Sermons for the Month
Being The Face Of Mercy
DATE: June 5th, 2005
SERVICE: Third Sunday After Pentecost
TEXT: Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN
This week I've been thinking about how the word mercy is used in 2005. It's not a common word; I think when we do hear it it's in the exaggerated world of television dramas and movies. A hostage begs for mercy from the captors or a prisoner pleads for mercy from the jailor. The tone is negative; one person is powerless and the other is in control, sometimes fiendishly so, and whether or not mercy is shown becomes part of plotline.
I do not believe that's what God had in mind when it comes to mercy. I guess the point is that our culture does not put much emphasis on mercy as a characteristic to be cultivated. Perhaps that's because it's a way of life that involves more than being kind to another person; it also requires sacrifice on the part of the person offering mercy.
In today's Gospel lesson Jesus shows mercy to three people and in each case doing so has potential negative consequences for him as a faithful Jewish man. Let's do a quick review of these three situations.
The one that probably is the most extreme involves Matthew the tax collector. The fact is that Matthew would have been considered the scum of the earth. He worked for the Romans and people hated the Romans, the foreign power that dominated their homeland. They hated paying taxes to Rome. They hated having Caesar's likeness on their coins. They hated the fact that tax collectors like Matthew overcharged them and pocketed the money for their own personal profit. But what they hated most of all was the fact that a Jew would work for the enemy.
This traitor was the one who Jesus called to follow him; please note that Matthew did not request to follow Jesus nor did he repent before doing so. In fact, it appears that upon being called Matthew had a party for all his wayward friends, and for Jesus, who by eating with them was proclaiming that he accepted them.
Now, that was a good way for Jesus to alienate himself from respectable people. After all, doesn't Psalm 1 bless those who do not take the path of sinners? And the writer of Psalm 26 asks for vindication for not sitting with the wicked. It seems that scripture is on the side of the Pharisees, and Jesus has further tarnished his reputation among the righteous.
The next recipient of mercy is a woman who has had a hemorrhage for 12 years. I have written many a sermon on her alone, but I'll offer only a few details today. She's a potential problem for Jesus because she is a woman; as such should not be interacting with him in public.
But, there's more to it than that. Her condition has rendered her unclean. People would have thought that the hemorrhage was punishment for some unseen sin. So, this unclean sinner cannot be touched by anyone, lest they too become unclean and risk being barred from the synagogue. If she was married, her husband has no doubt divorced her, turning her into a beggar. She must live on the fringes of society.
Jesus risks being made unclean is she touches him, and if her talks with her he risks further alienation from the religious crowd.
Finally we come to the child, the third one to receive mercy. There are two problems in this situation. She's a girl and she's dead. In other words, she is not worth wasting time on and she too can render anyone who comes near her unclean and unfit for worship. In this situation Jesus faces that risk as well as the ridicule of the mourners who know that the girl is dead and presumes Jesus, who has said that she's only sleeping, is going to make a fool of himself.
In all three cases, at significant personal sacrifice, Jesus reaches out with acceptance, with healing and with the opportunity for a new beginning. He shows mercy.
When his doing so is criticized by the Pharisees Jesus tells them that they must gain a deeper understanding of the words of God spoken by the Prophet Hosea, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." In this case, sacrifice stands for strict observance of the rules and traditions of the Jewish faith, including making animal sacrifices. It means that God places more value on love in action than on ritual purity.
When these words were first spoken through the Prophet, God was angry because his chosen people and failed to trust Him. So, the message they receive is that their animal sacrifices and pious prayers are meaningless without a committed, lived out faith. God desires mercy. Ritual can be routine, while mercy requires something of us. Ritual is a matter of the mind, while mercy is a matter of the heart. In other words, mercy has a face.
This causes me to ask, "Who is the face of mercy in your life?" Who has offered you acceptance, healing, the opportunity for a new beginning?
Now let me be clear, the situation does not have to be an extreme one. Not everyone has faced the intense alienation that is described in today's Gospel lesson. Not everyone has been hated, or excluded, or considered without value - although that has been the case for some individuals.
But, I would guess that most of us have experienced times when we felt left out or when we suffered physically or emotionally or when our lives were marked by loneliness. And, I hope that most of us have seen the face of mercy - that someone has made a sacrifice to reach out to us and ease our suffering.
To be honest, I could have used more faces of mercy in my life; I think I'd be a different person if that had been the case. And perhaps that's true for all of us, we all would benefit from more acts of mercy being extended in our direction.
But then I remember that we all have received the ultimate expression of mercy that Jesus offered to us on the cross. He was "handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised from the dead for our justification." (Romans 4:25) His mercy brings us forgiveness and eternal life, the ultimate examples of acceptance, healing and a new beginning. Jesus is THE face of mercy, and we all can look into his eyes.
That good news then brings another question to light. For whom are you the face of mercy? Remember, it is love in action that God desires. We have the opportunity to be mercy in the world, but doing so requires sacrifice on our part - we must be willing to give up something and to put our hearts on the line for the sake of mercy.
You see, if we truly love as Jesus did than the chances that it will change us from the inside out are good. So, one way to compensate for having not received enough mercy is to offer it to others, and become a different person that way.
Remember, though, that being transformed is no easy proposition. The times in my life when I have been the most changed by showing mercy have also been the most challenging, or even painful. A great deal of energy goes into loving people in the most helpful way - which is not always the most obvious or easiest way - and some times the "end-of-the-story" is not shown to us. But another chapter is added to our story, and we are different.
It's risky to be the face of mercy; maybe that's why it's not a particularly desirable attribute in our culture. On the other hand, it's what God desires, what Jesus recommends and what the Holy Spirit empowers us to do … so I'd say that mercy is worth the risk. AMEN