
about this election, which was less than supportive of the new
regime. His broadcast was cut off partway through, and he was not
allowed to speak his piece. Later, as it became more and more obvious
to him that this leader was bad for the people, he began to publish
writings protesting him, and meet with groups of people who were of
like mind. Frustrated with the lack of response, he left his home
country for a while, but continued to see the plight of his people
and eventually returned. Upon his return, he was not allowed to speak
in public, because he was known to be spreading subversive messages
by the government. He was a troublemaker. Finally, ten years after
his first radio broadcast, the young dissident was arrested, though
he continued to write and communicate with these underground groups
in prison. Two years later, he was hanged.
If you know much about 20th
century church history, you probably realized that the young
dissident was none other than Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose tireless
efforts to create a strong church body to resist the Nazi regime
resulted in his death just days before the end of the Second World
War. If you’ve been following the news from France in recent days,
you have seen the debates about free speech/press and the many media
outlets which are trying very hard not to lay blame on Charlie Hebdo
while conceding that, yes, they probably did bear some responsibility
for this incident. Charlie Hebdo is known for publishing outrageous
religious and political satire, some of which takes a very offensive
tone particularly to Muslims (though they published things about a
variety of religions). This is seen as justification, by some, for
the actions of extremists. However, as one author put it, allowing
blame for this incident to be placed on the victims of this massacre
allows Sharia law to reign. In other words, being silenced by
terrorism, no matter how unpalatable you may find the content being
censored, sends the message that it’s okay to use violence to
silence voices you disagree with, the same way the Nazi party used
silence to create an apathetic nation that allowed millions of Jews
to be slaughtered.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the
fears some people have about this triggering Islamaphobia. Those
fears might be legitimate, especially given the hysteria that tends
to follow terrorist actions. But despite those fears, this issue is
not, in fact, about Islam. Muslims all around the world manage to
peacefully practice their religion in secular nations that would
never dream of allowing a minority group to impose their religious
beliefs on other people. These people practice a faith of love and
submission to God’s will, and most of them are wonderful, kind
people, like Lassana Bathily
who saved several people during the shooting spree by hiding people
in the freezer of the kosher market where he works. The religion
practiced by the alleged shooters is no more similar to true Islam
than the Westboro Baptist Church is to mainline Christianity. This is
a fact that has been pointed out quite vehemently in every story that
I have seen on the topic. Some people may be conflating Islam and
terrorism, but the vast majority of the world understands that there
is a difference between a fanatic and a faithful person.
This is not just a freedom of speech
issue, as it has been framed in the media. That is part of this, but
it’s a problem that is further reaching than just free speech. It’s
about freedom in general, and mostly it’s about justice. Regardless
of whether to agree with a message, protecting the right to say it
protects everybody who dares to speak out against injustice.
Countless people were taken away to be re-educated during the first
five decades of Communism in China and Russia. These were people who
dared speak out, maybe only to their immediate family members or
friends, and were found to be a threat to the power of the state. The
first abolitionists who spoke out against slavery spoke a message
very contrary to the powers that be, but they spoke it courageously
at sometimes great personal cost. Martin Luther King Jr. utilized
free speech and civil disobedience as a way to sway a public opinion
vastly different from his own, and despite being imprisoned for that
civil disobedience, he continued writing letters that turned out to
be quite influential. It is vital to the freedom of societies and to
those not in power that this right be defended. Living in the US or
other free nations has spoiled us: we have forgotten how dangerous it
is to be silenced.
The situation in France is different
from the United States; there are legitimate concerns about the rise
of extremist Islam. These people want to force others to live
according to Sharia law, to punish people who offend their religious
sensibilities. I find it surprising that the same people who defend
the right of Satanists to erect statues of the devil in public areas
as an ironic protest of the overreach of Christianity in the US
government are opposed to political satire that points to a very real
problem. This problem is bad not just for secular or Christian French
people, but also for the millions of peaceful Muslims who want to
live their lives without the imposition of extremism in their lives.
Justice doesn’t happen if laws from one religion are applied
unilaterally to everybody—we live under a common moral law rather
than a religious law for exactly this reason. This is a lesson we are
still learning in the United States, but we are trying very hard (as
witnessed by the recent wave of challenges to and victories over the
bans on same sex marriage around the country). Extremism is
responsible for the suffering of millions of people, from Hamas’
unwillingness to negotiate to Boko Haram’s kidnapping and sacking
of villages to Afghani and other middle eastern leaders that
persecute less extremist Muslims, Christians, and everybody in
between. Extremism is dangerous business in any religion, and it’s
irresponsible to frame this as an Islam issue when it is an extremism
issue. You can be sympathetic to our Muslim brothers and sisters and
still defend the right of twelve people not to be brutally murdered
for daring to differ in opinion.
Yes, we should pray for those who
committed these atrocious acts. Yes, we should understand that they,
like us, are flawed and broken humans misled into acts of violence by
their probably earnest desire to obey their religion to the letter.
Yes, we should most certainly recognize that Islam is on the whole a
peaceful religion filled with peace-loving people. But I believe our
call as Christians is to seek justice for all people and to call out
those who are threatening it. The staff at Charlie Hebdo had a grave
injustice committed against them, and the people of France face the
threat of injustice both from extremism and from the xenophobic
far-right groups gaining popularity in response to it. I cannot, in
good conscious, give anything but condemnation to the actions of
these people who chose to respond to words with murder.
I hesitated writing about this issue,
to be honest. I thought to myself “do I want to make this blog a
political platform?” and the answer to that question is... yes. I
don’t want this blog to be a place where I tell you what your
political beliefs should be, or who to vote for. However, in the same
way that Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s work in forming the confessing
church and resisting Nazi rule could not be separated from his
theology, so are we people who must live in a political world based
on our beliefs. But if I preach that I stand for justice and peace
and yet stay silent in the face of what I see as injustice, I am a
hypocrite. Maybe you have a different view on what is just and what
is not. That’s okay. If you’re reading this, you’re probably
lucky enough to live in a country where you are free to disagree with
what I write here without threat of bodily harm or political
repercussions, and who am I to argue with that? But I hope that you
will consider that the freedom to “speak truth in love”
(Ephesians 4:15) is the freedom to enact justice, sometimes
subversively, sometimes outrageously, sometimes even offensively, and
that it is a right we as Christians ought to take very, very
seriously, lest we forget the cost of our freedom, both political and
Christian.
“You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.” -Ephesians 2:1-5a
Despite my innocent appearance and the well known saying about how clean preachers are supposed to be, I can be kind of a jerk. You should see me in bad traffic. We all can be at times, and unfortunately, the closer we are, the more likely I am to be a jerk to you. My husband can certainly attest to this; I’m a real grump before I’ve had my coffee. A couple days ago, I groused at him endlessly before food and caffeine had made their way into my blood stream, and like the amazing, sweet guy he is, he let it go. Later, he groused at me in a similar fashion because he was very tired, and I got unreasonably mad. It wasn’t until he was hugging me with love and forgiveness that I really realized what a jerk I had been. The grace that should have made me feel better actually made me feel worse in that moment, because it so fully convicted me of my wrongness.
This is something that I’m sure you have experienced at least once with a friend, family member, co-worker, or neighbor. There doesn’t even have to be a huge fight over it. You might snap at somebody and find they are apologizing to you for it, and suddenly you feel like the world’s biggest asshole. Grace is a funny thing that way. I know I’m guilty of this too: talking about grace as if it is an amazing, magical thing that cures everything. Why are we still acting the way we act? Don’t you know the good news of God’s love for you? But grace isn’t always a happy thing. Sometimes it’s a reminder that we have screwed up, and bad, and sometimes it surfaces all of that shame about our worth that we work so hard to hide.
Remember that scene in Good Will Hunting. You know the one, where Will’s therapist has been working with him for weeks on breaking down his defenses, and suddenly starts telling Will that the abuse he endured as a child isn’t his fault? It’s funny how he reacts to a statement that absolves him of his guilt for his inability to be vulnerable: he defends himself. He pulls away, backs up, actually swings at his therapist in an attempt to make him stop “attacking” with the words “It’s not your fault.”
There’s something really visceral about this scene, which is brought wonderfully to life by two great actors, but I think it truly hits us because most of us know how this feels. Even if you don’t know the context of the movie, you can still see the rawness of the shame and pain that this absolution dredges up for Matt Damon’s character. That’s because when we are told we are good and holy and beloved, it comes directly into conflict with all of the bad things we believe about ourselves. We are so full of shame sometimes that we don’t even realize it. I’ve written on this before, but we often spend our lives defending ourselves against the ‘not enoughs’ that are thrown at us. You’re not beautiful enough, thin enough, smart enough, talented enough, wise enough, important enough. We build up walls around that to protect ourselves. “I know I’m smart enough! How dare anybody suggest otherwise?” The crux is that when we finally hear the opposite, that we are good or smart or worthy or lovely, we don’t truly believe it. We may have everybody else fooled, but we know that deep down we just don’t buy it, and hearing “God loves you” when you think you’re a worthless sack of crap only makes you confront those feelings and fears about who you are.
Once when I was in graduate school, my first advisor in my long-ago psychology program told me that I needed to stop being so self-deprecating because I wouldn’t be here if the school didn’t think I was smart and able. I ran out of his office crying, and switched advisors a few days later, and until recently I couldn’t have told you why. I thought it was because he had embarrassed me by calling me out, and I said it was just a personality clash, but in retrospect it was because he was saying to me that I was smart and worthwhile, and that hit me deeply because I knew that in my heart of hearts I didn’t agree. It’s the same when you find yourself unexpectedly met with the graciousness of friends or family giving you money when you’re broke, or giving you forgiveness after you get drunk and start a fight about gun control at the holiday dinner table. Unconditional love challenges our very fragile sense of conditional worth.
I decided to write about this topic for two reasons. The first is that I think we often find it baffling when people refuse our overtures of love and care. Maybe there is a person you’ve been trying to love back to life who just doesn’t get it, who keeps on engaging in risky behavior or doing irresponsible things or continues to be way too hard on themselves. Sometimes you just want to scream: “WHY DON’T YOU ACCEPT MY GRACE DAMN IT?!” But I want to encourage you to be patient with those around you who just seem to never get it. I’m not saying that you should ever stay in abusive or dangerous relationships, but you never know how the love you give to those who are hurting, alone, or lost might surge back to them when their hearts are more receptive to receiving it. Understand that your love and care can be a painful thing for them. Love them anyway, in whatever ways they can accept, and slowly their hurts will be healed by grace. Give it time.
Secondly, I’m writing this for you. All of us have places where we don’t feel like we are enough. Maybe you think you aren’t a good enough provider for your family, or aren’t an active enough mom for your kids. Maybe you think you are working crap jobs and that reflects somehow on your worth. Maybe you were physically, sexually, or emotionally abused and you secretly think you must have somehow invited it. In your head you know those are lies, but I know that in moments of weakness your heart sometimes disagrees. For you I write: be loved. Because regardless of what that voice says, you are beloved. Carry on through the pain of confronting those beliefs. Talk to that voice inside your head with strength and courage and tell it: “I am enough.” Take it out of your head and imagine someone saying those things to your best friend, spouse, or child. Would you let somebody say: “Boy, you’re really stupid and worthless” to your best friend? Then don’t let you say it to you. Hear the words I’m writing for you today and hold them close when that voice comes to you. Grace is hard work sometimes; not getting it, but accepting it. But God’s love is a powerful thing that can and does heal our shame, and it is and has always been for you.
This post contains spoilers for Les Miserables. Read at your own risk!
It's really hard to see who people are sometimes. I unexpectedly made friends with one of the shuttle drivers that goes between the two campuses of my hospital. He is usually featuring some sort of classical music selection and I have an interest in music so I like to ask him what we're listening to. After a couple times, he started asking me about me. I'm a complete amateur but I know enough about music to be able to have some conversations about some of the technical aspects or history. This driver is usually the one who takes me back across the river to my parking garage at the end of the day, so we have been having these conversations for several months now, and I've pieced together bits and clips of his story. It turns out he has a Ph.D. in musicology and did some teaching, but because of the economy and the general climate of jobs in academia he's working this job and another unrelated one, both outside his field. At first, I was just making small talk because I was curious, but now I always ask him what we're listening to and what he's seen or purchased recently because I imagine that the history teacher in him is just dying to come out. If you just looked at him from the outside, you might think he was a bus driver with a passing interest in music. Instead, I have had the privilege of really hearing his story and witnessing the beauty of his passion and how he brings who he is to his unexpected career path.
On that note, I've been listening obsessively to the 10th Anniversary Dream Cast version of Les Miserables. I saw the recent movie and loved it with all my soul, and listening to it over and over (and over and over...) has been even more fulfilling, because I am starting to recognize which musical themes belong to which part of the story and notice the parallels intentionally drawn there. One of the things that I caught on this listen is the three or four repetitions of the question: "Who am I?" For a quick recap, the premise of Les Mis is kind of how it sounds: it's the story of the French Revolution and all the miseries that various people are facing in an incredibly unjust pre-revolution France. It follows a man, Jean Valjean, who stole a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving child and was sentenced to hard labor--literally to slavery--for almost 20 years. Upon his release, he finds the lawful Javert watching over him, waiting for him to slip up, which he does. Angry at his long imprisonment, Valjean spites the kindly bishop who gave him food by stealing the silver from the church. However, when he's caught, the bishop lies to Javert and gives Valjean even more of the church's valuables. Having received grace where condemnation was due, Valjean has a crisis and ultimately decides to dedicate his life to good.
Fast forward about five years, and Valjean has built a business which employs many poor people. However, a young woman there named Fantine gets into a conflict with another employee and unknowingly Valjean ends up allowing the man to unjustly dismiss her. With a child to support and her husband having left her, Fantine turns to prostitution to feed her daughter Cosette. Sadly, Fantine dies due to disease from her prostitution, but not before Valjean runs into her by chance and learns her story. He swears to right the wrong he committed by finding her daughter (who is being cared for by some greedy inkeepers) and raise her. The rest of the story is the drama unfolding from that. Valjean finds Cosette and they must hide to escape both of their pasts. Meanwhile, Cosette grows up and one day happens upon a young nobleman named Marius who is involved in the brewing Revolution. The French Revolution serves to highlight the bottom line of this story, which is that the world is not a just place for many people.
Through all of this, Javert, the lawman, continues to chase after Jean Valjean, and it's too complicated to explain it all, but the chief question that continually arises is 'who am I?' Valjean, who had been identified again and again by his prisoner number, asks it when he first receives pardon. Fantine asks it, the Revolutionaries are asking it, the young woman Eponine who loves Marius despite his love for Cosette asks it, and even Javert asks it in his final moments of spiritual agony. When I first saw the movie, I thought that the question was simpler, about behaving with mercy or "justice." But listening to it, I realized that the question is really who are we? We are a people living in the midst of agony, but are we a people of hope or of despair? Are we a people of love or hate? Are we a people of mercy or condemnation?
We spend a lot of our lives asking who we are, and defining ourselves both by our roles and by our works, and we do the same to others. Is it a lazy person or a person dealing with unimaginable financial burdens? Is it a bum, or a veteran? We define one another by our jobs and clothes and how well we adhere to a standard of success that is always moving a little further away. We look at the bus driver and see... a bus driver. Maybe we don't think much of his intelligence. Maybe we think he failed along the way. Maybe we don't think much about him at all because he's a servant, a prop taking me from point A to B. Maybe we are all so terrified of being judged by other people that we never actually reveal who we are to one another. Maybe we're afraid of who we really are.
Are we defined by the law--by eye for an eye? If you work hard, you will get this. If you do this, then this will happen. Or maybe, in the same way I got caught up in the details of these two opposing ideas of mercy and justice, we are just missing the big picture. What if the reality is that mercy and justice are not opposed to one another, because true justice is to know and be fully known. To hear the story, to see the 'who am I?' not defined by the label of a slave who fails to uphold the law, but by the question of 'who loves me?'
Luther wrote an amazing treatise called "Freedom of a Christian" which discusses the very backward and counter-intuitive understanding that to die to our old selves is to gain freedom. Jean Valjean was a prisoner, and all of the Revolutionaries recognized their prison within an evil system, and searched for freedom in different ways. But at the last, they all realized that they had to give up themselves to find themselves. This came in the form of loving others so intensely as to lay down their lives. Jean Valjean laid it down to save his nephew, and again to prevent an innocent man going to prison, Fantine laid it down for her daughter, and Eponine laid it down for Marius, Marius and the Revolutionaries laid their lives down for all of France's poor. And in the end they all finally learned that, to quote Fantine, "To love another person is to see the face of God."
The mercy/justice idea is a false dichotomy. Real justice comes through understanding the 'who.' It comes from seeing one another "face to face" as the apostle Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians. It comes from loving another so much that you are transformed. And justice finally comes not from blindly following the rules, but from truly seeing the face of God in our brothers and sisters. Who we are, then, is a people who together wait for freedom from the agony of our bondage in evil systems, in pain, in despair, in grief, knowing that we are glimpsing paradise within our suffering. Who we are is beloved people recognizing the belovedness of other, and enacting justice by transforming the world one face, one life at a time. We go through so much of our lives seeing only dim reflections of ourselves in others, but what if we instead look for God? My challenge to you is to see. Go into your world, and see your bus drivers as people with hopes and dreams and struggles and pain. See your bag boys, your waitresses, your garbage men, your doctor or nurse, your husband or wife as a person full of as much love and fear and personhood as you, and so glimpse paradise through loving them all until tomorrow bursts forth to redeem all our misery.
