By J. Michael Parker
Jesus repeatedly enjoined his followers to “be compassionate as God is compassionate,” the President of Oblate School of Theology told an audience of 180 during the School’s 2019 Summer Institute, whose theme was “Fear and Faith.”
Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI, author of many popular books on spirituality, observed in his keynote address June 11 that each time God appears in Scripture, the first words are “Do not be afraid.” The priest added, “If something frightens you, you can be sure it’s not from God.” Fear of the Lord is healthy since it is more about reverence, he noted, adding, “That fear is more that we might hurt God, not that God might hurt us,” he said.
Compassion is central to all authentic religions, Fr. Rolheiser continued. “It’s the penultimate invitation,” since it’s the medium that takes us to our last invitation, which is union with God.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” – an impossibility for human beings in the Greek-rooted sense in which we understand perfection, meaning “without flaws.” But in Hebrew thought, perfection means compassion. Luke’s Gospel reflects this by saying, “Be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate,” the priest remarked.
Quoting Scripture scholar Dr. Walter Brueggemann, he said that proper prayer and proper practice were seen as the essence of religion in Old Testament times until the prophets came and said, “God doesn’t care so much about all these rules; God cares about the poor.” They said, “The quality of your faith will be judged by the quality of your justice; the quality of justice will be judged by the treatment of the three weakest groups – widows, orphans and strangers.”
The OST president pointed out that Jesus ratifies all three criteria. “He says, ‘If you love me, you’ll keep my word; if you don’t keep my word, don’t pretend that you are loving me.’” Later, Jesus speaks more strongly, saying, “The Great King is going to divide the people, putting the sheep on the right and the goats on the left.” Fr. Rolheiser observed that there will be only one set of questions then: “Did you feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the prisoners?”
Jesus says, ‘God is in the poor,’ so what you’re doing to the poor, you’re doing to God”
“The prophets gave us the ‘preferential option for the poor,’ and God favors the poor; but Jesus says, ‘God is in the poor,’ so what you’re doing to the poor, you’re doing to God,” the priest continued.
Jesus explained that God lets the sun shine on the righteous and the unrighteous alike, Fr. Rolheiser pointed out. “If you tease that out, God loves the saints in heaven and the devils in hell equally; God loves Mary in heaven and Lucifer equally; God loves pro-life and pro-choice equally; God loves Catholics and Protestants equally; God loves Christians and Muslims equally; God loves us when we’re bad and when we’re good equally,” he declared.
Quoting Fr. Richard Rohr, he said, ‘“There isn’t a single thing you can do to make God love you more, and there isn’t a single thing you can do to make God love you less.” Then he added, “God says, ‘That’s the way I want you to be compassionate. Your compassion must extend to everybody, not just to the worthy, or whoever gives you a room,’ and so on.”
Fr. Rolheiser cited three parables from Luke 15, illustrating the heart of the Gospel: A shepherd leaves 99 sheep in the wilderness to retrieve a strayed one; a woman with 10 coins searches to find one of her 10 coins, and a father wants both of his sons to celebrate the younger one’s return.
Each parable, the priest explained, is about wholeness. The shepherd cannot be happy unless all the sheep are present. The woman’s rejoicing is about the value of the wholeness; she’s like a mother with 10 children who can’t rest until all are home for Thanksgiving. In the Prodigal Son story, the father represents God, and the house is heaven; both sons are outside it. The father rejoices when the younger son returns, but must beg the older son to join the celebration.
John’s Gospel account of the Last Supper focuses on the washing of the feet. “At Mass on Holy Thursday, we celebrate the institution of the Eucharist, but John’s Gospel doesn’t give us that; we get it in St. Paul, but in the Gospel, you get the foot washing,” the priest pointed out.
“What we take from there in our iconography and our homiletics is very much the motif of humility,” he continued. “At the Last Supper, Jesus took the mantle of privilege and reversed it into the apron of service.” He said serving a meal to the homeless is a wonderful gesture, but it’s not so hard to do; the humility Jesus showed is different.
He illustrated the point, focusing on angry division over abortion. Fr. Rolheiser suggested, “If John came back today, he’d say, ‘Let’s get pro-life to wash pro-choice’s feet and pro-choice to wash pro-life’s feet; then let Donald Trump wash Hillary’s feet and Hillary wash Trump’s feet. He’d have Democrats and Republicans washing each other’s feet, and Christians and Muslims washing each other’s feet, as Pope Francis washed a Muslim’s feet.”
The OST president mentioned another motif in John’s Last Supper story. After washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus put his outer robe back on. “But what’s our inner identity? You come from God and you’re going back to God; everything is possible. Then you live without fear, and you can wash anybody’s feet,” he asserted.
In John’s Gospel, when Jesus said “Let him who is without sin throw the first stone,” he wrote on the ground with his finger twice. “Jesus wasn’t doodling. God wrote the Ten Commandments with God’s finger. When Moses took the tablets to the Israelites, the Israelites were committing idolatry. He stoned them with the tablets, breaking the tablets, so Moses had to ask God to write the commandments again,” the priest explained. God did, but God first commanded Moses, “Do not stone people in my name. Do not judge people, and do not do violence in my name.” Jesus’ writing in the ground a second time recalled this command, signaling to the woman’s accusers that “Moses was the first person to break the Ten Commandments; he was wrong, and now you’re wrong. Do not stone people in God’s name.”
He also noted that Pope Francis was not the first to say, “Who am I to judge?” Fr. Rolheiser reminded listeners, “In John’s Gospel, Jesus says, ‘I judge no one.’ That doesn’t mean there isn’t any judgment; God doesn’t have to judge anybody; nobody is in hell because God sent them there. We judge ourselves; and God tells us to be very patient in judging others.”