Have Mercy

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. -Matthew 5:7

Nothing new about this teaching of Jesus. We have heard so many sermons over the years praising the qualities of mercy. Shakespeare celebrates it in Hamlet:

The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest,-
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

We read and hear the altruism in the words of the poet and of scripture, and we embrace it in the general, but find it so difficult in the particular.

By the particular I mean the couple who has abused their child; hearing our son confess their abuse of alcohol; hearing that our daughter understands sexual activity more permissively than we do; learning that our neighbor has embezzled funds from their employer; reading that another government employee has been arrested for this or that offense. The list goes on.

Could it be that God meant mercy for certain sincerely penitent people or for everyone who has personally offended us? I think it was a pretty universal mercy he was talking about-everyone, who upon confession, is deserved of punishment. Jesus understood what Shakespeare expressed that mercy frees the one who offers it perhaps more than the one who receives it.

I'll wager that today somewhere in the midst of it, you will be challenged to extend mercy whether at your place of work, among your family, on the road, or in something you see or read. Jesus knew that extending mercy frees us from the sadness of carrying an eternal torch of punishment and judgment. Jesus knew that when we show mercy we are in possession of one of God's greatest attributes.

Prayer
Gracious God this gate to life is so narrow and the road so hard that I wonder at times if I can travel it. Alone, I know I cannot. With you I know all things are possible-even an act of mercy to one I may feel is quite undeserving in the name of Jesus. Amen.

C. Mac Hamon, Senior Pastor
Castleton United Methodist Church
Indianapolis, Indiana