Life is messy but God is mercy.
Life is messy. It’s not perfect. We do things for the wrong reasons. We snap at each other and get grumpy only to turn around and do something good and loving. Life can get even messier when we try to live the Gospel of Jesus. Here is an example. As I drive around the DC metro area I often see a person begging on the side of the road. Sometimes I give no money, food, or even a drink. Sometimes I do. I am not sure whether I am always doing the right thing. I think the person begging can be a charlatan, but then I feel guilty if I don’t give. When I notice the guilt feelings I think guilt is not the best motivation for giving to the poor. Then, I think about how it doesn’t matter what my motivation is, because the person begging needs something to eat.
Jesus knows life can be messy, especially when we are attempting to live the Gospel. Hence, he tells us a parable about how weeds and wheat grow together. We grow into our relationship with God amidst our imperfections, weaknesses, and even sins. God knows this. God understands. Even still, God loves us with a tremendous love.
The parable of the weeds and the wheat is a parable of mercy. We don’t want mercy, though. We want perfection because we’re into control, and mercy requires us to surrender. The French philosopher Voltaire once said, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” An obsession with purity and perfectionism has infected the Church since its inception. Sometimes the Church has falsely believed that humanity is essentially corrupt and has to perform extreme penances to placate a God who is forever angry with us for being so spiritually offensive. This is nowhere near the Gospel of Jesus who consistently takes the side of the sinner. He declares God wants mercy and not penitential sacrifice.
If we are aiming for perfection, we will not be able to tolerate much of reality. There is a connection between the dynamic of blaming, shaming, and the refusal of mercy out of the obsessive need for perfection. We blame ourselves for not being perfect, and we inevitably blame others for not being perfect. Then, we shame the other because we can’t deal with our own weakness. This very struggle is a denial of the basic truth of the Gospel: God is mercy, embracing us just as we are, warts and all. Perfectionism is a severely damaging attitude through which we punish ourselves, condemn others, and treat God like an angry parent we have to please. Instead, God is mercy, not wrathful or punishing. God is the infinitely merciful Presence accepting and delighting in reality as it is.
Jean-Pierre De Caussade, an eighteenth-century Jesuit, said, “Rejoice whenever you discover a new imperfection, because then you have to fall into the hands of the living God.” Weakness is an occasion for surrender! Pope Francis says, “The place where my encounter with the mercy of Jesus takes place is my sin.” So, let it be. Let all things be just as they are, in God. Let it be. Let others be as they are. Let it be. Let God be God. Let it be. Let God be your holiness. Let it be. Let God love you
To live the parable of the weeds and the wheat, we acknowledge our need for mercy, admit our wrongs, and come before God in our weakness. We do this before trying to fix, problem solve, or make up for our wrong. God then lifts us up and reminds us how good we are, how loved we are, and how much we delight him. Afterwards, we can address the situation and see what needs to be done, whether that means confronting someone, apologizing, or doing something kind to show our attitude has changed and to reconcile. All this takes not effort or perfection, but surrender and acceptance.
Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes, “There is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who converts than over ninety-nine righteous persons. Does God love sinners more than the righteous? There are no righteous persons. It’s rather that we feel God’s love more when we admit that we’re sinners. None of us ever measure up. But, as St. Paul so consolingly teaches, the whole point is that we don’t have to measure up. That’s what mercy means. It’s undeserved, by definition.” What wonderful news! We don’t have to measure up! Our weeds can grow with our wheat, and we can place our hope and our trust in God’s mercy. Our works will not “get us to heaven.” Only God’s mercy brings us into the life of heaven, and it all starts now. Accepting God’s mercy within, and being merciful without, opens us to a flood of incomprehensible love, which always and forever embraces us.