The Book of Wisdom used God as the example of perfect righteousness and strength. God’s absolute power over all is all the more reason why God chooses to have mercy on all. God cares for all people, not just a chosen few or those who lead blameless lives. Despite God’s limitless power and strength, God judges with mildness and shows great patience in dealing with wayward humanity. Some may shrug and say, “That’s fine for God — that’s God’s job. What does that have to do with me?” Wisdom drives the point home: by consistently displaying such qualities, God has taught humanity that the righteous must be kind.
Simple and devastating words — the righteous must be kind. This was what Jesus was trying to teach people when he clashed with religious authorities — kindness and compassion come before everything. Religious people of all times and places have struggled to learn this simple lesson and have usually fallen short of the ideal.
Much to the chagrin and irritation of some people, Pope Francis has urged us to change our attitudes, and to treat people with kindness and compassion even (especially) when we do not agree with them. Moralizing and condemning is a form of spiritual arrogance and pride that does not reflect the qualities of God or the example of Jesus. God has always been patient and kind with us and so we must be so with others. True righteousness always seeks to respect, encourage and give hope to others.
When we are honest with ourselves, we admit that we are weak and flawed. It is difficult to be as loving and kind as we need to be or to pray as we ought. When we are humble and open enough to allow it, the Spirit roams through the dim corridors and locked rooms of our heart and gives divine voice to our own unspoken prayers and yearning. The purpose of the Spirit is to give us the guidance and strength that we need and to draw us ever closer to God. In a sense, the Spirit explains to God who we are, with all of our quirks, hurts and weaknesses, in ways that we would find impossible.
The theme of patience and kindness was again present in the parables of the kingdom of heaven related by Jesus. In the human obsession with order and perfection great harm and violence is often inflicted on self and others. The householder’s staff wanted to root out and destroy all of the weeds growing among the wheat. In a similar fashion, many cannot abide the presence of disorder or human sin and so seek to destroy it or force goodness and perfection on others.
The oppression and bloodshed of utopian movements is but an extreme example of this phenomenon. The householder counselled patience — perfectionist zeal could damage even the good wheat. Good and evil are separated at the end of time and the final judgment. In the meantime, both are interwoven in ways that we do not fully understand. In some ways, the presence of imperfection and evil in the world can even work towards a higher purpose. Work for justice we must, but with the warning not to let an excess of zeal and mania for order create an even greater mess or damage others.
Jesus followed this parable with two similar stories that urged patience. People usually want immediate results and become discouraged when things don’t seem to be changing as fast as they would like. The mustard seeds and the yeast remind us that all great things begin in tiny and seemingly insignificant ways. They grow and transform their environment at their own speed. We cannot make the seed grow faster or the yeast transform the dough instantaneously.
Being patient means trusting in God and in the divine process. In the meantime, we can practice being as patient and kind as God.