Have Mercy

February 20, 2022
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Luke 6:27-38[1]

The Golden Rule is a pretty easy rule to follow. It just makes sense: Do to others as you would have them do to you. Show respect, be kind, smile. We can all do that. Jesus knows that. It’s when we’re responding to what someone else has done to us that it breaks down.

How can you love someone who doesn’t love you? How can you do good when someone has done you wrong? Would you lend to someone who is ungrateful? Can you be compassionate if the other person is wicked? We are much more likely to react to how we’re treated than respond with kindness. But Jesus asks us to be merciful.

Mercy is a gift. It can’t be demanded; it can’t be earned. If you have to earn it, it’s not mercy. If you have to pay back a kindness, it’s not mercy. In fact, mercy means compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm. What was earned was punishment, yet what was given was forgiveness. That’s mercy.

Mercy is not the opposite of justice. Mercy recognizes that justice is not met when further injustice is done. Mercy is the understanding that punishment won’t undo the harm, won’t bring back the lost, won’t repair the damage done. Mercy shows that sometimes wrongs can be made right with generosity and love rather than retribution. Mercy is much harder to give than punishment. Compassion is much harder to show than anger.

To live a faithful life is to journey in faith, toward faith. On our journey of faith, not everything will be worked out in this life. Faith is knowing that there will be justice, and it doesn’t always have to come from us. This is not an easy way to live.

Rationally, we can make sense of the words of Jesus, rejecting reciprocity. Emotional, irrational people, many of us are more transactional in our relationships. We treat others the way that we are treated. We react to the way we are spoken to, and respond by meeting the emotional level of the other. Our history with another person affects how we feel, and if we’re used to defending ourselves, our defenses are always up. To respond without reacting, to seek reconciliation rather than reciprocity requires a deliberate reorientation of our thoughts and actions.

Of course, that is what Jesus does, changing our hearts and minds. This passage may be the most challenging message that Jesus brings. From beings who fight fire with fire, we are to become beings who fight fire with water, who respond to anger with compassion. This is hard. It takes real effort grounded in faith to stay calm in the storm. And this is why following Jesus means taking up our cross. The cross that most of us carry isn’t suffering and persecution; rather, it is doing the hard thing, the necessary thing to show love, peace, and mercy.

In a commentary on this passage, the Rev. Dr. Cheryl Lindsay writes:[2]

Mercy is essential to the character and nature of the Living God. God’s mercy is dependable, available, and abundant. Jesus embodied mercy in the same way that his physical being took on flesh. His life manifested mercy, and following The Way compels us to manifest mercy as well. Jesus’ message paints a vivid picture of a merciful life.

When asked by the Pharisees and scribes “‘Why do you eat and drink with tax-collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.”[3] Jesus came to seek out those who need a merciful God.

Most of us have probably internalized the idea that sinners deserve to be punished for their sins. God is seen as the divine judge, a God to be feared. But isn’t God also the source of love? Yes, those who have turned away from God, those who sin, deserve what’s coming to them. That is perhaps why God’s mercy is so transformative. Rather than rain down destruction, God continues to love, to have compassion, and to show mercy to those who have fallen away. Our divine Parent continues to seek for us when we’re lost, to keep the door open to us should we return home. What is asked of us is to love in that same way, to be merciful as God is merciful.

It is wise for us to remember that none of us is perfect. As Paul wrote in the letter to the Romans, “There is no one who is righteous, not even one… all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”[4] The promise of mercy is the gift that allows us to be reconciled to God. As Dr. Lindsay writes: “We can be hurt and wounded…and overcome the harm. We can be betrayed and be broken…and made whole. We can be thrown away and left for dead in a pit…but we can be elevated to heights we didn’t even seek.”[5]

We have been shown mercy. So let us show mercy. We are called to be merciful to our neighbors and even our enemies. We are called to forgive and not to judge, to give and not to condemn. It is in showing mercy that we receive mercy. It is in giving love and compassion that we receive love and compassion. “The measure you give will be the measure you get back.”[6] Therefore, have mercy.  Amen.

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[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] The Rev. Dr. Cheryl A. Lindsay, reflection on Luke 6:27-38 for Sunday, February 20, 2022 on https://www.ucc.org/sermon-seeds/sermon-seeds-merciful/.

[3] Luke 5:30-32.

[4] Romans 3:10, 23.

[5] Lindsay.

[6] Luke 6:38.