Everything (In) Between: Righteousness & Mercy
This year’s Lenten worship series invites us to get in-between black and white binaries. Our series amplifies Jesus’ invitation to move away from paralyzing polarities that obscure, rather than clarify, the reality we face.
We are coming to understand that while these dualistic binaries and polarities may seem to simplify our lives at first glance, they can easily keep us from grappling with the deeper truth into which Christ is calling us.
Today, we consider the alleged polarity between righteousness and mercy. We will come to see that these are not in opposition. Rather, they are parts of a process in which both work together, bringing healing and reconciliation to individuals and communities.
First, however, I’d like to lay some groundwork by asking you to hear two short questions. Ready?
Are you with us good guys?
Are you with them bad guys?
Of course, these questions can be deployed in a variety of situations; much will depend on who’s asking, and much will depend on what the exact context is. But we can distill out of these questions that the words doing the work in them are the two adjectives: good and bad, and the two pronouns: us and them.
As I think about good and bad and us and them, I can feel how closely us and good stick together and how closely them and bad stick together. Do you feel that?
And that’s not crazy. Especially for us upstanding church folks and most people who feel like they want to be good or try to be good. It’s probably a good thing in most situations to feel like we identify with good people. I suspect that if we want to do the right thing it will generally be an encouragement to us if we’re identifying with those we consider good people who do the right thing. I want to be one of the good guys. Don’t you?
And, conversely, again, especially for us upstanding church folks and most people who feel like they want to avoid being bad or who are trying not to do the wrong things, it can be helpful to in all sorts of ways NOT identify with folks who are behaving badly. We don’t want to be among those bad guys.
But here’s the thing, it can lead us into trouble if we can’t separate us and good. For example, we might be mistaken about what is good. And the crowd who are us might just be reinforcing a wrong understanding about what is good and bad or right and wrong among ourselves and it can be challenging to separate ourselves from our friends.
We must always be aware that we are more likely to be convinced of a wrong idea or bad behavior or practice that is considered right, good, and normal among our friends and associates.
I’m reminded of a gay married couple I once knew. One of the couple was estranged from their parents. Their parents were part of a fundamentalist church that thought their marriage was wrong, that they were in a sinful relationship. And so these parents were estranged from their child and their child’s partner. Now, I’m pretty sure that part of what was going on was that the parents could not separate from the us good guys of their church. This was a sad sad sad situation for the child. Their parents cast them as one of them bad guys.
But even if – even if – one conscientiously believes that same-gender marriage or same-gender romantic relationships are wrong, doesn’t it give us pause that the stickiness between us and good can’t be dissolved to allow for parents to affirm an us that includes their child?
And now we’re in a better position to consider the supposed binary between righteousness and mercy.
Again, consider the two questions:
Are you with us good guys?
Are you with them bad guys?
Righteousness has to do with the adjectives characterizing good and bad actions and persons.
Mercy has to do with the pronouns: whom will we bring into mercy? Mercy is the offer to transform them into part of a larger us. Mercy is the offer to transform them into part of a larger us.
I think you can already begin to see how this plays into the story of Zaccheus before us.
Zaccheus was clearly one of them bad guys. He was a collaborator with the oppressive and hated occupying Romans. To be a tax collector was bad enough, but it seems that he was even more greedy than he needed to be. He was a persecuting enemy collaborator.
And so when Jesus pays Zaccheus special attention, honors Zaccheus – one of them bad guys – the bystanders resent Jesus’ engaging him with respect. Going so far as to honor Zaccheus with the opportunity to host Jesus in his home. How can Jesus honor one of them bad guys?
From Zaccheus’ standpoint, he is attracted by Jesus’ celebrity status. But he wants to remain invisible. He’s hiding. Being in the sycamore tree is a way of seeing without being seen. He knows he is one of “them bad guys.”
But we can see what is going on here: Jesus identifies him as one of us – ultimately referring to Zaccheus as a child of Abraham. One of us. Jesus sees him as a lost sheep, not a marginal goat or a treacherous wolf. And in engaging with Zaccheus, the opening for restoration and healing emerges.
When Jesus invites him to come down from the tree, and in inviting himself to be Zaccheus’ guest, he breaks through the them to recognize Zaccheus as one of Jesus’ us. And, as Zaccheus becomes part of Jesus’ us, Zaccheus finds himself empowered to repent back into righteousness.
Mercy is not opposed to righteousness; mercy is a part of the path toward righteousness.
The steps of progression go like this:
They are one of them bad guys. A recognition that they are doing a bad thing.
We recognize that they are still one of us. We offer mercy.
This opens the door to their self-recognition, repentance, and change to righteousness.
They become one of us good guys.
Note that recognizing deviations from righteousness is part of the progression. It’s part of the package. Being a chiseling, traitorous tax collector is bad. Let’s not forget that moral judgments – moral differentiations – are appropriate. People get hurt when people do bad things. Let’s not lose sight of that.
But at the same time, note that righteousness and mercy are not antithetical, both are part of a process. A sequence. Our encounter with Jesus challenges us to participate in that process, mindful of both mercy and righteousness.
In the material that supports this Everything In Between series, there’s a reference to a piece by a popular Christian author, Nadia Bolz Weber, who wrote this in her substack blog in December of 2024, three and a half months ago.
A couple weeks ago as I read so many passionate pleas for people to refuse to attend Thanksgiving with family members who voted for Trump (even if your uncle has loved you your entire life, you were expected out of ideological loyalty to abandon the reality of that love for the dopamine bump of self-righteousness) I found myself wishing we could just shake the etch-a-sketch in this country. And that maybe when the silvery sand settled blank, every one of us who has been incrementally pushed farther apart from each other over the years … could see each other as beautiful and worthy of flourishing: trans folks, gun owners, immigrants, “trad wives”, military veterans, incarcerated folks, prison guards, atheists, priests, straight white guys, Black women. That feels like the Kingdom of God. And the Kingdom of God, like its founder, refuses to be domesticated by our current ideological agendas.
[https://thecorners.substack.com/p/the-case-for-revival-an-announcement]
My original intention was that my message this morning would end on this note. These words are certainly ones I endorse. Ultimately, the division between good guys and bad guys is an illusion. Jesus is always calling us away from finger-pointing into the larger us.
Yet the world has moved on in the three and half months since mid-December when she wrote this and I need to acknowledge that as well, so I invite you to come out on a limb with me. And maybe you will feel the urge to take up a saw.
As the weeks have gone by, the current regime in Washington has operated with an increasing level of callousness, cruelty, and recklessness that I can only characterize as evil. We know it’s evil because of a lack of respect for human dignity and the abuse of power. The current regime in Washington is doubling down on the stickiness of us-good and acting out revenge on those they consider them bad guys. The current regime knows neither righteousness nor mercy.
In the last two months we have moved beyond the level of political and policy disagreement into the realm of moral turpitude. This is not a matter of ideological agenda. It is a matter of identifying evil when we see it.
I can tell you that I preached regularly for 35 years. On many occasions I had political and policy disagreements with the government. Sometimes those disagreements were rooted in moral and ethical positions rooted in the gospel. Yet moral purity is not to be expected in governing, and there are often many competing interests that governments must consider in enacting policies. I get that.
The situation we confront today is starkly different. I am calling on us to recognize together that what’s going on now is not normal. And it’s not right. Again, the current regime knows neither righteousness nor mercy. Some people are doing bad things and other people are getting hurt. And worst of all, the regime pretends that it is standing up for Christianity, adding blasphemy to the indictment.
So, if we good, upstanding church folk are going to be true to our baptismal vows, we need to recognize it and respond.
We have vowed to:
…accept the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.
And that is one step in the righteousness – mercy progression. Recognizing bad behavior.
I confess that I am not clear about what the next steps are in actual practice. I’m open to suggestions. I am clear, however, that we are called to proceed with courage, wisdom, and humility, to find our way toward the kind of wider mercy which Nadia Bolz Weber envisions.
In the coming days, let our prayer be that whenever and however this day’s Zaccheuses come down from hiding in their sycamore trees, we can find the way and the place in-between righteousness and mercy. And until then, let us pray for the courage, wisdom, and humility to resist evil, injustice, and oppression.
I invite you to begin those prayers in these moments of quiet.