What your tween learned this
past weekend in Rooted!
What is Mercy and Forgiveness?
Today we are going to discuss Jesus’ mercy and forgiveness. First, let’s define mercy and forgiveness because I think there can be some misuse of these terms today. Remember the New Testament was originally written in Greek and then translated to Latin and then English. It helps to look at the original meaning of the word to have a deep understanding of what Jesus is saying.
The word Mercy comes from the Latin word misericordia. We can break that out into – miseriae – which means misery and cordis – which means heart. This tells us that mercy is loves response to suffering. This love is not any fleeting love but describes the love between and mother and a child. This is a love that isn’t earned but given freely because of the deep bond between child and mother. When your mother is upset with you, but you come to her with remorse and tears in your eyes, she can’t help but have the anger melt away in the face of your suffering. She is showing you the mercy and forgiveness God wants to show us, and in turn, we are called to show others. Forgiveness is an erasing of that debt. That means when we forgive, we don’t keep brooding on the wrong or keep bringing it up or put it away to bring out a at a later date, it is as if it never happened.
Has anyone ever had to forgive someone? Has anyone ever had to be forgiven? Have you ever held a grudge? It is hard to forgive someone and show mercy. It takes grace and virtue, a habit, to train ourselves to put away our feelings and who someone true mercy.
Prodigal Son
Jesus told us in the Bible that those who know Him know the Father, so by his mercy and forgiveness, Jesus is showing us how merciful God our Father is in heaven. He desires to show us His mercy, but mercy can’t be given until we suffer from our sin and show true remorse. When we realize what we did is wrong.
There are many Old Testament stories and New Testament stories that show God’s mercy. The story we will highlight today is the story of the prodigal son. Prodigal means to spend money recklessly so right off the bat we know it is a story about a son who wastes money recklessly.
Everyone loves this parable today. Why was this parable so powerful to Jesus’ audience?
- To ask one’s father for one’s share of the inheritance early was unheard of in antiquity; in effect, one would thereby say, “Father, I wish you were already dead.” Such a statement would not go over well even today, and in a society stressing obedience to one’s father it would be a serious act of rebellion for which the father could have beaten him or worse.
- His Father would have had to sell many things in order to give him half of his inheritance; not to mention it would have been publicly humiliating to have one’s son treat their father in that manner.
- When the younger son ran out of money and famine hit, he went to work at a pig farm which shows how far he had fallen. Pigs were considered unclean to Jews. They aren’t allowed to eat pig meat nor would pigs have even been in Israel. This tell us he was hired by a non-Jew or Gentile which would have been the lowest, most demoralizing position imaginable to Jesus’ Jewish listeners.
- If a Jewish boy lost his family inheritance among the Gentiles and sought to return home, the community would have cut him off from the Jewish people. He would be an outcast and no one would have anything to do with him. So going home would not be putting himself in a very favorable situation anyway.
- For the older son, this whole situation is inconceivable. Reconciliation and restoration cannot occur without a penalty being paid by the offending party – that is the way it is to be. Since that is not what has happened, the oldest son is too angry to take part in any of it.
- The father’s response to the younger son was countercultural. The son had overtly and severely rebelled against the father, yet the father ran to him, embraced him, and celebrated his return with an extravagant party.
The tax collectors and “sinners” Jesus spent his time with would have identified immediately with the younger son. The Pharisees and the scribes looked down their noses at those “sinners.” These religious elite may have initially seen themselves in the older son, but Jesus’ final words likely made them squirm. The loving father reminded the older son that everything he owned had always been his. The older brother had been wallowing in his own pity and self-righteousness angry his brother left him with the burden of the work when he could have been walking in the freedom and joy afforded him as a son!
Why is this parable so powerful today?
What does Jesus reveal about the love of God the Father and our relationship with Him?
Beginning of the Story (younger son asks for inheritance) - We have Free Will
End of the story (father welcomes and forgives the remorseful son) - God's love is unflinching
Details Jesus shares about the prodigal son’s attitude when returning to the father. - He showed remorse; he was changed
Two fundamental truths of our faith:
GOD IS LOVE
WE ARE FREE
Cycle of Mercy
Sin (chosen alienation from God) 🡪 suffering 🡪 sinner’s remorse and repentance 🡪 God’s loving mercy
Sin (chosen alienation from God) 🡪 suffering 🡪 sinner’s remorse and repentance 🡪 God’s loving mercy
Divine Mercy
This is the kind of mercy Jesus was showing the “sinners” and the mercy he shows us through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Jesus shows us that love is more powerful than betrayal, grace stronger than sin. Divine Mercy, then appears to be the unchangeable nature in God by which He cannot "take pleasure in the death of the wicked man, but rather in the wicked man's conversion [turning around back to God] that he may live" (Ezek 33:11). God desires our conversion – he desires to be with us. He is always there with open arms despite our sinfulness. It’s we who have a choice to turn towards God and repent of our sins and live a life in Christ, OR we can choose to rebel against God and choose our own way in life.
Once we accept God’s mercy “our reception of divine mercy is wholly contingent on our ability to show mercy to others…by making God’s forgiveness contingent on our forgiveness we become a channel of divine mercy, which flows through us to others” (https://www.simplycatholic.com/mercy-in-the-bible/). It is critical that we are merciful and forgiving to others who are suffering in their sin. Mercy is not encouraging someone to live in sin and telling them it is OK. Encouraging someone to live in their sin and suffering is the opposite of mercy. Mercy is loving someone despite their sinfulness and being ready to forgive when they feel remorse and then seek forgiveness. However, “repentance does not guarantee that one will avoid suffering and punishment” (https://www.simplycatholic.com/mercy-in-the-bible/). If I rob a bank and show remorse, a mother will forgive her child and God will forgive, but I still must pay the consequences of my choices.
We are the adopted sons and daughters of God. Once a child is adopted, he cannot be disowned for any reason. Whatever belongs to a father also belongs to his children. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, God invites us into a life of freedom as His adopted sons and daughters!
Many of us likely identify with both sons. Maybe we serve God faithfully but get little recognition. Without realizing it, we can start to feel like the older son. Then there are times when we chase after selfish desires only to realize that, like the younger son, we have walked away from our Father.
It’s time to shift our eyes to a truth even more basic than which son we are. It’s time to celebrate the profound truth that we are a son or daughter. And our Father loves us.
Have a great week!
Joyfully, Christina