Today
we turn our attention to the fifth Beatitude, “Blessed are the merciful, for
they shall receive mercy.” Today
we are also beginning, as it is, a sort of part 2 of the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes could be divided right down
the middle with four in each section.
The first section (Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the
meek, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness) all have to do with
internal matters; they have to do with the status or attitude of our
hearts. We can’t really see these things
on the outside. The second section,
beginning with the merciful today, has to do with more external attitudes and
behaviors. These are things that while
also being internal matters of the heart, they do have some outward expressions
that should rightly flow from them.
These are all things that we see come about as the results of a proper
alignment and understanding of the first four Beatitudes.
Now,
what is unique to this Beatitude is that it uses the same word twice. The same word is used in both the desired
behavior and the promise that is given. The
word merciful and the phrase shall receive mercy are derived from the
same exact Greek word. So, it’s not like
there is some hidden meaning here that we show a little and we get a lot. These two words are coming from the exact
same source as it were, and they carry with them a similar weight. Well, what does it mean to be merciful or to
show mercy? To be merciful, to show
mercy, is to extend relief to someone, particularly someone in the midst of
pain, suffering, or regret. So, “Greatly
filled by God is someone who shows compassion and relief to someone, for they
shall be shown compassion and relief themselves.”
I
was at a presbytery meeting this past weekend.
Mark Lee, Warren Berger, and myself all went as representatives from
this church. We attended the Gulf South
Presbytery, a newly formed presbytery that covers southern areas along the Gulf
of Mexico, hence the name. There’s
another presbytery that has been in the news lately. It’s not a presbytery of the EPC, but one of
the PC(USA). Recently, the Grace
Presbytery of the PC(USA) defrocked (un-ordained) Dr. Joe Rightmyer for his
role in helping a mega-church in the Dallas area discern whether or not they
wanted to remain a part of that particular denomination. Now, Dr. Rightmyer is a godly man who was
already retired and so the removal of his ordination status doesn’t mean much
from a practical perspective. However, the
actions of the presbytery did spark a lot of criticism. One of the running jokes of this whole matter
is that apparently there is no grace to be found in Grace Presbytery. We laugh, but grace and mercy are to be two
of the big indicators of the Christian faith, yet they are quite commonly
missing from our actions and the way in which we deal with others, particularly
those in need.
I
want to ask you a real personal question this morning. When someone comes up to you and asks you for
something what do you first think about?
Now, it could be someone who is homeless and without food or shelter, or
it could be someone you know who just needs a favor from you. When they are asking you for something, are you
thinking of ways in which you can help them or are you thinking of excuses as
to why you can’t help them? Some of you
are probably sitting there wondering which of these you actually do. And if you do help them out, is it because
you love them and want to extend mercy to them; or is it because you feel
obligated to help them since you can’t think of an excuse not to? Or, I could ask you to finish this phrase, “Hate
the sin; _(love the sinner)_.” However, do we really ever do that? Do we ever really make it all the way through
that statement? I think that many of us
get so caught up in hating the sin that we never really get around to loving
the sinner.
What
am I talking about? Where am I going
with some of these stories and questions?
Think back to our call to worship, “Blessed
is the one who considers the poor (Psalm 41:1).” Think about the words of Paul in Ephesians
5:1-2, “Therefore be imitators of God, as
beloved children. And walk in love, as
Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice
to God.” Or how about Jesus’
half-brother James, “If anyone thinks he
is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this
person’s religion is worthless. Religion
that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their
affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world (1:26-27.” James is telling us that true and pure
religion before God is that which seeks to show mercy. We are to show mercy to people in their
moments of grief and pain, people like the orphaned or the widowed. We are to show mercy to all and not just
those who we are comfortable with or who we think deserve mercy or remind us
enough of ourselves.
Before
Amy and I moved from Mississippi down to Houma we had some friends of ours over
to our house for supper. The purpose of
our gathering was two-fold. On the
one-hand, they were our friends and we just wanted to get together. On the other hand, the husband was sort of
just coming to know the Lord and getting involved in church for the first time
in his adult life. However, he had some
hesitations about it and wasn’t quite sure he was ready for such a big
commitment yet. In the midst of our
conversation, he confided in me that while he knew the importance of the church
in the life of the Christian, he didn’t think he was good enough for her, for the
church. He thought that he had too many
improvements to make in his own life before he was good enough for the
church. I told him that I understood
where he was coming from and that I respected his high view of the church. However, I also told him that he was giving
way too much credit to those in the church, and especially to me. You see, I wasn’t, nor am I yet, anywhere
near as good as I ought to be to come before God. Yet, I’m not only called to come before Him,
but I’m called to help others do the exact same thing.
You
see, where I’m sort of going with all of this is that I’m poking and prodding
around this issue of mercy and I’m trying to deal with it as it relates to
judgment. Now, the reason why I’m trying
to do that is because when it comes right down to it, we tend to link these two
together. We know that we are to show
mercy and compassion to others, but many times we judge whether or not they are
worthy of our mercy. We sort of become
like Pharisees in that regard. Once
again in the epistle of James he writes, “For
judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”
(2:13). I’ve got a little footnote in
one of my Bibles that says of this verse:
Though God is never obligated to show mercy, He freely chooses to do so
in abundance. He reserves the divine
prerogative to show mercy upon whom He wills (Rom. 9). By His law, however, we are commanded to
temper justice with mercy. He warns that
if we refuse to show mercy we will not receive mercy from Him.
Now,
we’re starting to get at something here.
Remember how I said that we sort of become a little Pharisaic when it
comes to matters of mercy and judgment.
I want you to think about whom the Pharisees really were, at least the
majority of them. At their core, the
Pharisees were a group of men who loved God.
They loved God so much that they didn’t want to just settle for some
Godly rule in their lives, but they wanted all matters of society to be
controlled by God. A noble endeavor, but
they took it too far. They took it and
they corrupted what God’s intentions were.
Take for example laws concerning the Sabbath. The Sabbath was of such importance to God
that He placed it as one of the ten things that men ought to do in order to
live Godly lives. The Pharisees were so
overzealous for God that they actually made laws forbidding things on the
Sabbath, and not just work matters, but good things as well. We see at various places through Scripture
where they condemn people, namely Jesus and his disciples, for eating, healing,
and cleansing on the Sabbath. They tell Jesus
that he can’t do that and he has to respond with basically saying, “Are you
kidding me!” Jesus had to remind them
that the entire purpose of the Sabbath is for our benefit and that it would be
foolish to prevent something that would be for our benefit to be done on a day
that is set apart for our benefit. You
see, there’s a sense in which we spend so much time judging who is worthy of
our mercy that we miss the concept of mercy all together.
Think
this doesn’t happen in today’s world?
Look at a group like Westboro Baptist Church. Now, this is a group that is widely known as
spreaders of hate and vitriol in the world.
However, in our own thinking about them, we show little mercy and
compassion to them and more judgment and condemnation. You can tell that we do because I can almost
read the thoughts that came to your mind as soon as I mentioned that particular
group. It can also go the other
way. More progressive and liberal Christians
will so over-emphasize the concept of mercy that they will throw out all
notions of judgment and all concept of there being a standard set by God. Also, think about the condemnation and
negative emotions that came to your mind when I said the words progressive and
liberal.
So, where do we
draw the line when it comes to mercy?
How much do we show and how much do we not show? Where do we draw the line between being just
and being merciful? The writer of
Hebrews says, “Therefore he [Jesus] had
to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a
merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for
the sins of the people.” (2:17). James
Boice says that when we think of the word mercy we cannot and ought not be able
to think of anything other than the cross.
“Grace is love when love is undeserved, and mercy is grace in action. Mercy is love reaching out to help those who
are helpless and who need salvation.
Mercy identifies with the miserable in their misery.”
I want to close
by reading to you what German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said of this
Beatitude as it pertained to the disciples of Jesus then and the followers of
Christ today. This is Bonhoeffer’s view
of who the merciful are and what they look like: They have an irresistible love for the
down-trodden, the sick , the wretched, the wronged, the outcast and all who are
tortured with anxiety. They go out and
seek all who are enmeshed in the toils of sin and guilt. No distress is too great, no sin too
appalling for their pity. If any man
falls into disgrace, the merciful will sacrifice their own honour to shield
him, and take his shame upon themselves.
They will be found consorting with publicans and sinners, careless of
the shame they incure thereby. In order
that they may be merciful they cast away the most priceless treasure of human
life, their personal dignity and honour.
For the only honour and dignity they know is their Lord’s own mercy, to
which alone they owe their very lives.
He was not ashamed of his disciples, he became the brother of mankind,
and bore their shame unto the death of the cross. That is how Jesus, the crucified, was
merciful. His followers owe their lives
entirely to that mercy. It makes them
forget their own honour and dignity, and seek the society of sinners. They are glad to incur reproach, for they
know that then they are blessed. One day
God himself will come down and take upon himself their sin and shame. He will cover them with his own honour and
remove their disgrace. It will be his
glory to bear the shame of sinners and to clothe them with his honour. Blessed are the merciful, for they have the
Merciful for their Lord.
Greatly filled
by God are those who show mercy, who show the love of Christ to others, because
that love from God will be shown to them.
The merciful seek to put others first and do whatever it takes to heal
them and save them, just as Jesus went to the greatest imaginable and possible
length to heal and save us through his merciful death upon the cross.
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