We live in a world where many people peddle mercy and forgiveness, but where too few of us practice those ideas. From the suicide bomber who straps on explosives and murders or maims a hundred shoppers in a marketplace to the brother who refuses to speak to his siblings, from those who proclaim politics their god and their opponents demons to a daughter who cuts her parents out of her life , from the politician who attacks an opponent through lies and innuendo to the wife who daily berates her husband over trivial issues: in public issues or personal, great or small, mercy, pity, and forgiveness are often missing from the human heart.
Ever gloated when someone who had wronged you fell on her face? (Guilty.)
Ever felt superior when a public figure—an actor, a politician—made egregious mistakes that brought his world crashing down about his ears? (Guilty.)
Ever experienced a secret delight when some friend or family member hit the skids? (Guilty.)
Ever taken satisfaction when your successful neighbor singlehandedly smashed his life to smithereens? (Guilty.)
I proclaim myself guilty of these charges as a man who at the same time believes in mercy and pity. I am a former teacher, a friend to several people, a parent, and a grandparent. All of these relationships have necessarily required the basic tools of forgiveness and sympathy. Yet I also know that all too often in the past I have sometimes rushed to condemn others, have reveled in the gossip about their failings, and have felt satisfaction, if not pleasure, when those I disliked have met with their comeuppance. Schadenfreude, German for being pleased by the failure of others: how many of us have not experienced that emotion?
In Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg’s movie about the Holocaust, the manufacturer Oskar Schindler speaks with Amon Goeth, commandant of Poland’s Plaszow concentration camp and home to some of Schindler’s workers. He tries to convince Goeth that kindness and mercy should top Goeth’s senseless murder of Jews. Goeth toys with the idea, and the next day pardons a Jewish boy who has failed to remove rusty stains from his bathtub. But as the boy walks through the camp’s yard, Goeth goes for his balcony and his rifle, and guns him down. Goeth is unable to forgive, to extend mercy and pity to those in his charge.
The prayer taught to his Apostles by Christ has the line “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others.” In other words, we are commanding God to pardon us as we pardon others. Despite this injunction, many Christians seem incapable of forgiveness. Some who profess belief in a Divine Being judge a person’s soul by his action, forgetting that human law judges our actions. If I murder or steal, a jury and a judge find me guilty or not guilty by deliberating on my actions. Sometimes the law takes circumstances into account. Rarely, however, do they take into account the state of my soul while committing these crimes.
For believers, fortunately, a Higher Power judges the state of the soul. Here we who have sinned can throw ourselves on what writer Graham Greene once called “the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.” By human standards, God’s mercy, if there is to be such mercy, truly is appalling and strange, appalling because it runs in the face of what we humans regard as just, strange because we find little possibility for such justice here in this world. It is a mercy beyond our comprehension. When asked, for example, whether we should forgive seven times, Christ replied that we must forgive seventy times seven. For most of us, I suspect, that bar is too high.
One difference between our earthly domain and the kingdom of God is omniscience. In our physical world, we judge others by rumors, by what we want to believe, by what we think of as truth. We believe we can know the truth about another soul, but in reality we know as much truth about the thoughts, motivations, and feelings of another human being as we know about those of a cat—and maybe less so. God sits in another courtroom, a higher courtroom. According to the beliefs of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, He knows all, sees all, and understands all. His judgments extend far beyond the judgments of our courts of law and opinion.
Given our propensity to judge and condemn, some of us who believe and who have sinned may find ourselves gratefully murmuring, “Thank God for God.”
Ever felt superior when a public figure—an actor, a politician—made egregious mistakes that brought his world crashing down about his ears? (Guilty.)
Ever experienced a secret delight when some friend or family member hit the skids? (Guilty.)
Ever taken satisfaction when your successful neighbor singlehandedly smashed his life to smithereens? (Guilty.)
I proclaim myself guilty of these charges as a man who at the same time believes in mercy and pity. I am a former teacher, a friend to several people, a parent, and a grandparent. All of these relationships have necessarily required the basic tools of forgiveness and sympathy. Yet I also know that all too often in the past I have sometimes rushed to condemn others, have reveled in the gossip about their failings, and have felt satisfaction, if not pleasure, when those I disliked have met with their comeuppance. Schadenfreude, German for being pleased by the failure of others: how many of us have not experienced that emotion?
In Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg’s movie about the Holocaust, the manufacturer Oskar Schindler speaks with Amon Goeth, commandant of Poland’s Plaszow concentration camp and home to some of Schindler’s workers. He tries to convince Goeth that kindness and mercy should top Goeth’s senseless murder of Jews. Goeth toys with the idea, and the next day pardons a Jewish boy who has failed to remove rusty stains from his bathtub. But as the boy walks through the camp’s yard, Goeth goes for his balcony and his rifle, and guns him down. Goeth is unable to forgive, to extend mercy and pity to those in his charge.
The prayer taught to his Apostles by Christ has the line “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others.” In other words, we are commanding God to pardon us as we pardon others. Despite this injunction, many Christians seem incapable of forgiveness. Some who profess belief in a Divine Being judge a person’s soul by his action, forgetting that human law judges our actions. If I murder or steal, a jury and a judge find me guilty or not guilty by deliberating on my actions. Sometimes the law takes circumstances into account. Rarely, however, do they take into account the state of my soul while committing these crimes.
For believers, fortunately, a Higher Power judges the state of the soul. Here we who have sinned can throw ourselves on what writer Graham Greene once called “the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.” By human standards, God’s mercy, if there is to be such mercy, truly is appalling and strange, appalling because it runs in the face of what we humans regard as just, strange because we find little possibility for such justice here in this world. It is a mercy beyond our comprehension. When asked, for example, whether we should forgive seven times, Christ replied that we must forgive seventy times seven. For most of us, I suspect, that bar is too high.
One difference between our earthly domain and the kingdom of God is omniscience. In our physical world, we judge others by rumors, by what we want to believe, by what we think of as truth. We believe we can know the truth about another soul, but in reality we know as much truth about the thoughts, motivations, and feelings of another human being as we know about those of a cat—and maybe less so. God sits in another courtroom, a higher courtroom. According to the beliefs of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, He knows all, sees all, and understands all. His judgments extend far beyond the judgments of our courts of law and opinion.
Given our propensity to judge and condemn, some of us who believe and who have sinned may find ourselves gratefully murmuring, “Thank God for God.”
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