Sorry for the long post and the rambling, run-on sentences . . .

“I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6). Is there ever a situation in which showing mercy is wrong? This was the parting question during the Doctor Who season 9 opener last week. In lieu of giving away spoilers, the Doctor is forced into an ethical dilemma. Should he save one of his greatest enemies, or should he stand idly by allowing his enemy’s demise? Think of it this way. Imagine that you could go back in time to meet a young Hitler who is being held at gunpoint in his German grade school. What would you say? What would you do? If you intervene you may save his life, which might lead to the history we know. Would you abstain, and let what happens, happen? Maybe you would pick up a gun and take the story into your own hands.

Let’s check some of our assumptions. Let’s assume that showing mercy is wrong in this situation, and that the Doctor should leave his enemy stranded and certainly doomed. In full disclosure, I’m still thinking all of this through, so forgive me for the short bullet points. If we assume mercy to be ethically wrong, we assume the following:

1. 1. Violence solves the problem.  “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword,” Jesus says in Matthew’s Gospel. Violence does not offer closure, nor does it offer healing; rather violence breeds violence. As long as there is vengeance, anger, and retribution, violence will only perpetuate it’s own reason to exist.

2. 2. We are silos. Killing a potential leader does nothing to end the system that gave birth to the evil the leader perpetuates. Systems search for the path of least resistance. If a system is bent toward the lust for power or greed or might, cutting off the head just leaves room for a new dictator to take her or his place.

3. 3. Evil is more powerful than good. If you must use evil means to reach a good end, you’ve proven that good is not as powerful as evil. This is precisely what the Doctor’s nemesis is hoping to reveal.

4. 4. Quantity matters. If you sacrifice few for the sake of many, ethics boils down to simple arithmetic. I appreciate what the Doctor says during season 8—“Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones, but you still choose,” but I wonder if sometimes we feel forced into the decisions we make because of quantity. Certainly there is more to the Gospel than minimizing collateral damage?

5. 5. Showing mercy to whom? If we are ever in the situation of offering harm to one for the safety of another, how do we choose to whom we show mercy? It may be easy to say that we should favor the defenseless or the young or the innocent against the powerful or criminal or guilty, but I know myself well enough to know that my judgment of innocence or guilt is rarely (if every) objective. I’m also aware that this is all a head game until someone attacks one of my daughters. I can’t promise to mull my theory-based ethical decision in that moment. I pray I never have to make that decision, and I pray for those who face this kind of violence more than our sensibilities might want to admit.

In Hosea, the Lord says, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6). I really wished the Lord said, “I require mercy,” or “I demand mercy,” but “desire” seems too ambiguous for life or death decisions. This text makes great sense in the context of a sacrificial Temple cult, meaning that God desires our merciful actions rather than making personal sacrifice at the Temple, but how does this apply outside of the Temple or does it? Usually, “desire” means to be in want of something, and I desire that we all are in want of more mercy in the world, but what is showing mercy means the sacrifice of the innocent?

Interestingly, the second definition of “desire” means “to move.” I wonder if a more appropriate reading of what God is saying through Hosea is, “I move toward mercy, not sacrifice.” It seems that when we show mercy, we move toward where God is calling us to be. It’s not that our decisions are perfect, and we may mistakenly choose the lesser of two evils, but maybe the point is always to offer mercy, forgiveness, and grace, because in so doing we move toward the very heart of God.   If we believe in redemption, and that our story ends with the life Christ merited through death and resurrection, then mercy is always the correct answer. Living in charity and grace certainly gets in the way of our notion of power, success, and security, but if Hosea is to be believed, mercy is always a movement toward God, and isn’t this the very reason we have air in our lungs?

There is a great difference between a job, an occupation, and a vocation. Your job is your list of responsibilities. If you work in a button factory, you might list “pressing buttons” as your first priority, but it’s certainly not your only job. If you have a family, I’m sure you’re preparing a meal for someone. If your heart isn’t as strong as it once was, taking an early morning walk is a daily job. Students do homework, spouses work on building a successful marriage, Grandmothers work on spoiling grandchildren, athletes train, scholars research, musicians compose, and the list goes on. Sometimes money is the payment for what you do. Other times the reward is a child’s smile, a spouse’s love, a better check-up, or the next great idea. Your job isn’t just what you record on your taxes; rather it is the daily activity revealing to the world who we are.

 
Your occupation isn’t always the same as your job. Your occupation is what occupies most of your time. For example, maybe your job is serving coffee at the corner coffee shop, but what truly occupies your time is worry. With each cup you pour, you worry about making ends meet back at home. Your job might be, “Barista,” but what occupies your soul is the exhausting anxiety of life’s unknown. Maybe your job is lawn care, but as you push the mower across someone else’s grass, you imagine what life would be like if you weren’t so lonely. Addiction is an occupation we’d rather not talk about. Sometimes addiction’s occupation is so powerful it dictates our job, working to feed the insatiable hunger of misplaced desire.

Vocation goes over and above a job and an occupation. Your job is your list of responsibilities, your occupation is what occupies most of your time, but you vocation is who you are called to become. God has already offered you a precious gift and unique talent. Have you ever wondered why you are so good with teaching the children’s moment in worship? Even though you don’t have a “psychiatric help: 5 cents” name tag, why do people seek out your opinion or guidance? Is everyone looking forward to your pie at the Thanksgiving meal? God has blessed you with a gift that you are meant to share with the world, and it is a gift meant to offer life. Life is quite beautiful when a job, occupation, and vocation all become one.

I’ve heard it said that if you do what you love, you never have to work a day in your life. Maybe that’s true. I would say when our gift meets a great hunger in the world we begin to understand what Jesus meant by “eternal life.”

The start of a new semester can sometimes be like watching two athletes in the Octagon.  In one corner there is a great hope.  On the first day of class everyone has a 4.0 Dean’s list opportunity.  How proud my family would be if the semester ended with the first class.  No blemishes, no lost assignments, and no double secret probation.  On the other hand there is a great fear.  With whom will I connect this semester?  Should I accept that friend request from the guy sitting near the back of the class?  Do I even belong here?

It’s like looking at a blank sheet of paper.  The empty spaces might be an expression of possibility.  Anything can fill in the blank–hopes, dreams, success.  The blank piece of paper can also suggest nothingness, failure, or paralysis.  The way you see the “blanks” greatly depends on how you see yourself and where you fit in.

It’s like that first day of middle school.  At what table do you belong?  Are you an athlete or a Mathlete?  Are you the hipster kind of geek or just a plain nerd?  Do you sit at the rich kid table or is your money too new to be accepted.  Maybe you got your clothes at Goodwill and you hope no one notices that you are wearing their last year’s jeans.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout doesn’t start her first day of school well at all.  She doesn’t know where she fits in.  She tries to be helpful, and it simply lands her in trouble.  In a town where knowing your place is as important Jesus’ return, finding yourself on the outside is a difficult road. It’s not that playing the role of the jock or the nerd or the popular kid is all together a bad thing.  The trick is to know who is assigning the parts.

The good news is that through our connection with Christ, we all have a place at the table of Grace.  Where the body is broken and the blood outpoured, we all receive the blessing of belonging.  The communion table is where the blank sheet of paper is filled with hope and life and the possibility only the Gospel affords.  At the table we are adopted and counted as God’s own.  It’s true that my 4.0 on the first day might only last the first day, but at least God offers graceful answers to any test life offers.

Stay awesome . . .

I would like to share a few words in response to J.D. Walt’s “8 More Reasons the Middle Way is the Wrong Way.”

I often offer my congregation to meet a dichotomy with quick suspicion.  There is never only two options when walking with Christ.  Walt references Matthew 7 where Jesus says:

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them (Matthew 7:15-20).

Jesus, later in Matthew, tells a parable about the judgment of nations.  Some do good works according to God’s will and others do not.  Those who do kingdom work are counted as sheep and sit at God’s right hand.  The others, the goats, are cast out and are not able to enter into the kingdom.  It certainly sounds like we are dealing with a narrow path that leads to life and a broad path leading to sin and destruction, a “this” or “that” way of following our Lord, but there’s more here than a lesson in being a sheep rather than a goat.

Some might say that seeing the world as either a narrow path of righteousness or a broad path of destruction makes things simple and easy.  Actually seeing the world in strict duality is devastatingly complicated.  If I commit a sin, any sin, fill in the blank, does that mean that I am on the broad path until I confess and am pardoned?  What about the sins of which I am unaware?  If I fail to feed the hungry today, does that nullify my walk?  Where do you draw the line?  Now, before you label me as a “to each his own,” kind of guy, hear me.  Here’s the mystery:  It’s not that we are either on this path or that; rather we are on both.  This is why we daily need to confess and seek pardon. The wheat and the chaff grow together.  At the time of judgment the times I served and loved are remembered and continue on in God’s heart.  The times I turned away and forgot the least and the lost, the chaff that is within me, is thrown into the fire. By the way, you need fire in order to make bread.  The problem is when the fire’s too hot, the bread burns and cannot be broken at the table with the wine outpoured.  Please hear me!  I am not saying that we should look for ways to create a little chaff.  The sins I commit unawares will be plenty to stoke the oven.  Go out and work to produce wheat!

And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” He answered, “An enemy has done this.” The slaves said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” But he replied, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn” (Matthew 13:27-30).

So, first, we have to be careful when we look at divisions in the church through eyes of “the straight and narrow” or “the highway to hell.”  Secondly, and maybe more importantly, I have found that when folks draw a line between us and them, they typically draw the line so that they themselves are “in,” so to speak.  Being more progressive (what does that even mean anymore, right?) I could say that the narrow path IS the path that I’m following through an ethic of salvific love that goes over and above our biology.  For example, here are two of Walt’s steps, and seriously . . . be fair.  Go and read his entire post.

1. The middle way offers a license to broaden the narrow way in the name of being more loving. The narrow way is actually willing to be completely marginalized and endure public execution as an act of love.

To say that full inclusion is the way of being marginalized and publicly executed certainly seems to fit.

5. The middle way tends to deduce its reasoning from the basis of human experience in order to bully tradition into departing from truth. The narrow way reasons that truth is the voice of love.

That’s what I’m saying!  Our history of human experience has shunned our homosexual brothers and sisters, but the voice of love should be our ethic.  Right on!
Look.  I’m not writing to poke fun or to be disrespectful.  What I’m saying is this discourse doesn’t really get us anywhere.  Those on the left and the right will both claim to be on the narrow path, and those with whom they disagree will be on the broad path to Hell.  All this gets us is lots of narrow paths leading to the reflection in our bathroom mirror.

Yes there is a Third Way.  There is life, there is death, and there is Resurrection. Resurrection helps us realize that the line between the sheep and the goats is drawn through each of us, not between me and my neighbor.  In other words, Peter and Paul argued about whether or not one should be circumcised.  This disagreement almost stopped the church before it started.  Then the church realized that circumcision is a matter of the heart, not rooted in someone’s flesh.  Both the circumcised and uncircumcised can both be on the path of righteousness.

On the heels of finishing The Faith of a Mockingbird (hitting the shelves of your favorite bookstore soon!), reading Go Set A Watchman has me asking, “Who is the real Atticus Finch?” Harper Lee’s latest (and second or is it really the first?) novel is due out in stores this week, and the reviews are hinting that Mockingbird’s moral hero is revealed to be a bigoted segregationist. Atticus, who once rose above a broken system offering prophetic wisdom ahead of its time, now seems tragically vulnerable to the successive fleeting narrowness culture can offer. Could it be that time (go set a watch, man) has changed his views or that he previously was naïve? Could it be that as a child, Scout’s memory of her father was idealized? Should we read Go Set a Watchman as students, understanding that this was the draft that gave birth to To Kill a Mockingbird as the final (and for over fifty years the only) word? Does a future revelation negate a saintly past?

The shock of reading Atticus’ support of segregation reminds us of a story’s power. Although Atticus in part was based on Harper Lee’s own father, he is a character. Our connection to fictional characters makes sense because we are all characters in a way. Our identity is not based in what we do or think or say, but our identity is rooted in what we and others remember about our thoughts, words, and deeds. At least, there is an intimate connection between our identity and our memory. Maybe that’s why Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me,” when he gathered with his disciples during his final meal (Luke 22:19). Maybe that’s why the thief on the cross asked Jesus to “Remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42)? Maybe that’s why the rain stopped when “God remembered Noah” (Genesis 8:1).

Psalm 139 reveals that God knows us better than we know ourselves—“O Lord, you have searched me and known me…even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.” Because God knows our story so well, the Psalms also guide our language in seeking pardon—“Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness’ sake, O Lord” (Psalm 25:7). Near the end of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus offers a parable about judgment. He says, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory…all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matthew 26:31-32). It is shocking to read about Atticus in Watchmen because we assume that he’s a sheep. He’s on the Son of Man’s right side standing with the good guys and girls. He can’t be a goat, right?

The mystery is that the line separating the sheep and the goats is a line drawn through each individual soul. The times we served and shared and loved are remembered and sit at God’s right hand. The times when we failed and faltered and turned away are crucified and burned away in the refining fire of God’s love. When the goat in us is turned away, will there be enough remaining for Christ to recognize us, or will Christ say, “I do not know you” (Matthew 25:12).

Maybe the shock in reading about Atticus’ confusing views is that it reminds us that we are just as complex and it scares the Hell out of us. Maybe that’s the beauty of it all?