Jesus repeatedly enjoined his followers to “be compassionate as God is compassionate. ” Each time God appears in Scripture, the first words are “Do not be afraid.” 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, and fear is more about that we might hurt God, not that God might hurt us. Compassion is central to all authentic religions, it’s the penultimate invitation, since it’s the medium that takes us to our last invitation, which is union with God. In todays’ reading from Matthew’s Gospel, 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. Quoting Scripture scholar Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “Proper prayer and proper practice were seen as the essence of religion in Old Testament times until the prophets came and said, but God doesn’t care so much about all these rules; God cares about the poor. 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.” So in the end, there will be only one set of questions: “If you love me, you’ll keep my word; if you don’t keep my word, don’t pretend that you are loving me. Did you feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the prisoners?” Jesus said “God is in the poor,’” so what you’re doing to the poor, you’re doing to God. Jesus said “Let him who is without sin throw the first stone,” he wrote on the ground with his finger twice. Pope Francis was not the first to say, “Who am I to judge?” 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.[1]
[1] Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s reflection, “Be Compassionate as God is Compassionate” December 2022.