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By Joseph Xavier, SJ

A dog breeder

wanted to sell some of his newborn puppies. As he was putting up a poster on the edge of his yard, he felt someone was pulling his apron. It was a little boy. “Sir,” he said, “I want to buy one of your puppies.” The breeder said, “Well, these puppies come from fine parents and cost a good deal of money.” The boy pulled out a handful of change from his pocket and held it up to the man. “Is that enough to take a look?” asked the boy. “Sure, ” said the man. So, both of them went into the doghouse to have a look at the puppies. There came the mother dog followed by four small puppies. As the dogs made their way to the fence, the little boy noticed something else stirring inside the doghouse. Slowly a tiny puppy emerged from the corner. While trying to catch up with the rest, the tiny pup slid and fell down, but staggered on. “I want that one,” the little boy said, pointing to the weakest. The man said, “Son, he will never be able to run and play with you like the other dogs.” With that, the little boy stepped back from the fence, reached down, and began rolling up one leg of his trousers. In doing so, he revealed a steel brace running down both sides of his leg attaching itself to a specially made shoe. Looking back up at the man, he said, “You see sir, I don’t run too well myself, and he will need someone who understands.” Yes, our God in Christ is ‘Someone’ who understands us!

It is often said that how we live our faith is conditioned to a significant degree by particular beliefs already held about God. Therefore, at the outset, we may ask ourselves: What is our image of God? Is he a justice-conscious taskmaster? Or is he a compassionate God who understands us and our difficulties?

Jesus: The merciful Face

of God

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“Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy.” This is the image of God that Pope Francis proposes us in the Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Misericordiae Vultus (MV). If he is a merciful God, how do we know that? Again, if Jesus is God-incarnate - the only way we can know God, - then in what way his life reflects the merciful face of God? In order to respond to these queries, let us briefly see the biblical notion of God. God’s Being as Pro-existence

Modern theological scholarship has revisited God’s image in the Bible. It has proposed Pro-existence (being-for /exist-for) as the key to understand the true image of God. Recently, none other than Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, has commented on it. According to him, the “pro-existence” of Christ is the central insight that touches the life of every Christian. Christians participate in this being-for of Christ. Christians, so to speak, do not exist for themselves, but, along with Christ, they exist for others (Cf. L’Osservatore Romano, Eng. ed., 1 April 2016, 10). Indeed, it concurs with the biblical notion of God.

We know that the biblical idea of God has to do with the revelation of God’s name to Moses. When Moses asked the self-revealing God for his name, the answer he got was: “I am the one who is there.” This revelation of God in the Greek translation of the Bible, the Septuagint, got altered

and it became “I am who I am” (Ex 3:14). Unfortunately, the Christian theological tradition followed the Greek translation which interpreted God’s presence as “to be” in agreement with the Greek philosophy of “being.” While the biblical God is the One who is with his people in their distress and accompanies them on their way, the Greek notion of God is a detached “being” that is theoretically omnipresent but practically impotent. It is important to note that, in the Bible, as the scholars say, “I am,” does not mean a passive existence of a certain divinity, but rather the dynamic engagement of a caring and committed God. Here, God articulates his innermost reality not as a demiurge or an indifferent God, but as the One who is being present for his people. Thus, the answer that Yahweh gives to Moses conveys the message that God is the One “who is there for you, who is with you and by you.” God’s name, therefore, is both a commitment and a promise. In other words, in the Bible, God is not an ‘idea’ but a presence that the people could experience in their lives. Thus, Israel could completely rely on him and his promise. That is why, for example, the Psalms are so eloquent and evocative that they have become the expressions of living faith. In fact, when the Israelites say “Amen,” they know that their God is present and active in their midst. But unfortunately, what happened in the Christian theological tradition was that the “Pro-existent” (being-for) character of God was overshadowed by the “being” nature of God (Ego sum qui sum). Thus, to borrow a phrase from Blaise Pascal, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has become the God of the philosophers!God’s Pro-existence in NT

Now let us look at the image of God in the New Testament. The first letter of John summarizes it in three words: “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). How are we to understand that? For Christians, God is not a naval-gazing

Thus, the answer that Yahweh

gives to Moses conveys the message

that God is the One “who is there for you,

who is with you and by you.”

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narcissist divinity who is interested only in himself. Rather, the Christian notion of God is defined as the One that communicates and bestows himself as gift, especially in the Incarnation and his continued presence in the Eucharist. The Christian notion of the Incarnation is not a fable that struggles to describe some divinity’s self-affirmation or a desperate attempt to attract our attention to his existence and thereby seeking human beings’ servile adoration. On the contrary, the Christian understanding of God’s intervention in our history is all about God’s pro-existence for our sake. Following the pattern of the Old Testament, in the New Testament, God reveals himself as a human being and gives himself totally to his people. The infinite God has become a finite human being. When God comes down to our level, the whole discourse on God is changed to theological anthropology. As Karl Rahner reminds us, if the Incarnation means God-with-us, which is not a temporal arrangement but an eternal decision, it has eternal consequences as well. If God has become a human person, he cannot be but Emmanuel (Mt 1:23). That is to say, God in Jesus Christ is the concrete way of his “pro-existence” (exist-for) for humanity, a decision to be with us forever: “I will be with you till the end of time” (Mt 20: 28). In the Incarnation, God gives himself to the world in a tangible way and thus makes our world a world of Emmanuel (God-with-us). Of course, we need the “eye of faith” to see his continued presence among us.

What happens to this self-giving God in the Incarnation? The core of Jesus’ pro-existence is explained in the Last Supper (that the Christians recall at the Eucharist): “This is my body, given up for you. His being is “being for us and for all.” In fact, the pro nobis (for us) is the meaning of his earthly existence. Here I am reminded of the words of C.S. Lewis: “God is a ‘host’ who deliberately creates His own

parasites; causes us to be that we may exploit and ‘take advantage of’ Him” (Four Loves). Life of Jesus as Expression of God’s Mercy

Looking at the earthly life of Jesus, we notice the same pattern of pro-existence—his life is entirely dedicated to/for others. His public ministry began with a declaration of intent in the synagogue in Nazareth (Lk 4:18-19). It was a proclamation of a year of favour, that is, a year of liberation for the poor and needy. Again, while recounting his public ministry, the Gospels tell us how the Kingdom of God breaks in through his miraculous healing of all kinds of sickness. In other words, the life of Jesus tells us that God in Jesus liberates or saves people from all those powers that harm human life. Thus, Jesus’ very life becomes an expression of God’s mercy.

Jesus on his part speaks of the importance of mercy. To his adversaries, Jesus says: “Go and learn the meaning of ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’” (Mt 9:13). From this we know that Jesus’ notion of religion is quite different from that of the religious leaders of his time. For Jesus, religion does not lead to separation, but engagement and openness to others, especially to the so-called sinners. Indeed, there is no doubt that his conduct destabilizes the establishment. Jesus’ table fellowship with the outcast is an indirect indictment of the Pharisaic

Jesus’ table fellowship with the outcast

is an indirect indictment of the Pharisaic notion

of religion where the sinners and outcasts have no place.

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otion of religion where the sinners and outcasts have no place. While Jesus reveals the merciful face of God, the religious leaders with their obsession for traditions and ritual purity reveal a very grim face of an exacting divinity, a representation of their own hard-heartedness. Whereas the religious leaders are busy in saving themselves from contamination through “boundary maintenance,” Jesus crosses all boundaries, especially with his table-fellowship with the so-called sinners. The reason is very simple: A doctor needs to have intimate contact with the sick if he wants to heal them. To borrow a phrase from Pope Francis, Jesus, the heavenly doctor, has no difficulty in taking on the “smell of the sheep” and patiently seeking to accompany them on their journey.

I n J e s u s we h a ve a n e w understanding of God as merciful and just, forgiving and accepting, open and inclusive. For such a liberating vision of mercy, Jesus was pursued, persecuted, crucified and killed by the religious leaders. Yes, they could kill Jesus, but could not separate him from the people who are in need of God’s mercy because he is God incarnate—Emmanuel (God-with-us).Mercy and Parables of Jesus

In addition to his own life as pro-existence, Jesus conveys this merciful image of God the Father through various parables. There are many parables in the Gospels that show God as the merciful Father. Pope Francis mentions some of them in Misericordiae Vultus. Among them, the parables of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan have special significance for us. Though the parable of the Good Samaritan is very important, constraints of space will not allow us to go into it.

Jesus tells the parables of the Prodigal Son to the grumbling religious leaders, who are upset that Jesus spends time with sinners and eats with them (Lk 15:2). Using the parable, Jesus gives the whiners a lesson. Indeed, the younger son in the parable squandered his father’s fortune in dissolute living. But let us note that, though the son has forfeited his rights of inheritance, the father has not ceased to be the son’s father. In other words, the father’s fatherhood does not depend on the son’s irresponsible behaviour. The father can never disown his son, though the son failed him on every count. That is the image of God in the Bible, both in the OT and the NT— God is the one who remains faithful to his promise even in the face of Israel’s infidelity. That is the meaning of divine justice. We fail to appreciate the dynamics of divine justice and mercy if our understanding of justice is based purely on human logic. Further, let us remember that God is not conditioned by our limited logic and his mercy does not depend on anything other than himself: “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (Ex 33:19). Therefore, in God, mercy and justice can coexist without any contradiction.

Coming back to the parable of the Prodigal Son, we notice the conduct of the father at the sight of his son at a distance. According to the gospel, the father is moved with compassion (Lk 15: 20). So the father does not wait for his son’s mea culpa, but goes toward him and reinstates him as his son. Here again, the father’s mercy exceeds our human calculation. As mentioned, his mercy does not depend on the material goods that the son ruined, but on his relation to his son and his dignity. It is the measure of the father’s love. What comes out of the parable is that, when we turn to God, his mercy does not humiliate us.

In the parable, we cannot ignore the presence of the elder brother. According to Pope Francis, the elder

When we turn to God, his mercy

does not humiliate us.

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brother only thinks about himself. He boasts about having always stayed by the father’s side and served him. But it was not the service of a joyful son, but of a depressed slave: “Poor father. One son left and the other had never been truly close!” (Audience, 11 May 2016)

While narrating the parable, Jesus also wants to tell each one of us: “It is not someone else’ story; it is your story.” All of us, in one way or another, are prodigal/self-righteous sons and daughters. Therefore, in Christ, God himself comes to meet us and takes us in his arms. This is Gospel or Good News for the fallen! From God’s perspective, no matter how desperate the situation might be, no one is unworthy and ever lost. Again, for God, nothing is too late and impossible. In this parable, Jesus reveals us the true and perfect image of God: i.e. mercy is the perfection of God’s essence. It exceeds every human measure and calculation.

Conclusion The gospel of mercy challenges

us all. The story of Jesus as the merciful face of God is not a play that we watch with the sentiments of an indifferent spectator. We are called to follow the footsteps of Jesus. Certainly, for us, it is easier to relate to an exacting God who demands payment for sin and thus we earn his love—a sort of spiritual barter system. God in Jesus Christ disrupts that system of (spiritual) exchange: “Jesus reminds us that you stay in the house of the Father not to get compensation, but because you have the dignity of being a jointly responsible child. It’s not about ‘bartering’ with God, but following Jesus who gave himself on the cross” (Pope Francis, Audience, 11 May 2016). In fact, our sense of right order is deeply challenged by the merciful God who follows a different logic. The summons to follow the example of the merciful Father in our dealings with others is a tough task. Like the Pharisees, it is easier for us to observe the law than to follow Jesus’ compassionate pro-existence.

“Be you merciful as your heavenly

father is merciful” (Lk 6:36). It is indeed an invitation hard to accept. We are tempted to ask: Doesn’t mercy give free reign to evildoers? Sometimes we can’t see the wood for the trees. We fail to appreciate the beauty and richness of mercy because we are too obsessed with justice. We should remember that a welcoming attitude does not necessarily mean we endorse what others do. Jesus did not do that when he dined with the so-called sinners. In other words, mercy and the principle of inclusion do not mean a mentality of “anything goes.” Those who resist mercy due to an inflated sense of justice, especially the ministers of the sacraments, need to ask themselves: If I were in the place of those who missed the spiritual or moral targets (of course, with all the trials they faced in their lives), would have I done differently? Am I impeccable and infallible? Is not God’s mercy a grace for me too? To such people, Pope Francis has this advice: “All of us are sinners, but we often fall into the temptation of hypocrisy, of believing ourselves better than others and we say: “Look at your sin …”

Instead we should all look at our sin, our falls, our mistakes and look at the Lord” (Audience, 20 April 2016). Christians, especially its leaders, need to make a choice on whom to follow: Jesus of Nazareth or the Pharisees of Jerusalem. Ultimately, it all depends on the image of God that we carry within us.

It is easier for us to observe the law

than to follow Jesus’ compassionate pro-existence.

Fr Joseph Xavier, SJ, teaches theology at the Gregorian University, Rome. He can be contacted at xavier@unigre.it