be attitude - living act with mercy

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Be-Attitude Living:
A Series on the Beatitudes
3. Act with Mercy
Matthew 5:1-12 (7), Matthew 18:21-36
“Blessed are those who show mercy to others, God will show mercy to them.”
In his sermon “Blessed Are the Merciful” [www.preachingtoday.com], Rev. John Koessler told a
story about a mother who came to Napoleon on behalf of her son who was about to be executed.
The mother asked the ruler to issue a pardon. But Napoleon pointed out it was her son‟s second
offence and justice demanded death.
“I don't ask for justice,” the woman replied. “I plead for mercy.”
The emperor objected, “But your son doesn't deserve mercy.”
“Sir,” the mother replied, “it would not be mercy if he deserved it, and mercy is all I ask.”
Her son was granted the pardon.
“Blessed are those who show mercy to others, God will show mercy to them.” This is Jesus‟ fifth
Beatitude that theologian Dale Bruner calls one of the three help Beatitudes [Matthew A
Commentary Volume 1: The Christbook. Revised and Expanded Edition, p.155. Wm B.
Eerdmans Publishing, Grand Rapids, Mich.]. It is called a help Beatitude because it focuses on
service and love to others and requires an intentional action on the part of those who show
mercy. The disciples and others who climbed the side of the mountain to spend time with Jesus
would have needed to hear more than one brief statement from Jesus about mercy -- or about any
of the other nine blessings for that matter. That‟s one reason Matthew structured Jesus‟ Sermon
on the Mount the way he did. He knew Jesus‟ listeners would need to hear how Jesus‟ stories in
the rest of the Sermon unpacked the meanings underlying the Beatitudes. They would have much
to ponder and to do.
At first glance, the people listening to Jesus would understand that those who were merciful to
others had some feeling of sadness and compassion for a person‟s bad situation – maybe even of
his or her own making -- and were trying to do something about it. Those who were merciful
were being kind or forgiving or generous to such a person in serious need. Unless they were
strict Pharisees, that is. In Jesus‟ day, traditional pharisaic theology would have affirmed another
kind of beatitude: “Happy are those who are righteous – who have cleaned up their act, who are
good and have it all together -- then God will be merciful to them.” They would have had a
difficult time with Jesus‟ attitude and teachings that conflicted with theirs.
Mercy is mercy because it does not figure out what a person might deserve. The Oxford
Canadian Dictionary says mercy is “compassion or forbearance shown to a powerless person …
with no claim to kindness.” Mercy would not be mercy if it acted on what a person deserved. On
the contrary, mercy allows people to make a fresh start and often involves forgiveness and the
release from their indebtedness to others – perhaps even to the one showing mercy. So being
merciful as Jesus teaches can be personally costly.

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Let me put it this way: Mercy is good if I am the one receiving mercy! However, if I am the one
required to show mercy, then there is considerably more to struggle over. That‟s because, in this
context, the only kind of person to whom I can show mercy is someone who clearly does not
deserve it. In fact, the person may never be able to pay me back for whatever I do to show
mercy. That‟s why I asked John to read Jesus‟ story about forgiveness and the servant who
would not forgive in Matthew 18. The story is about a king whose servant owed him an
impossibly large sum of money – millions or billions or even zillions of dollars, as one
commentator suggested. When the king called in the debt, the servant begged for patience. He
asked the king to give him a chance to pay it all back. This desperate request was as impossible
as the debt itself because it would have taken several lifetimes to repay the amount he owed! Of
course, the king knew the servant's situation was hopeless. So what did the king do? Instead of
giving the servant more time to repay or making him pay for the debt with his life – which he
could have done with all justice -- the king showed great mercy and cancelled the entire debt.
But that‟s not the end of the story. We wish it were. No sooner did the servant leave the king he
found a fellow servant who owed him a relatively small debt compared to what he had owed the
king. The servant grabbed him by the throat. “Pay up! Now!” he demanded.
His poor fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, “Give me a chance and I‟ll pay it all
back.” Did you notice these were the very words the first servant had used with the king when he
pleaded for more time to pay back his impossibly large debt? But the irony was lost on him. So
he had his colleague thrown into jail.
Jesus then said: “When the other servants saw this going on, they were outraged and brought a
detailed report to the king. The king summoned the man and said, „You evil servant! I forgave
your entire debt when you begged me for mercy. Shouldn‟t you be compelled to be merciful to
your fellow servant who asked for mercy?‟”
You would think so, wouldn‟t you? But you and I also know differently, don‟t we? Acting with
mercy toward someone who has slighted or offended us is not easy, is it? Forgiving someone
who has hurt us or said something behind our backs is not easy, is it? Being generous toward
someone who has taken advantage of us or been mean to us in some way is not easy, is it? But
when we listen to Jesus, we are faced with the fact of acting intentionally with mercy toward
such people. Otherwise, we are in difficulty with God. James, the half-brother of Jesus, told us
clearly in James 2:12, 13 [GNT]: “Speak and act as people who will be judged by the law [of
mercy] that sets us free.” (We are to love our neighbour as ourselves -- even the undeserving
neighbour.) “For God will not show mercy when he judges the person who has not been
merciful; but mercy triumphs over judgement.”
What would persuade us to be merciful – to act with mercy to someone who does not deserve
mercy? Is not what persuades us found in our inner being, in our hearts, because we have
responded to God’s remarkable grace and costly forgiveness of us -- we who are entirely
undeserving of God‟s love of us? William Shakespeare had a well-developed sense of biblical
themes and their application to our lives. Showing mercy was one of them. You might recall the
familiar quotation from The Merchant of Venice when Portia asked Shylock to show mercy.

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He said,
“On what compulsion, must I?”
She responded:
“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.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power doth then show like God's
When mercy seasons justice.”
What compels us to show mercy – to act intentionally with kindness, compassion, forgiveness
and generosity -- toward someone who deserves to be dealt with differently? It is, first of all,
having a heart out of which mercy flows. Twice in Matthew‟s Gospel [9:13, 12:17], Jesus quoted
from Hosea 6:6 where God said, “I want mercy and not sacrifice.” Religious sacrifices and
rituals can be done casually, by habit, with little thought or meaning or personal consequences in
our behaviour. But mercy calls for our intentional compassionate identification with others. My
theologian friend Dale Bruner observes that God‟s call for mercy in Hosea is the Old Testament
equivalent of the New Testament‟s golden rule: “Do for others what you want them to do for
you: this is the meaning of the Law of Moses and of the teachings of the prophets.” And it was
Jesus who said these words in Matthew 7:12. So for Jesus, a fundamental priority in Be-Attitude
Living is showing mercy graciously to those who do not deserve mercy [Matthew A Commentary
Volume 1: The Christbook. Revised and Expanded Edition, p. 421. Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing,
Grand Rapids, Mich.].
Saint Augustine, who is accepted by most scholars as the most important figure in the ancient
Western Church, said that those who act with mercy are also those who “come to the aid of the
needy.” Ambrose, another theologian and church leader in the fourth century wrote: “There is
your brother, naked and crying! And you stand confused over the choice of an attractive floor
covering.” (As true in the fourth century as in the 21st century!)
In his book The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission [Zondervan, 2010, pp. 97-98], author John
Dickson writes about Tim Winton, Australia's most celebrated novelist and also well-known for
his Christian faith. Winton was interviewed on a television show and asked about the time a
stranger visited his family. That visit profoundly affected young Tim as well as the rest of his
family. Dickson sums up Winton's response:

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Tim Winton [told] how his father, a policeman, had been in a terrible accident in the mid-
1960s, knocked off his motorcycle by a drunk driver. After weeks in a coma, he was allowed
home. [Winton said], “[My father] was like an earlier version of my father, a sort of
augmented version of my father. He was sort of recognizable, but not totally my dad.…
Everything was busted up and they put him in the chair.… I was terrified.”
Winton's father was a big man and Mrs. Winton had a great deal [of trouble] bathing him
each day. There was nothing that Tim, five-years-old at the time, could do to help. News of
the family's situation got out into the local community and shortly afterward, Winton recalls,
there was a knock at the door. “Oh, g'day. My name's Len,” said the stranger to Mrs. Winton.
… “I heard your hubby's [not well]. Anything I can do?” Len Thomas was from the local
church, Winton explained. This man had heard about the family's difficulties and wanted to
help.
”He just showed up,” [Winton said], “and he used to carry my dad from the bed and put him
in the bath and he used to bathe him -- which in the 1960s, in Perth, in the suburbs, was not
the sort of thing you saw every day.”
According to Winton, this simple act of kindness from a single Christian had a powerful
effect. “It really touched me in that, regardless of theology or anything else, watching a
grown man bother, for nothing, to show up and wash a sick man -- you know, it really
affected me.”
Jesus says those who show mercy to others will be blessed by God. So we rightly ask the
question: When will God show mercy? There are at least three answers we can give because of
what we know from the Scripture. First, God has already shown his mercy to the world in Jesus‟
death on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. We hear this often, I know. But underlying the
seventy times seven forgiveness theme that Jesus prefaced his story about the king and the
unforgiving servant with is the costly and generous and amazing mercy of God in Jesus. And
Jesus did that for all humanity.
Second, those who act with mercy toward others will themselves be treated with mercy in the
future on God‟s final Day of Judgment. Mercy and forgiveness are not meant to be withheld but
to be passed on to others. So God promises he will be merciful and forgiving to those who
intentionally act with mercy to others who do not deserve mercy -- any more than we do. But
where forgiveness and mercy and kindness are not passed on to others, there is judgment.
There is also a third sense of when God shows mercy. It is included in today‟s Call to Worship.
God said to our spiritual ancestor, Moses: “I am God, the God of mercy and grace, endlessly
patient with so much love and forgiveness for you.” And as the Words of Assurance of God‟s
Forgiving Love reminded us this morning, adapted from Psalm 103: “God is sheer mercy and
grace and not easily angered. God is rich in astonishing love. God doesn‟t treat us as our sins
deserve. As far as sunrise is from sunset, God has separated us from our sins.” I like the way
Canon Michael Green expressed when God shows his mercy to us in his commentary on
Matthew‟s Gospel [Green, M. (2000). The Message of Matthew: The Kingdom of Heaven (90).
Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill., U.S.A., Inter-Varsity Press]:

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“[Those who are merciful to others] have tasted the sheer mercy of God who received them
into the kingdom. They have come to share that quality of divine love. And they will be
shown mercy throughout their lives and at the Day of Judgment.”
May this be so for you and for me.
Rev. Chris Miller
October 31, 2010