From
the Sayings of the Desert Fathers: an instruction sent by Abba Moses to
Abba Poemen:
A brother asked the old man, ‘Here is a man
who beats his servant because of the fault he has committed; what will the
servant say?’ The old man said, ‘If the servant is good, he should say,
“Forgive me, I have sinned.”’ The brother said to him, ‘Nothing else?’ The old
man said, ‘No for the moment he takes upon himself the responsibility for the affair
and says “I have sinned,” immediately the Lord will have mercy on him. The aim
in all these things is not to judge one’s neighbour. For truly, when the hand
of the Lord caused all the first-born of Egypt to die, no house was without its
dead.’ The brother said, ‘What does this mean?’ The old man said, ‘If we are on
the watch to see our own faults, we shall not see those of our neighbour. It is
folly for a man who has a dead person in his house to leave him there and go to
weep over his neighbour’s dead. To die to one’s neighbour is this: To bear your
own faults and not pay attention to anyone else’s wondering whether they are
good or bad. Do no harm to anyone, do not think anything bad in your heart towards
anyone, do not scorn the man who does evil, do not put confidence in him who
does wrong to his neighbour, do not rejoice with him who injures his neighbour.
This is what dying to one’s neighbour means. Do not rail against anyone, but
rather say, “God knows each one.” Do not agree with him who slanders, do not
rejoice at his slander and do not hate him who slanders his neighbour. This is
what it means not to judge. Do not have hostile feelings towards anyone and do
not let dislike dominate your heart; do not hate him who hates his neighbour.
This is what peace is: Encourage yourself with this thought, “Affliction lasts
but a short time, while peace is for ever, by the grace of God the Word.
Amen.”’ [1]
There is something very
human and recognisable about the prophet Jonah: God speaks to him, and tells
him to go to Nineveh to proclaim the Word of the Lord, he tries to escape, and
do what he wants to do, it all goes horribly wrong until Jonah prays to God and
goes to Nineveh, and issues a call to repentance, which the people of Nineveh,
from the king downwards take to heart, they fast and pray, and are spared. So
far so good: all is well, or so we might think. This is not, however, the end
of the matter: Jonah is angry that God has forgiven the people of Nineveh. This
is quite understandable, as the people of Assyria, who live in Nineveh are
enemies of Israel, these are people who will conquer Israel, and lead its
people off into captivity and exile. Job’s dilemma is a simple one, how can the
God of Israel be loving and forgiving towards the enemies of his people?
Jonah’s fundamental problem is that his conception of God is far
too small, too nationalistic, and he forgets that God, is first and foremost a
God of love, mercy, and forgiveness. There is a tendency to argue that in the
Old Testament God is a God of judgement, retribution, who rains down fire from
heaven, whereas in the New Testament we see in Jesus Christ a God of Love. This is a false dichotomy, a trap into which
Christians have been falling, and continue to fall, from which they need help.
From Marcion in the second century ad
to the liberal German protestantism of Adolf von Harnack and others, and the
Jesus Seminar of late twentieth century America, we see people who, when faced
with a difficult and complex picture of God, have preferred to make the complex
simple, and to refashion the Divine into what they want it to be, rather than
live with the fact that at one level God is ‘beyond our ken’ that the love and
mercy of God are beyond our human comprehension.
This is for a perfectly good reason, namely that intellectual
comprehension is not the point, but rather the love, mercy and forgiveness of
God is something which is to be experienced rather than understood. It is something
demonstrated to the world when Our Lord Saviour, who took our flesh for our
sake was scourged, and nailed to a Cross to die for us, to bear the burden of
our sins, to pay the debt which we cannot, to heal us and restore us. The world
did not understand this two thousand years ago, nor does it today. What looked
like failure was in fact a great victory, the King of Heaven and Earth reigns
nailed to the wood of a Cross. His flesh bears forever the mark of nails and
spear as they are the wounds of love: God’s love of us, frail, sinful humanity,
and through these wounds we are healed and restored, in them we find the inexhaustible
store of God’s mercy poured out for and upon us.
God does not need to do this, but as a God of love and
mercy, who longs to heal and restore humanity made in His image what else can
he do? As those healed and restored by him we are to live lives of radical love
and forgiveness like those Christians in the Egyptian Desert who practised what
they preached, and through their faith and humility inspired others to come to Christ
and to follow Him, turning away from the ways of the world, and to Christ, who alone
can heal and restore us, the God of love and mercy. Let us be healed and restored
by him, and share that love and mercy with others so that they too may praise God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is
most right and just, all might, majesty, glory dominion, and power, now and forever.
[1] Sr Benedicta
Ward(tr.) The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection,
London: A. R. Mowbray 1975: 120-121
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