The Loving Kindness and Mercy of Jesus Not Being Present

The last few days I have been at a monastery on retreat. In praying and reading I have been encountering and embracing the loving goodness, mercy, and kindness of God. Today I listened to a brilliant sermon about how Jesus was the only person who looked at the woman caught in adultery as a person. To others she was objectified as either a dirty sinner, an object lesson, or, in actuality, bait for Jesus to make a false move.

I’ve watched little news. One of the biggest news stories has been the election of Pope Francis who has been a remarkable witness to the loving goodness, mercy, and kindness of Jesus. His thoughtful humility has been refreshing. My hope and prayer is that his message of grace and charity is one that permeates large amounts of discussion.

Several things in the world of politics were noteworthy, I would imagine.

One was Rob Portman changing his mind about gay marriage. He said the other day:

"I'm announcing today a change of heart on an issue that a lot of people feel strongly about that has to do with gay couples' opportunity to marry. I've come to the conclusion that for me, personally, I think this is something that we should allow people to do, to get married, and to have the joy and stability of marriage that I've had for over 26 years. That I want all of my children to have, including our son, who is gay. "

This was not a political statement, this was totally personal. His son is gay and he loves his son and wants everything in life for his son. He changed his position on the subject.

The response to him has been, in part, something very troubling brings me to the other observation. CPAC met this week. This is not a Republican group as much as it is a ‘conservative group’ within the party. I’m not sure it should be called CPAC as much as MPAC, with M being mean.

Many people responded to Portman telling him is he ungodly and unchristian and going to hell. There was not much of the loving goodness, mercy, and kindness of Jesus in many messages and responses to Portman.

At CPAC the loving goodness, mercy, and kindness of Jesus was not in session. Mean was in session. Some people spoke of their concern over some of the issues of the day. Whether one agrees with them or not is really not my concern. Many said it was ‘red meat,’ but I greatly disagree. It was a lot of mean spirited rhetoric. Jeb Bush, to his credit, did not fall into this trip when he said, "We're associated with being anti-everything . Way too many people believe that Republicans are anti-immigrant, anti-woman, anti-science, anti-gay, anti-worker. Many voters are simply unwilling to choose our candidates because those voters feel unloved, unwanted, and unwelcome in our party.”

He didn’t get nearly the applause lines that other people received. Many of those other people mocked and barbed people they did not agree with. It wasn’t so much political, it was personal. In many of the speeches, ‘Christian values’ were raised, minus the loving goodness, mercy, and kindness of Jesus.

There is no justice without mercy and there is no Gospel without the love, the mercy, and the kindness of Jesus at the center.

Over the years I have been mean to others and have used some amazingly cutting barbs, mostly written, at others. I’ve shared them on Facebook and probably on here. I regret that. The more I ponder being a person of faith the more aware I am that unless we embrace and live the loving kindness and mercy of Jesus, we are missing the mark.