Read Romans 2:1-8
Recently I attended Les Miserables for the first time. It was amazing. I had not seen any of the film adaptations over the years nor had I read Victor Hugo’s masterpiece upon which the musical is based. Even beyond the immense talents of the performers, the mind reels at the skill necessary to make such a powerful, yet concise, performance out of 1000 pages of literature.
Spoilers ahead! Although, since the novel is over 160 years old it is really on you if you do not know the story at all.
Going into the performance, I was really only aware of the scene where the protagonist Jean Valjean experiences grace from a bishop who takes him into his home. Valjean repays the kindness by stealing some silverware. The bishop, when Valjean is presented to him by the authorities with the evidence of his crime, rather than ensuring his recidivism informs the police that he had given Valjean the silverware; and that he had left some of his gifts behind! This moment of mercy changes Valjean’s life forever even though he can never escape his past identity as a thief to some. His character arc is the most obvious example of what Hugo called the novel’s march from “evil to good… nothingness to God… The starting point: matter; destination: the soul…”.
As I experienced the performance, I came to realize that there are 3 viewpoints at tension in the musical. Valjean, who has experienced grace and mercy and having been transformed is trying to live a life marked by both going forward. Javert the indomitable lawman doggedly chasing after Valjean to bring him to justice. The crafty Thenardier who provides comic relief all the while exhibiting a belief in doing whatever it takes to survive and take what you can get whenever and wherever. Thenardier’s worldview is the only one that is atheistic. The musical asks the listener to choose between a path of enlightened grace, slavish adherence to law and order, or a strictly self-serving existence. Each of the three characters have identities that are shaped by the viewpoint they espouse.
What does any of this have to do with the second chapter of Romans? This will take a minute or two of your time but bear with me.
Above is a print from one of the many editions of Les Miserables. Depicted is the death of Javert. The intrepid lawman has chosen to end his own life in the rapids of the Seine. What drives him to this despair? Jean Valjean had the opportunity to kill him and chose instead to demonstrate the same grace that he had himself once experienced when his own life hung in the hands of the bishop so long before. Javert whose identity and self-worth are so wrapped up in his understandings of good vs evil and the keeping of the law cannot fathom a world build on such mercy.
As he stares into the churning waters below, he sings:
Who is this man?
What sort of devil is he?
To have me caught in a trap
And choose to let me go free?
Vengeance was his and he gave me back my life!
Damned if I’ll live in the debt of a thief
Damned if I’ll yield at the end of the chase
I am the Law and the Law is not mocked
I’ll spit his pity right back in his face
And must I now begin to doubt,
Who never doubted all those years?
My heart is stone and still it trembles.
The world I have known is lost in shadow.
Unable to conceive of a world that has space for mercy, Javert would rather die and escape a world of mercy if it does not comport to his understanding of justice. If the law is to be circumvented by grace, then the law is mocked. He prefers the darkness of death to his shattered worldview.
Paul, the apostle, not a character from Les Miserables, culminated his discussion of the impact of idolatry on the soul with a litany of evils (1:18-25) that demonstrate the coming wrath of God is justified. As, chapter 2 begins he turns his indictment on the least suspecting evil of idolatry: the self-righteous.
Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.
Paul knows that his audience (mostly Hellenized Jews in Rome) would have heard his railings against idolatry as judgment on the gentiles and in their hearts would be providing a hearty amen! It was not uncommon in the sermons and writing of first century Jews (and earlier) to point out the many ways in which the gentiles fell short of God’s law. Paul knows that the “amens” in their hearts and thoughts of “yeah, you tell them Paul” belies a heart that is not aligned with God but rather one that takes the place of God and renders judgment on others. I suspect that the first time that the letter to the Romans was read to the gathered faithful there was silence in this moment.
…do you suppose… when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?
Paul is never one to mince words. Look back at the litany of Romans 1:18-25. Everyone is on that list somewhere at some point in their lives. To bring it immediately back to Javert, Paul literally says that God’s wrath is coming because people are “insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.“
Javert would rather die than try to live in a world that makes room for mercy.
Paul asks all of us who pass judgment to reconsider our own need for a gracious response from God. Our failure to be self-reflective of our own weaknesses before a Holy God belies a subtle belief that others are more deserving of God’s wrath to come. Honest assessment of our own need for grace should makes us more loving and merciful. The failure to do so means we are at risk of following a God of our own making, one that judges those whom we judge and one that would never hold us accountable. Paul writes: Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?
Jesus told a parable about a King who forgave an exceptional debt to one of his servants. That servant subsequently refused to forgive the much smaller debt of someone else. When the King heard of this, he had the unforgiving servant imprisoned and tortured until he paid back what was owed. Jesus concluded the parable saying, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart” (Mt 18:21-35).
Paul says that we have a choice. We can choose hardened hearts (Javert does so to the point of death), or we can recognize God’s mercy towards us as an opportunity to repent and choose grace and mercy as the guideposts of our faith. Paul assures us that there is a reckoning to come and those of us who choose to practice self-righteousness will be found wanting. In the end we will have mocked, not the law, but God himself.
So long as Christ has not returned then there is still time for us to repent (to change the way we think) and live lives marked by mercy and forgiveness. Those who persevere will experience eternal life, what Jesus called “the joy of the Master”. Best to not comment on the alternative.
What Javert (and far too many Christians) fail to understand is that mercy does not mock the law. Mercy does not negate the law. Mercy only exists because of the power of the law to condemn. Law has no means of forgiving; it can only assign guilt and punish. Mercy and its cousin grace only exist where there is first a law.
I can only appreciate the freedom mercy allows if I understand the penalty that is due. Mercy only has meaning where law is taken seriously. Jean Valjean understands the mercy of the bishop because he has already experienced the penalty for theft. In contrast, the rascal Thernardier has no respect for the law because he has always thwarted it. The self-righteous Javert having never broken the law feels justified in his interpretation of the law and its application.
Transformation in the Christian sense begins with the understanding of the need for grace. (I urge you because of the mercies of God to not be conformed to this world but rather to be transformed by the renewing of your mind…) A true understanding of the righteousness of God leads to an admission of guilt before the throne. The subsequent feelings of conviction and self-recrimination produced in us is a recognition of the righteousness and holiness of God and the wonder of his mercy and grace. We are forgiven and pronounced righteous instead of judged as guilty. Both Javert’s world of crime and punishment and Thernardier’s cavalier approach to life lead to death. Only Jean Valjean’s world provides the space for redemption.
Throughout the next several chapters of Romans, Paul is going to make us aware of the guilt of everyone before the law and of the exceptional character of God’s grace manifest in our reconciliation through Christ Jesus. That is for future posts. For now, heed the words of Jesus and “be merciful like your father in heaven is merciful”. Embrace a world where grace and mercy can abound. Start with those closest to you and work your way outward until your merciful heart can embrace even those whom you struggle to love.
Peace to you in your journey. Vaya con Dios!
Feel free to use this Bible Study for your own groups or discussion. It is freely given. If you do I merely ask that you acknowledge where you got it and if you find it useful that you encourage others to seek it out. It is freely given and written with fear, foreboding, and prayer by a fellow hypocrite who is simply trying to figure out the road ahead.
The Hypocritical Christian 