The Mercy of God

 

Richard Rohr once used the story of Jonah to speak about God’s mercy. He said that when Jonah preached repentance to the Ninevites, they repented by putting on sackcloth and ashes so God did not destroy them. But Jonah became angry at God. He thought God should have punished the Ninevites because they had done terrible things. One translation of Jonah says, “Don’t you know me, Jonah, that I’m mercy within mercy within mercy?”

Jesus too was sent to preach repentance to the Jewish people, yet they crucified him. Still God forgave those who killed Jesus and did not destroy them. God does not bear grudges. He is a God of mercy.

We, too, have a hard time understanding the mercy of God. We want people to pay for their sins, their wrongdoings. Even if they repent, we still think they should be punished in some way before they are forgiven. We can’t seem to fully comprehend the abundant mercy of God.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, is a noteworthy example of how the Puritans treated sinners. The character Hester Prynne, who had committed adultery, had to wear a scarlet letter the rest of her life so all would know her sin.

Even today, those who have spent time in prison must declare this on their job applications which often prohibits them from obtaining employment. A number of states also prohibit ex-felons from voting after they have served their sentences.

Richard Rohr reminds us that we are more like Jonah than we like to admit. “And that is why like Jonah we need, in the spiritual life, to be shocked and shaken out of certain fixed ways of thinking and feeling,” he says. We need to believe that God is “mercy within mercy within mercy.”