Dear Friends,

This is the sixth message in a series on Jesus’ statements called “the Beatitudes” that are found in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:3-11; Luke 6:17-38).

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown;

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But mercy is above this sceptred sway;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God’s

When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,

Though justice be thy plea, consider this,

That, in the course of justice, none of us

Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render

The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much

To mitigate the justice of thy plea;

Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice

Must needs give sentence ‘gainst the merchant there.

(Lines of the character Portia from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Act 4, Scene 1,1596)

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy (Matt 5:7).

Do you need mercy?

If you don’t, why bother with being merciful?

Jesus told a graphic story about a servant who owed an immense sum of money to his employer, a powerful king.  The king called in the loan and was preparing to foreclose and sell off the servant, his family and everything they owned. The debtor begged the king to be patient and he would be repaid in full. The king, realizing the debtor’s situation was hopeless, took pity on him and forgave the debt.

The servant not only didn’t say “thank you,” but put the squeeze on a colleague who owed him a much smaller sum and ignored his pleas for patience, instead consigning him to debtor’s prison. The other servants told the king about the obnoxious ingratitude and the king rescinded his forgiveness, restored the debt, and condemned the ingrate to prison and torture until he repaid the king. Jesus warned, “So my heavenly father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart” (Matt 18:23-35).

The servant hadn’t asked for mercy. He’d asked for patience while he performed and took care of business himself. His work-out plan was the achievement of self-sufficiency. All he needed was time to get things right. Why should he be grateful for something he’d never wanted?  Why should he pass on a mercy he hadn’t really needed himself? He had rights didn’t he? He was owed what was coming to him? His self-righteousness made him think he knew more than the king about what was right and necessary.

Oh, the proud delusions of the unforgiving who end up imprisoned and tortured by their obsession with vindication and vengeance that keeps them chained to their past and their possessions! Think of the elder son in the story of the Prodigal who is so insistent on being “right” and being rewarded for it that he refuses to come inside to relationship with his father and his brother.

The Lord told the prophet Micah that one of the three essentials of a life that met his standard of “good” was to “love mercy,” the others being to “do justice and walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). Justice enforced without mercy inevitably leads to injustice. Humility practiced as a virtue without deference to and reliance upon the grace of God leads to self-destructive moral tyranny. Mercy practiced without love is a dehumanizing condescension that leads to enslaving paternalism. As Shakespeare wrote, “Mercy seasons justice.”

To love mercy is to look upon guilt and suffering with the eyes of God. He sees the plight of his children in the brokenness and vacuity of sin and says, “The way I intend it to be is not the way it is.” His solution is more grace, not less. In the words of the Apostle Paul, “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20).

Grace and mercy are usually used interchangeably, but there is a difference. Theologian D.A. Carson notes: The two terms are frequently synonymous, but where there is a distinction between the two, it appears that grace is a loving response when love is undeserved, and mercy is a loving response prompted by the misery and helplessness of the one on whom the love is to be showered. Grace answers to the undeserving; mercy answers to the miserable (Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and His Confrontation with the World [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2004]

Because God is love, the instinct, policy and action of God is always toward love and this is made real in experience when God lives in our hearts. (1 John 4:15-5:2). The father never ceases to long and wait for the return of the dissipated, destitute and friendless prodigal child (Luke 15:20).

Mercy is the tangible expression of God’s eternal love so assured at its source that it can always be given the benefit of the doubt. We are free in the assurance of love to show mercy. In fact, James said to refuse mercy is to transgress God’s law. “So speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment” (Js 2:12-13).

This is a challenge to a world locked in a death struggle over fairness and equality in the belief that “might” whether on the battlefield, in the marketplace, in the protest, or at the ballot box, can produce “right.” All of us, whether well-intentioned or malevolent, seek justification for our continuing rebellion against God even though “No one is good but God alone” in the words of Jesus (Luke 18:19). This puts the lie to enduring political blandishment that power need only be put in the “right hands” and everything will be put aright.

Mercy is not a virtue that can be vicariously delegated to a government or corporate program. A kindness that depends on the resources of others will always be a pyramid scheme at best. Change tax or fiscal policy or lose the favor of a major sponsor and mercy by delegation proves to be no more than a “first come, first served” exercise in human finitude.

There is no template for power that is reliable and without flaws. There are no human hands that are “right” to handle power. The lowliest city councilman begins to think of reelection the day after the election and the tradeoffs begin. The psalmist wisely observed —

Do not put your trust in princes,

    in mortals, in whom there is no

             help.

When their breath departs, they

          return to the earth;

     on that day their plans perish.

(Ps 146:3-4)

The point here is that “to love mercy” is a personal gift of God’s instruction and empowerment. “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you.” Because mercy reflects the will and way of our loving God, those who allow God to use them as conduits of mercy will be blessed. True mercy cannot be manufactured. The blessing of mercy as Jesus described it is a fruit of the Spirit that grows out of a heart that the Lord Jesus Christ has made his exclusive possession (Gal 5:22).

But the blessing comes with the radical demand of the Cross.”Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its possessions and desires” (Gal 5:24). The radical demand is that we put no pre-qualification upon who we show this mercy. Jesus asked the lawyer looking for a loophole, “‘Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.”

It is a shallow and false interpretation that  “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” is symmetrical in application as in “You be kind to me and I’ll be kind to you” or “You be kind to others and God will be kind to you.” Jesus said the blessing of mercy will take us to deep and dark places. “Love your enemies, do good and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:35).

Kindness to the ungrateful, mean, and wicked is asymmetrical. But God’s love is asymmetrical and that’s a great thing! “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). That brings us full circle to my opening questions — Do you need mercy? If you don’t, why bother with being merciful?”

Each of us in the worst circumstances of our lives on this earth will confront those questions. To think otherwise is to indulge an irresponsible fantasy and deny our humanity. I was tempted to cite heart-warming stories of charity or personal experiences of kindness in writing this message and I resisted. It is too easy to be warmed and charmed by the praise of a “kind heart” or a “good heart,” or “tender heart” as if these are talents or achievements. Anyone who claims to be a “merciful” person better have worn and callused knees from thanking God for his mercy to him or her or be an award-winning hypocrite.

To love mercy is a command that God fulfills in us before demonstrating it through us. My own arrogant spirit and proud, tough demanding heart did not begin to change until I realized that my contemptuous standards, strong will and stone-hard judgments could coerce behavior and cause fear, but little else. The conviction that I need God’s mercy on a continuing basis was the blessing that led me to repentance. That’s the reason that I sign each of these messages “Under the mercy of Christ.”  As the old spiritual sings-

        Not my mother, not my father,
but it’s me, O Lord,
standin’ in the need of prayer.
Not my sister, not my brother,
but it’s me, O Lord,
standin’ in the need of prayer.

Until each of us reaches that point for ourselves, sadly, mercy and its promised blessing will only be guilt-inducing abstractions.
“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

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