Blessed Are the Merciful
As we have worked the past few weeks to begin to understand and embrace the Beatitudes, we’ve found that many of them have surprising meanings. Who knew, for instance, that the poor in spirit were you and me? Who knew that meekness was a strength?
I don’t think
we’ll find the definitions tough today. We
all get a mental reprieve. Blessed are the merciful, for they
will receive mercy. Mercy
is easy to understand. It’s a
not-so-random act of kindness. It’s
compassion, sympathy. Caring.
An act of mercy is done by someone who is able, somehow, to get inside
the sufferings or need of another, and then provide relief.
We reach out in mercy because we understand that the need is real and we
care about that. The idea of
mercy also suggests the person giving it has the ability
or the authority or the resources to do so. An
employer can have mercy on her own employee, for instance, but not necessarily
on someone else’s employee. A
teacher can have mercy on his students. We
can have mercy on people suffering from the earthquake in India, because we have
financial resources to do so.
The
concept of mercy comes from the Old Testament.
And the meaning of the Hebrew word is to be able to think with and feel
with another person, as if you had crawled right inside their skin.
You are able to be merciful toward them because you understand their
pain. Not because they
necessarily deserve it. In fact the
very nature of the word mercy suggests that the one receiving it neither
deserves it nor has the resources to get it for himself.
Mercy is easy enough to understand.
But it is not always so easy to do.
Are you a merciful person? Do
you feel compassion for the suffering person?
Do you reach out to provide relief?
Blessed
are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
So, do you have to give mercy in order to get it in the first place?
Can you store up mercy brownie points by being nice to people?
Sort of sounds like it, doesn’t it?
We need to put this Beatitude in the context of the Gospel message, and
recognize that this isn’t the starting point for mercy.
If you think about mercy as a chain of events—we give mercy, someone
else receives it, and again later, what goes around comes around and we receive
mercy—what needs to be clear is that you and I don’t start that chain of
events. We are not the originators
of mercy. We are first, recipients.
God never calls us to give something that we haven’t already received.
A lot of us live with an illusion of self-sufficiency. We’re getting by financially, we say to ourselves. (“knock on wood”; yet the average American family dangerously close to bankruptcy because of being overextended). We haven’t been in an earthquake; we haven’t had our house destroyed in a hurricane. Our health is pretty good. Yet, we know that any of those things could change in the blink of an eye. Morally, we know that we’re decent individuals. Better than most, right? (Unless you really believed that “poor in spirit” message from a couple of weeks ago.)
Some of us are a little bit like the kindergarten age girl who was
looking at a picture book in the library one day when the superintendent came
by. The superintendent asked
the girl to identify the pictures. She
pointed at each page and said, “That’s a boy and that’s a girl and
that’s a house. That’s a car,
that’s a top, and that’s a truck.” She
came to a picture of a hatchet, and she said, “That’s a hammer.”
He said nothing. She turned
the page and there was a hammer. She
turned back and looked at the hatchet and then back at the hammer.
She quickly closed the book and, smiling sweetly, said, “We are in the
library and we really shouldn’t be talking.”
(illustrations unlimited, 287)
I don’t know about you, but I don’t much like it when my deficiencies
are exposed. I prefer to be strong,
able, healthy, financially secure, morally right, intelligent.
But when I look in the mirror, I know that I am among those who need
mercy.
To
get our hearts around the idea of being merciful, I think we may need to start
carrying around a little hand mirror with us.
From time to time, ask yourself, “Who needs mercy?”
Then look in the mirror. Unless
we ourselves understand that we need mercy, and indeed have received mercy, then
we will continue to find it difficult to dispense mercy to other people.
But on the other hand, if we do understand our own need for mercy, then I
think giving it will be a little easier.
A
young employee embezzled several hundred dollars of his company’s money. When this was discovered, the young man was told to report to
the office of the senior partner of the firm.
As he walked up the stairs toward the administrative office the young
employee was heavy-hearted. He knew
without a doubt he would lose his position with the firm.
He also feared the possibility of legal action taken against him.
Seemingly his whole world had collapsed.
Upon his arrival in the office of the senior executive the young man was
questioned about the whole affair. He
was asked if the allegations were true and he answered in the affirmative.
Then the executive surprised him with this question:
“If I keep you in your present capacity, can I trust you in the
future?” The young worker brightened up and said, “Yes, sir, you
surely can. I’ve learned my
lesson.”
The executive said, “I’m not going to press charges, and you can
continue in your present responsibility.”
The employer concluded by saying, “I think you ought to know, however,
that you are the second person in this firm who succumbed to temptation and was
shown leniency. I was the first.
What you have done, I did. The
mercy you are receiving, I received. It
is only the grace of God that can keep us both.”
(illustrations unlimited, 347)
As followers of Christ we are called to be merciful to others, knowing
that we will also continue to be recipients of God’s mercy. Indeed, if we embrace this Beatitude, we will show the
world that we are indeed followers of Christ, for we cannot be merciful just on
our own strength. It goes too hard
against the grain. I read an
interesting quote about compassion this week, that points this out. John Berger, a British author, said that “Compassion has no
place in the natural order of the world which operates on the basis of
necessity. Compassion opposes this
order and is therefore best thought of as being in some way supernatural.”
(MS Bookshelf)
Compassion,
which is very much like mercy, is supernatural.
It comes from beyond ourselves. From
God.
The
mercy we have been given, creates a reservoir of mercy from which we can draw.
From which we must draw, if we are to be followers of Christ, who is mercy
incarnate. It might help us if we
take mercy out of the emotional realm. We
can be merciful whether we feel like
it or not. Being merciful is a
choice.
In the passage from Philippians we are given a graphic picture of what
mercy is. The mercy we have
received, and the mercy we are called to give.
Jesus is the very incarnation of mercy.
His status as the Son of God was secure.
He had all the authority, all the power that being God entails.
But he voluntarily set aside his rights, and became a human being.
He crawled right inside human skin, so that he could identify with human
beings. And then he gave himself,
so that we could be saved.
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,” said Paul.
You have a certain status, a certain station in life, certain rights,
certain possessions. There may be times when you are called to set aside
your rights, in order to dispense mercy for the sake of another. In so doing, you will prove yourself to be a follower of
Jesus. We don’t prove
ourselves as followers of Christ by what we think
or say or even by what we believe;
we prove it by what we do.
It’s like what happened in this story about a Jewish couple who were
arguing over what to name their first son.
They finally asked the rabbi to intercede.
“What’s the problem?” the rabbi asked.
The wife said, “He wants to name the boy after his father, and I want
to name the boy after my father.”
“What’s your father’s name?” he asked the man.
“Joseph,” the dad said.
“And what is your father’s name?” he asked the mother.
“Joseph,” she said.
The rabbi was stunned. “So,
what is the problem?”
It was the wife who spoke again. “His
father was a horse thief, and mine was a righteous man.
How can I know my son is named after my father and not his?”
The rabbi thought for a moment and then said, “Call the boy Joseph.
Then see if he is a horse thief or a righteous man.
You will know which father’s name he wears.”
(story file, 16.11.1)
