Blessed Are The Ones Who Give Mercy

“Lord have mercy” we like to say. Three little words that depending on the tone of voice and inflection can mean a lot of different things. We throw some mercy out for traffic, when we can’t get a good WiFi signal, when we witness something dumb, or when tragedy occurs. Lawd have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Dear Lord, have mercy upon us.

Out of a million different ways, how do you understand mercy? Do you think of mercy as the life-and death power or being at the mercy of someone? I think of the scenes from Gladiator when Caesar held his thumb out to decide one’s fate. What does it mean to have mercy? I remember watching the TV show Full House when I was younger and every time Becky would enter the room Jessie would say “Have Mercy!.” That’s a whole different kind of mercy. But today’s text isn’t a TV show. Jesus had this large and desperate crowd before him and he says “Blessed are those who are merciful for they will receive mercy” and Luke 6:36 says “Be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful.”

This crowd had high hopes for what it meant for Jesus to save. In the Old Testament, the mercy of God was understood as God’s outstretched arm or the mighty power of God displayed through God’s rescue of God’s people such as in the rescue of the Israelites from the Egyptians.

This understanding of mercy as a response to the cries of the needy developed into multiple layers of meaning in which mercy is understood as providing assistance to the needy through a variety of means historically referred to as almsgiving. When I think of alms I think of collecting alms or money for the poor, but almsgiving was actually seen as an umbrella term in which all acts of caring for others were included. Mercy in this sense was understood as a deep solidarity with the suffering.

Where does this come from? The most common Hebrew word for “mercy” means “self-giving, unconditional love.” In the Greek New Testament, the word means “gracious deeds done for those in need” but also interestingly enough Rebekah says that it refers to the actual sounds of the suffering- “sighs, groans, moans, sobs, and laments.”

Some feel that the Beatitudes have an intentional order, in that one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness will then be led to acts of mercy. As Martin Luther said, “mercy is righteousness in action.”

Throughout history, mercy has primarily been understood as compassion in action. In other words, mercy is empty without an inner disposition of the heart. Rebekah Eklund says “the merciful must feel something for the suffering, whether compassion, sorrow, or a kind of emotional solidarity, a kind of suffering-with.”

I remember a song by Casting Crowns a few years back with the line that said “break our hearts for what breaks yours.” This is a prayer to be merciful. Gregory of Nyssa talked about how mercy “softens the soul” or we might say mercy “melts our hearts like butter.”

The week before last I went to visit a friend of mine at her work who is an oncology chaplain at Baptist. I was visiting with her and her coworkers and asked the director of Chaplaincy there how he found his way into chaplaincy. He said when he was a teenager his mom would call him and tell him different people in the hospital that he needed to go and check on, and he would. He said he began to be drawn into being beside someone in their suffering, that he began to form a whole belief system that started at the bedside. Mercy enters the bedside moments of people’s lives and doesn’t look away. Micha Barton says “thriving are the mercy givers in an unmerciful world. Whole are those who learn to look with love.” She says “mercy is the overflow of seeing people as they really are, in all their suffering, in all their delight, in all their possibilities…to see another person in truth.” When I was visiting with the chaplains, they talked about the beauty of seeing each person in the wonder and uniqueness of who they are, each person an entire galaxy unto themselves.

When we learn to look through the eyes of love, mercy begins to open doors for a new way of being in Christ, a way that imitates Christ, a way that loves neighbors, welcomes the stranger, and forgives enemies.

Understanding mercy as forgiveness is modeled after the understanding of God as slow to anger and quick to forgive. A.M. Carre says “Christ isn’t merciful: He is mercy.” I think of Jonah who was angry with God because he knew that God was loving and quick to forgive.

But is God’s mercy only for the merciful? Or does the math of God’s mercy operate more like the math of God’s forgiveness, doubling over and backwards to extend a hand to us in our most merciless moments.

We live in a world that is desperate for mercy. There are so many things that bring us to our knees and cry out God have mercy, Christ have mercy, Spirit have mercy.

Have you ever had any merciless moments? Impatient at the checkout line? Driving like you are always racing? Making excuses when you know you could help? Losing your temper on your family, your coworkers, or your friends when you have a case of the Mondays.

It is hard to practice mercy as forgiveness when we don’t know how to forgive ourselves. We don’t want to think about the moments we snap, yell, and aren’t our best selves. I can recall far too many times in my teenage years when I lost my temper and then as an adult, how I have not practiced healthy boundaries and then snapped in exhaustion or made others the casualty of my own anxiety.

I can unfortunately recall too many times I have reacted with impatience and frustration rather than through the eyes of love. As my youngest likes to say, “Even when I have an attitude, I still love you.” And then in the midst of it there is a little bit of mercy, words of forgiveness that restart the clock and hugs that refresh your soul.

Micha talks about this dynamic in her own family when harsh words and anxiety take over, and the mercy and forgiveness extended in the midst of it. She observes how her children calm each other down and how they become mercy for each other, like a superpower against all that threatens to unravel us. Her youngest child once took Ace’s face in his hands and said “you are a sweet little mercy. Just a sweet little mercy.”

God have mercy

Christ have mercy

Spirit have mercy

Maybe the power of mercy lies within its multiplicity. When we extend the arms of God through our arms, the heart of God through our heart, and the eyes of God through our own look of love, then it somehow doubles like the yeast of the kingdom of God and the faith of the mustard seed. We give just a little bit of mercy and suddenly find it has tripled in size.

Blessed are you who can look into the galaxy of souls around you with eyes of love. Blessed are you who extend the heart of God. May you be and may you receive just a little bit of mercy.