Mercy and kindness always before power and stridency

The Thinking Anew column in today's Irish Times

Michael Commane
Milo is five and Lucien is two. In early July the two little boys were with their parents at a performance of the main events of the trial of St Oliver Plunkett. The open air enactment took place in front of St Peter’s Church in Drogheda. For the first few minutes of the 30-minute play Milo showed a fleeting interest. The costumes of the actors caught his attention but very quickly he was playing with his younger brother.

Their mother handled  them perfectly and without a single hint of any fuss. She chatted with them, cuddled them and smiled away,  but all the time kept her eye on the actors and attention fixed between the play and her children. She needed no sharp words  to keep her children in control. And it all looked so natural. It certainly worked and obviously her reaction to her children was the perfect response.

Two days later BBC One television screened a Panorama programme on the state of affairs in prisons in the United States. The picture painted was horrific. The programme claimed that one million prisoners in the US suffer from some form of mental illness. There was severe criticism of how prisoners are treated and the harsh and violent treatment that is meted out to them.

And it so happened the next day a right-wing US radio station was extolling the value of reacting to violence with violence. It cited the case of a child being left in a car and subsequently dying from heat. The presenter argued that the person who left the child in the car should experience a similar fate.

Of course when we are confronted head on with force or violence there is that innate reaction or response that tempts us to answer force with force. But is it ever a long-term strategy? Does it work? There may well be occasions when there is no alternative but to answer force with force, but surely that is only in the most extreme situations and conditions.

And do violence or stridency have any place in the Christian vocabulary? In tomorrow’s Gospel (Matthew 13: 24 – 43) we read about the parables of the good and bad seed, the story of the mustard seed and of the woman who buries the yeast, where Jesus compares the yeast to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus admits to his disciples that he speaks in parables, warning them that the stories he tells are not always what they seem.  The audience needs to listen carefully to understand what He is driving at.

Maybe the key to tomorrow’s Gospel is to be found in the first reading  which is from the Book of Wisdom. “Your strength is the source of your justice and because you are the Lord of all, you can be merciful to everyone.” (Wisdom 12: 16)

It’s interesting that Jesus uses the imagery of the mustard seed, the tiniest of seeds. So it’s fragile, needs nurturing, requires great care and support to survive and flourish. So too with the parable where the weed is intermeshed with the good seed, Jesus frowns on the idea of taking early drastic action in separating the good from the bad. Again, there is an emphasis on being gentle and kind, certainly never a case of being overpowering and seeking to dominate.  And so too with the buried yeast, it too is weak and in need of tender care.

Is it possible to conclude from tomorrow’s readings that followers of Jesus, people who follow the Christian path above all else are called to be gentle and kind and maybe especially so with those who think differently than they do?

 Being powerful and strident may  have superficial attractions but in the long run being gentle and kind are virtues far more in keeping with the mission of Jesus Christ.

Take a look around you. It works.