Fourth Sunday of Lent: The Poison of Meed

For a summary of the action of Passus II, see Third Day of Lent.

Before Holy Church leaves Will, she gives him a bit of an introduction to Lady Meed’s character (“meed,” remember, meaning “pay” or “reward”) and the troubles she has given her.

“I ought to be higher than she: I came of a better.

The father that brought me forth is called the Son of God,

Who never lied nor laughed in all his life time,

And I am his dear daughter, duchess of heaven,

That whosoever loves me and follows my will

Shall have grace for all goodness and a good end.

But whosoever loves Meed, I dare wager my life,

Shall lose for love of her a share of true heavenly love.

For Meed most hinders what helps us most to heaven.”

Meed is the daughter of Deceit and Holy Church is the daughter of Christ, and yet somehow it is Meed who dominates the affairs of human life.  And more than these questions of rights and just deserts, she tells us that love of Meed draws us away from heavenly life, while loving and following Holy Church leads us there.  And the reason is this:  “Meed most hinders what helps us most to heaven.”

And what “helps us most to heaven”?  Well, that “heavenly love” that love of Meed causes us to lose, that heavenly love that Holy Church taught Will about in the previous passus.  How does Meed hinder love?  After all, Meed is just payment and reward.  How could we do anything without payment and reward?  Meed is there when we receive our paychecks.  Meed is there when we buy our groceries or hire a babysitter.  How could all these innumerable daily encounters with Meed be hindering our love?  Maybe Holy Church got this one wrong.

But think about how all this Meed everywhere causes us to think about ourselves and our relationships.  For the power of Meed teaches us that human beings can be placed under our obligation without any relationship of loyalty or love.  The Meed you pay that babysitter teaches her not to do even so plainly human a favor as watching someone’s children without expecting it to be formalized by a financial transaction.  And think of how we justify this practice:  we say “it’ll teach her responsibility,” as though responsibility were mainly about respecting the money you’re paid and not the trust placed in you, respecting the debts of coin and not the debts of the heart.

Think of the difference between how you treat a waitress and how you treat someone serving you food in their home.  We all know how the knowledge that your waitress is being paid for what she’s doing (and that you’re paying to be in the restaurant) is always a temptation to treat her less as a human being offering you of her time than a slave you have purchased the fleeting chance to command.  You would never think of someone serving you food in their home that way, and the difference is Meed.  Somehow Meed causes us to think that if we’ve “paid good money” for some service, the person providing that service is no longer as much a human being as we are, but simply something providing that service.  And because Meed is everywhere, we often don’t even realize what it’s doing to us.

It is difficult to love someone if you see them merely as a body (perhaps with a falsely humanizing name tag) scanning your new shirts and putting them in bags or, for that matter, as a body (probably nameless) handing you shirts to scan and a card to run.  Indeed it would be hard enough for us sinful human beings to love one other even without filtering our daily relationships through the heart-poison of Meed.  And how shall we be able to offer ourselves to one another freely, gratis, as Christ offered himself to us, if Meed has trained us in our bones to always expect some recompense?  But this is why God has given us Holy Church and the Holy Spirit to teach us to see and love each other as God does, and not as Meed does.

“Owe no one anything, except to love on another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.  The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”  (Romans 13:8-10)