Matthew 5:7 (NIV) 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Luke 6:27-36 (NIV) 27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. I hear the words of Jesus, but they sound like He wants us to overlook and ignore the faults and failures of others. Turn the other cheek. Once again His words seem to challenge some of the popular notions of our time. Jesus makes clear that mercy is one of the weightier matters of the law.
Mercy describes God’s patient and persistent love for people despite their consistent failure. Divorced from these roots, mercy takes on a distorted meaning. Mercy begins to mean not enforcing moral law or feeling sorry for someone. When rooted in the action and the attitude of God we see the tenacity of God’s mercy. Mercy is a word of power, the power of God to change the life of the woman caught in adultery. It is the power to clean Peter’s shame. If forgiveness means giving up the right to get back at a person, mercy is giving up the right to be right. Mercy does not merely overlook the faults and failures of others. Mercy looks beyond our personal prejudices. Mercy does not bet its future on the way others respond to mercy. Mercy banks on the truth of God’s promise. We give and we receive. We exhale the gift of mercy. We inhale the mercy we need. To refuse mercy stops the process that gives us life. It stagnates the spirit of God in us.
If nursing resentments and cultivating a critical spirit revokes our pardon and imprisons our soul, then the practice of mercy sets us free. We let in a breath of fresh air to our critical spirit. We bring peace to a troubled soul. We bring healing to a wounded spirit, and the soul and spirit we bring these gifts to are our own. Mercy brings judgment in a way that being critical can never accomplish. Awareness of our indebtedness disturbs our comfort, and the place where we see our indebtedness is in the Cross of Jesus. God did not show mercy by overlooking or ignoring our sin, but by dying for us. Mercy banks on the truth of God’s promise. Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope May 24, 1992
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles
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