The Quality of Mercy

Back in July of 2003, 86 year-old George Weller of Santa Monica was driving his 1992 Buick La Sabre down the streets of his city when he turned his car mistakenly down a street where a farmer’s market was being held. He was taken by surprise. He wasn’t expecting an open-air market to be there. He went to step on the brakes, but his foot his the gas instead. A few moments later nine people were dead. Weller was arrested and charged with manslaughter. People were calling for him to be locked up in prison. I am not going to get into whether or not senior citizens should be allowed to drive (especially since I’m not far from being a senior citizen myself). When he was sentenced to probation, owing to his advanced age, there was an outcry from the public.

In another interesting case, I mention Kathleen Ann Soliah, who as Sara Jane Olson pleaded guilty in October to aiding and abetting a murder committed by the group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army…a murder, which happened twenty-seven years ago. Olson has lived in anonymity as the wife of a doctor in Minnesota all these years. She has been an upstanding citizen who contributed to her community. Back in 1975, as a member of the SLA, she was an accomplice in the planting of two bombs under two police cars. In 2001, she faced twenty years in prison for her part in the crime. She was eventually sentenced to fourteen years in prison. And I would point out here, that she did not plant the bombs herself, she was simply a member of the organization that did. But it was all-important that she be thrown in prison, that justice be served.

We’ve become a very unforgiving society. And we drift more and more towards severity. We want people punished and punished hard. Maybe we are just fed up with the direction our world seems to be taken. We are not happy with things and we want people punished. I am reminded of those people who have been released from death row because DNA evidence showed they were innocent of the crimes for which they were charged, and the families of the victims seem outraged. You would think that those people would want to make sure it was the right person locked up for their loved one’s murder. But somehow it seems they just want someone to pay, and anybody is as good as the next person. We have forgotten mercy.

Shakespeare said it. “The quality of mercy is not strained. It falleth as a gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed. It blesses him who gives and him who receives. It is an attribute of God himself.” (Portia in MERCHANT OF VENICE) Perhaps it would be easier to be merciful, if we could only remember that we are in need of mercy too. I am sure that George Weller did not wake up one morning and say to himself, “Well, think I’ll kill me a bunch of people today!” I don’t know what his dealings with other people were like, but by the end of the day he found himself in need of others’ mercy. And not much was forthcoming. We like to punish.

Maybe this goes back to when we were kids. Remember going to mom or dad and complaining about something one of your siblings had done and hoping that, in his or her wisdom, mom or dad would kill them for you? And somehow it didn’t matter that you were guilty of many things yourself. A few years ago, one of my students came to me and complained that another kid had hit him. I called over the accused and asked if he had, in fact, hit the student. The boy confessed, but said he only hit the kid after he had kicked him in the leg. That student wanted justice all right, for the other student, but not for himself.

Jesus was teaching in the temple area when the Pharisees and Scribes brought a woman to him. They pushed her to the center of the crowd and said, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of adultery. Now in the law, Moses said we were to stone such women. What do you say?” Jesus bent down and started writing in the dirt with his finger.

Now this question was a real trap for Jesus. Keep in mind the times in which he lived. If he said that the woman should be stoned to death, then he would be guilty of sedition against the Romans and could be arrested for his statements. But should he say that the woman should go free, he was speaking against the law given to the people by Moses. It seemed like he was in a no win situation.

Jesus continues to write in the dirt and then looked up at the crowd and says, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her.” And one by one, the men drop their stones and walk away, leaving only the woman standing there, alone, with Jesus. Jesus looks up at her and says, “Where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She answers him, “No one, sir.” “Neither do I condemn you. Go now, and sin no more.”

This story comes to us by way of the Gospel According to John. It is a troublesome bit of scripture. It was not included in the bible for hundreds of years. Early church fathers felt it was too liberal. Many scholars disagree as to whether it belongs in the Gospel of John or not. Many feel it belongs in the Gospel According to Luke (which is why I write about it this week). Others feel that it belongs in John, but in another part. This was a controversial piece of scripture from the beginning. But there is a strong tradition that this story was a part of the original gospel story of Jesus.

According to the laws of Moses, in order to be found guilty of adultery, a person had to be caught in the very act of sex. They couldn’t just be found in the same bed, or naked together, or in any other compromising situation. They had to be caught in the very act of sexual intercourse. And, according to the law, both parties were to be brought out for punishment. What happened to the man here? Where was he? Wasn’t he guilty also?

When Jesus tells the crowd to let the one among them who is without sin cast the first stone, the original text indicates that he is referring to the exact same sin. In other words, those guys who dropped their stones were guilty of adultery too. It reminds me of the impeachment of Bill Clinton, when the Republican Congress accused Clinton of such improprieties when we all know that many of those men were just as guilty. Newt Gingrich has come out and said as much, that at least HE was guilty of adultery. How can we be so quick to judge others, when we are such blighters ourselves?

What point would have been served by locking up an 86 year-old man? Take away his license, sure. But why throw him in prison? Will that bring those nine people back? What justice is served by locking up a woman twenty-seven years after a crime is committed, after she has become a law-abiding contributor to her community? Is our society any safer with them in prison? Are any of us really much different than they are? Jesus constantly calls upon us not to judge others, for we will receive that same judgment back on ourselves. And that judgment doesn’t necessarily come from God. Each one of us knows in our own heart our own guilt. We constantly try to hide it. I think perhaps sometimes, it is that very guilt in ourselves that pushes us to punish it in others. Jesus himself said it. It is not God who condemns us. Neither does Jesus condemn us. It is we, ourselves, who condemn us. Our lack of mercy and forgiveness condemns us to a world of anger and misery…AND injustice.

We have everything we need to make our world work. We have all the natural resources. Nobody ever need go hungry. With our knowledge and technology, nobody ever need suffer from illness. Imagine what we could do as a species if we were to turn our full attention to making the world a better place. John Lennon was right. War is over…IF we want it. Love IS all you need. That was the message of Jesus also.

We have to quit condemning people, including ourselves. Jesus does not condemn us. Neither does God. So why do we condemn each other? Lent is a time for forgiveness. It is a time for forgiving each other and ourselves. The Easter season is a time for starting over. The Buddhists understand that we are all a part of each other, and when I punish you, when I judge you, when I condemn you, I am doing all those things to myself. This is what Jesus understood and tried to teach. Mercy, according to Shakespeare, is an attribute of God. The divine dwells in each of us. Let that light of mercy shine out.