mercy

Have Mercy

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Have Mercy” Luke 10:25-37

It was a Sunday morning and Rev. Stephen Farris was late. He was filling in at a small church for a few months, and it was an icy day, not unlike today. By the time he got his car defrosted, he knew he was cutting it close. Wouldn’t you know that he hit every red light along the way? At the biggest intersection, while he sat anxiously waiting for the light to change, an older man, leaning on a cane, started to slowly cross the road in front of him. As the crosswalk light turned amber and then red, the older man tried to hurry. His cane slipped on a patch of ice and he fell, heavily.

In the split second that it took Pastor Stephen to put the car in park and reach for the door to get out, many thoughts flashed through his mind. He thought about the time it would take to help the man, call the rescue squad, and ensure he got to safety. He thought about the disappointment of his parishioners, who would sit in the pews waiting and wondering. Another thought crossed his mind. He could just drive away. He would make it to church in time to start the service, and he could trust that someone with more time would come along to ensure that the fallen man got the help he needed.

The story of the Good Samaritan is so familiar to us that most of us know it by heart. It all starts with a provocative question, “Who is my neighbor?” As Jesus tells his story, we can imagine the steep and windy road where the poor man was attacked by robbers and left bloodied, bruised, naked, and nearly lifeless in a ditch. We can see first the priest and then the Levite hurry by, even though they are righteous men who should help. We can see the Samaritan, that hated outsider, stopping for pity’s sake: tending wounds, transporting, lodging, and arranging for further needs. It’s an example story in which the enemy is held up as the neighbor by virtue of his extraordinary mercy, and we are told to go and do likewise.

Mercy, in Hebrew hesed, is a fundamental virtue of Judaism. Our Israelite ancestors believed that they were called to be merciful because God is merciful. God had chosen Abraham and Sarah to be a blessed covenant people, even though they were old, childless, and as good as dead. Later, in God’s mercy, God had heard the cries of the Hebrew people in bondage to Pharaoh and sent Moses with ten plagues to soften Pharaoh’s hard heart and set the people free. God had brought Israel through forty years in the wilderness to a land flowing with milk and honey. God’s mercy was a freely given gift to a people in special need.

The prophets called the people of Israel to see that mercy, hesed, wasn’t just for some. A close translation of Micah 6:8 calls us to “seek justice, love mercy (hesed), and walk humbly” with God. Mercy involves active concern for the wellbeing of all the people of God, not just those known personally to us. In fact, God spoke through the prophets that the people of Israel had a particular duty to show mercy to the most vulnerable people of the community: the widow, orphan, and resident alien (Jer. 22:3, Zech. 7:9-10).

The early church was founded upon this ancestral virtue of mercy, hesed. From its earliest days, the church saw Jesus as the ultimate revelation of God’s mercy. Jesus was God’s shocking and merciful choice to be flesh, live among us, and suffer for us. Jesus, of course, served as both role model and instructor in the way of mercy. Whether feeding crowds or reaching out a helping hand to heal the leper, Jesus showed his followers what mercy looks like. He also left them with a few roadmaps, like the story of the Good Samaritan, to show us the way.

Jesus’ friends followed his example, responding to God’s incredible mercy by sharing their own acts of mercy. The first office of the church—deacon—was created by the apostles in Jerusalem to address the needs of widows. The first churchwide offering, collected by the Apostle Paul from the Gentile churches in Greece, was received to help victims of famine in Jerusalem.

In his book, The Rise of Christianity, sociologist Rodney Stark argues that Christianity was transformed from a marginalized sect of Judaism to the leading religion of the Roman Empire in only three centuries because Christians practiced mercy. The apostles and those who would follow them, tended to souls and to bodies. They shared the core practices of mercy that Jesus taught in his Parable of the Sheep and Goats. They fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, tended the sick, visited prisoners, and welcomed strangers. As they did so, they trusted that they were serving Jesus, who promised to come to them in the least of these, his little brothers and sisters. In the year 1281, the Archbishop of Canterbury John Pecham called for a council of the bishops of the church to gather at Lambeth. There they established the “Seven Acts of Mercy,” which codified those merciful practices and the burial of the dead as the core mission of Christians.

This ruling on the Seven Acts of Mercy led to a flowering of medieval artwork as churches and patrons commissioned paintings, stained glass, and murals that would teach their parishioners what mercy looked like. In 1504 in the Church of St. Lawrence in Amsterdam, the Master of Alkmaar painted a series of seven panels to show the seven acts. In the panel entitled “Feeding the Hungry,” a woman holds a basket of freshly baked bread. Her husband stands with his back to a crowd of hungry neighbors and distributes the bread, passing it without prejudice to the unseen hands that wait behind him. A disabled man with twisted legs, who scoots along on his bottom, reaches up for a loaf. A poor woman with a naked child waits her turn. A blind man in a tattered cloak with a little person tied to his shoulders holds out a hand in hopes of bread. As you look at the panel, it gives you a little shock to see Jesus, standing at the back of the crowd. He is dressed like a medieval peasant. He isn’t looking at the bread. He looks directly at you.

Acts of mercy continue to define vibrant churches like this one. We feed the hungry through the food pantry and Jubilee Garden. We give drink to the thirsty with shallow wells for sub-Saharan Africa. We clothe the naked and meet pressing needs with the help of our Deacons Fund. We tend the sick with home-cooked meals, caring calls, prayers, cards, and visits. We have visited prisoners over the years at federal, state, and county penitentiaries. We make it a practice of welcoming all—and we affirm that each week in worship. The example of the Good Samaritan and the Seven Acts of Mercy continue to inspire us to reach out in love in response to God’s great love for us and the needs of our neighbors.

Perhaps the most pressing questions of our time is “Who is my neighbor?” Is the refugee my neighbor? How about the undocumented migrant? Is the single Mom in section-8 housing my neighbor? How about the suburban soccer Mom? Is the disabled child, who takes up classroom time and needs a special aid hired at tax payer expense, my neighbor? Are LGBTQ people my neighbor? How about the white supremacist? The Christian nationalist? The gang banger? The bleeding-heart Yankee liberal? The Q-anon conspiracy theorist? Do we draw lines, and if so, where? Believe me, there are powers and principalities who are drawing the lines even as I speak. They will be glad to tell you who is not your neighbor, who is beyond the pale of mercy.

In Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan, the wounded man receives critically needed help from a traditional enemy. The wounded man receives the help even though, if not in such distress, he might hate, reject, and despise the Samaritan who helped him. The Samaritan proves that he is a neighbor by choosing to cross centuries-old lines of hatred and prejudice in order to be merciful to someone who needs it. When John Calvin wrote about this story, he said that it forces us to admit “that our neighbor is the man most foreign to us, for God has bound all men [and women] together for mutual aid.” Perhaps we can only truly appreciate this holy bond that makes neighbors of us all when we are the one who is lying in the ditch, weeping as we are passed by.

I’d like to return to Pastor Stephen at the icy intersection. As he put his car in park and reached for the door, his mind was flooded with possibilities. Stay and help the fallen man, even if he would be late for his responsibilities at church. Turn his head and go, let it be someone else’s problem. No one would be the wiser. Before he could pull the handle to open the door, the fallen man got up. He looked around and gave Pastor Stephen a dirty look for witnessing his icy tumble. He limped away, leaning on his cane. Pastor Stephen put the car in drive and continued to church. He made it there just in time for the service. He still wonders what he would have done if the situation had taken a different turn.

May we go forth to be merciful as God is merciful.

Resources

Douglas Otati. “Theological Perspective on Luke 10:25-37” in Feasting on the Gospels: Luke, vol. 1. Westminster John Knox Press, 2014.

Mary Miller Brueggemann. “Pastoral Perspective on Luke 10:25-37” in Feasting on the Gospels: Luke, vol. 1. Westminster John Knox Press, 2014.

Stephen J. Farris. “Homiletical Perspective on Luke 10:25-37” in Feasting on the Gospels: Luke, vol. 1. Westminster John Knox Press, 2014.

Katherine Sakenfeld. “Love (OT)” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 4, K-N. Doubleday, 1992.

Philip H. Towner. “Mercy” in Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology. Baker Books, 1996.

Steven Croft. “The Seven Acts of Mercy” in Letters from the Bishop, The Diocese of Oxford, Feb. 27, 2016.

Rodney Stark. The Rise of Christianity. Harper Collins, 1997.

Luke 10:25-37

25 An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 27 He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

29 But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while traveling came upon him, and when he saw him he was moved with compassion. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, treating them with oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him, and when I come back I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Master of Alkmaar. Seven Works of Mercy, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57901 [retrieved March 30, 2025]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Master_of_Alkmaar_-_The_Seven_Works_of_Mercy_(detail)_-_WGA14368.jpg.

The Reckoning

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “The Reckoning” 2 Sam. 11:26-12:13a

We are constantly judging others. It is part of how we are hardwired as human beings, a legacy of the days when determining the safety or danger of any given situation could mean the difference between life and death. Researchers at Dartmouth and New York Universities determined that the human brain begins to label people as trustworthy or untrustworthy in a split second, even before we have time to consciously analyze what we see.

Our natural tendency to judge others is further shaped by our context. Children raised in families with critical parents learn to judge, sorting people into a ranked hierarchy from excellent to good to adequate to “you should be embarrassed by that effort.” Similarly, students, who cut their teeth in hyper-competitive schools and universities, can be ruthless in assigning value to the efforts of their classmates. We want that gold star for ourselves.

Psychologists suggest that our innate need to judge finds further reinforcement from the mental payoff that we reap. Finding others inadequate boosts our own sense of self-esteem and competency. We think, “At least I’m better than that!” Carl Jung, whose work was so formative for analytical psychology, formulated that there is a deeper and darker motivation behind our need to judge. Jung argued that we refuse to see what we do not like about ourselves, but at a deeper level, we still need to deal with those qualities and actions. So, we project those flaws onto others. We dislike and even hate in others that part of ourselves that we have denied and disowned.

In our reading from 2 Samuel, King David rushed to judgment when the Prophet Nathan told him a story of injustice. Last week, we heard the story of David’s abuse of power. While the armies of Israel waged war against the Ammonites, David stayed home and got up to no good. First, he violated and impregnated Bathsheba. Then, he had her husband Uriah murdered to cover up the sin. As today’s reading began, David thought all the mischief had been managed. He had even appeared generous and magnanimous by taking the widowed Bathsheba into the royal household and making her a wife.

There was only one problem—and it was a big one. God was a witness. God knew that the king had coveted his neighbor’s wife, committed adultery, borne false witness, and staged a murder. God didn’t like what God had seen, so a holy messenger, the Prophet Nathan, was called to confront David with his sin.

It was deftly done. David as king spent part of his day hearing the disputes of his people and rendering judgments. Nathan stood in line in the judgment hall and waited. When his turn came, he told a sad story of the abuse of power. We heard it—the rich man stole and killed the beloved pet of his impoverished neighbor without a second thought to the lamb’s suffering or the neighbor’s grief. David, who had not acknowledged the abuse and injustice of his own actions, rushed to judgment as he heard those actions attributed to another. “This man deserves to die!” the king proclaimed, unwittingly passing judgment on himself.

It’s a story that makes us want to pass our own judgments. How disappointed we are in David, who has proven that he is just as capable of misusing his authority as the last king, Saul. It’s a story that uncomfortably reveals that David is both sinner and saint. He is a rapist, murderer, liar, and predator. Yet, David is also Israel’s champion, a war hero, a poet, the anointed one, and a man with a heart for God. Humanity is complex, with the potential for so much good—and so much evil. It’s a fact that undergirds the salvation story of scripture. It stretches from God’s warning to Cain in the Garden of Eden, saying, “Sin is at your door. Its desire is to master you, but you must rule over it” (Gen. 4:7). It stretches to the cross, where Jesus took on the sin of the world so that we could be reconciled to God and one another. We are all sinners and saints.

David’s response to the parable of the ewe lamb reflects his inability to see and accept his own moral failure. We, too, find it easier to see the sins of others than to recognize our own faults. We lament and demonstrate against the humanitarian crisis in Gaza even as we arm the Israeli Defense Force. We rail against illegal immigration at our southern border even as we tank bi-partisan efforts to address the problem. We judge our neighbor’s addiction to drugs or alcohol while we soothe our anxiety with too much food or pornography or shopping ‘til we drop. Everyone is a judge. Everyone is a critic. Everyone has an inner troll, waiting to drop the bomb of condemnation on anyone other than ourselves. There’s a reason that Jesus cautioned the Pharisees when they judged his ministry and his disciples, saying that they would be better served attending to the plank in their own eye than casting aspersions against the crumb in the eye of their neighbor.

Nathan’s parable serves as a reminder that, not only are we sinner and saint, not only are we more eager to judge the fault of others than to confess our own failings, but we are also all subject to holy judgment. It’s a disquieting contention of scripture that there will be a Day of Judgment when we will be deemed sheep or goats, saints or sinners. David thought the mischief was managed. We think no one knows our sin. But God sees and God knows. In fact, our sins against one another are also sins against God. Nathan said it best in telling David, “Why have you despised the word of the Lord?” Indeed, according to the Ten Commandments, David’s sins of adultery and murder were a violation of Israel’s covenant with God and punishable by death. David knew this. That’s why when he was publicly confronted with his crimes, he confessed, “I have sinned against the Lord.” He threw himself upon the mercy of his eternal judge.

There is a lot of bad news in our scripture today: we are all both sinners and saints, we judge others and fail to accept our shortcomings, and we will one day face judgment. And yet there is good news. The good news is that God is merciful and abounding in steadfast love. When David finally faced facts, Nathan offered God’s mercy, saying, “God has taken away your sin; you will not die.” There would, of course, be consequences that sprang from David’s unjust actions. We all know what it is like to face the music of owning up to what we have done, whether we want to or not. Yet we can trust that God chooses to forgive. There is mercy for us.

We, who are hardwired to judge and have painfully experienced the judgment of others, struggle to trust in the mercy of our God. That steadfast love only becomes real for us when we remember what God has done for us in Jesus of Nazareth. The life of Jesus is an extended metaphor for the limitless love and incomparable mercy of God. In Jesus, we know that God loves us enough to become flesh, live among us, and teach us the better way of the kingdom. In Jesus, we learned that God loves us enough to generously forgive frail disciples, formidable opponents, and even the executioners who nailed him to a cross and gambled for his clothes. Who is in a position to condemn us? Only Jesus. As we celebrate the Lord’s Supper today and partake of the body and blood of our Lord, we remember that God would sooner die than be parted from us. The mercy of our Lord abounds for us. Thanks be to God.

Perhaps we come closest to Jesus and to embodying his Kingdom when we dare to allow God’s mercy to flow through us to others. When we rise above our instinct to judge, when we stop projecting onto others what we loathe in ourselves, when we understand that we are all in need of a savior, it is then that the Kingdom comes alive in life changing ways. We find the wherewithal to truly love our neighbor, and we place our hearts on the altar of God’s love where we are helped and healed and made new. May we go forth to love more and to judge less.

Resources

Dana Harron. “Why Do We Judge Other People?” in Psychology Today, Oct. 21, 2021. Accessed online at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-eating-disorders/202110/why-do-we-judge-other-people

Visweswaran Balasubramanian. “Psychology of Judging – what it reveals about us” in Linked In Pulse, Dec. 8, 2020. Accessed online at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/psychology-judging-what-reveals-us-visweswaran-balasubramanian/

Dhuvra Koranne. “The Psychology of Judging Others” in Mind Voyage, Nov. 8, 2023. Accessed online at The Psychology of Judging Others | Mind Voyage

Alexandra Sifferlin. “Our Brains Immediately Judge People” in Time Magazine, August 6, 2014. Accessed online at https://time.com/3083667/brain-trustworthiness/

Ted A. Smith. “Commentary on 2 Sam. 11:26-12:13a” in Preaching This Week, August 2, 2009. Accessed online at Commentary on 2 Samuel 11:26—12:13a – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Ralph Klein. “Commentary on 2 Sam. 11:26-12:13a” in Preaching This Week, August 2, 2015. Accessed online at Commentary on 2 Samuel 11:26—12:13a – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Roger Nam. “Commentary on 2 Sam. 11:26-12:13a” in Preaching This Week, August 4, 2024. Accessed online at Commentary on 2 Samuel 11:26—12:13a – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

2 Samuel 11:26—12:13a

26When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. 27When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord,

12and the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. 2The rich man had very many flocks and herds; 3but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. 4Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.” 5Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; 6he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” 7Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; 8I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. 9Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. 11Thus says the Lord: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. 12For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.” 13David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Nathan said to David, “Now the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die.

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Mercy, Not Sacrifice

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Mercy, Not Sacrifice” Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Timmy feels like an outsider. He’s at that awkward adolescent stage where his legs have gotten too long for the pants his Mom bought for him in the fall, but he still hasn’t outgrown his baby fat. When it comes to gym class, he’ll be picked last for a team. Timmy asked a girl to the school dance, but she said “no.” Lately, the popular boys in his class have been bullying him. They call him by a mean nickname. They ridicule the ankles that show beneath his too short pants, the thick glasses that he needs to read, and the pimples that are beginning to erupt on his chin. Timmy spends a lot of time at home in his room, reading or playing video games. He tells his parents that he doesn’t want to talk about it.

Sara hasn’t been to church since she was a teenager. Last year, she got married to her longtime girlfriend. It was a sweet ceremony, outside in a garden with vows they wrote themselves. A friend with one of those online ordinations that you can buy for $10 presided at the service. Sara loved church, but one day in Youth Group, as she was coming to terms with her sexual identity, the Youth Pastor told everyone that people who are gay or lesbian are an abomination. Sara didn’t really know what that word meant, but she knew it wasn’t good. Later, when she looked it up, it hurt her heart to think that people would actually believe that God hated her for the way that God had made her.

Martin and Adele feel like outsiders in their own family. It started with the 2016 Presidential election when family members split over the two candidates. What started as a minor squabble at the Thanksgiving dinner table over the election outcome has exploded into years of animosity. You should see the insulting and demeaning partisan emails and Facebook posts that have fanned the flames of conflict. Disagreement has escalated to division. Martin and Adele may love their family, but they find it hard to like them these days. Last year, they skipped Thanksgiving, and they don’t know if they’ll ever return to the family table.

Our reading from Matthew’s gospel serves as an extended example of how Jesus responded to first century distinctions between outsiders and insiders to God’s love. It all started when Jesus saw Matthew sitting at his roadside toll booth and invited the tax collector to become a disciple. The Pharisees were scandalized. Didn’t Jesus understand that Matthew was an outsider? He was an unclean collaborator, who had profited from the Roman occupation. Matthew wasn’t fit for decent society.  Didn’t Jesus understand that breaking bread with Matthew was risky business? After all, you know what they say, “Birds of a feather flock together.”

Then, there was that woman, the one with the bleeding down there. She had been unclean for longer than anyone could remember. Ten years? Twelve? A long time. Leviticus fifteen taught that a woman with a discharge of blood was impure. Anyone who came into contact with her was rendered unclean. She was an embarrassment to her family, shunned by the neighbors. Everyone in Capernaum knew to steer clear of her.

How about that little girl? She may have been the daughter of the synagogue leader, but dead is dead. The professional mourners were already wailing. In a world where six out of ten children didn’t grow to adulthood, this death was no rare tragedy, and she was a girl, after all, not a higher status boy. The Torah taught that anyone who touched a corpse was rendered unclean for seven days, a whole week of prayer and separation. There would be purification rites to undertake, too, on the third and seventh days. Jairus should have known better than to waste Jesus’ time. This little girl wasn’t worth the trouble.

Matthew, the woman, Jairus’s daughter. All were unclean outsiders in the eyes of first century Israel. Beyond any social stigma—and there was plenty of that—people like the Pharisees believed that Matthew, the woman, and Jairus’s daughter were separated from God. Matthew had willfully disregarded the Torah to consort with Gentiles. That woman must have been a terrible sinner for God to afflict her so shamefully for so long. And that little girl? Dead! Perhaps God would raise her on the Day of Judgment.

We all have times when we feel like outsiders. Like Timmy, we may have been rejected or bullied by siblings, classmates, or colleagues. Like Sara, we may have been told that God can’t and won’t love people like us. Like Martin and Adele, we may have fallen victim to the bitter divisions of partisan politics that cast those with differing opinions as mortal enemies.

The world is full of other neighbors who feel like outsiders. They live in poverty on the margins of the community. They cope with autism that makes it daunting and difficult to connect socially. They wrestle with mental illness that makes them want to go back to bed and pull the sheets over their head. They grapple with addictions that fill them with guilt and shame.  They feel like they don’t belong. They may even wonder why God doesn’t love them.

Jesus chose to reach outside, to move beyond the traditional limits of first century Judaism, to stretch the bounds of the Torah. When the Pharisees challenged him on the company he kept, he quoted for them the words of the Prophet Hosea, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Jesus chose to practice mercy rather than become a prisoner of purity. Jesus came for tax collectors, hemorrhaging women, little girls, and all the others who had been made to feel like they lived life on the outside, looking in, unwelcome at the table of the righteous, unwelcome in the Temple of God.

Jesus’s ministry was a bold witness to God’s love and mercy for those who felt unwelcome and excluded. Of course, Matthew was called to serve as a disciple. Of course, that woman was healed and praised for her faith. Of course, Jesus took that little girl by the hand and tenderly restored her to her family.  Rather than sacrifice a sister or brother on the altar of holiness, Jesus chose mercy. Jesus knew that God’s love longs to welcome the outsider in.

There must have been great rejoicing that evening in Capernaum. Matthew threw the biggest dinner party ever. He broke out the best wine. He killed the fatted calf. He invited not only Jesus and all his former colleagues in the tax booth, but also all the Pharisees to feast at his sumptuous table.

That woman, who no longer had the issue of blood, sang praises to God. She was celebrated by her neighbors who had never really seen her before. They had only seen her disease. They realized how lonely she must have been all those years. They saw that just touching Jesus’ prayer shawl must have taken tremendous courage. Then, she went home to her family filled with rejoicing and together they wept tears of gratitude and joy.  

That funeral wake for Jairus’s daughter turned into a birthday party. The weeping turned into cries of jubilation. The sackcloth was traded for some festive party hats and Mardi Gras beads. A conga line danced through the streets of the village with Jairus, his wife, and daughter leading the way.

This morning, we who have been made to feel like outsiders join the party. We are loved in the midst of our gawky adolescence. We are loved whether we are LGBTQ – or even straight. We are loved regardless of our political sensibilities. Jesus wants to spend time with us, whether we are poor or rich, have autism or social anxiety, contend with mental illness or feel enslaved by our addiction. Jesus is for us, his mercy and love abound.

If we listen closely this morning, we who feel at home inside the church, inside the tradition, may even hear Jesus calling us to reach outside, to follow him in extending the boundless love and mercy of God to those who need it most. May it be so.

Resources:

Rolf Jacobson, “Followed by the Lord” in Dear Working Preacher, June 4, 2023. Accessed online at www.workingpreacher.org.

Cleophus LaRue. “Commentary on Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26,” June 11, 2023. Accessed online at www.workingpreacher.org.

Greg Carey. “Commentary on Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26,” June 8, 2008. Accessed online at www.workingpreacher.org.

Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

9As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. 10And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

18While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” 19And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. 20Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, 21for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” 22Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well. 23When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, 24he said, “Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. 25But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. 26And the report of this spread throughout that district.

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Mercy, Me!

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Mercy, Me!” 1 Tim. 1:12-17

Oren Kalisman grew up with Muslim neighbors he never met.  In fact, as a Jewish child growing up in the Galilee, Oren’s only childhood memory of interacting with a Muslim neighbor was when his mother stopped to give a ride to an old man, hitchhiking on the road to the next village.  At eighteen, Oren, like his parents before him, began compulsory military service with the Israeli Defense Forces. He was selected for an elite squad of paratroopers with twenty soldiers under his command.

When the second intifada began in 2000, Oren and his unit were deployed outside a refugee camp. There they used snipers to pick off alarmed Palestinians who emerged to defend their homes with rocks and Molotov cocktails.  In 2002, a solo Palestinian attack at an Israeli checkpoint killed six Jewish soldiers.  Orders came from Oren’s commanding officers: the Muslim policemen manning Palestinian check points in the West Bank were to be killed in retaliation.  Fifteen officers were executed.

Oren justified the violence that he and his men perpetrated. If someone was throwing a Molotov cocktail at you, they should be killed.  Likewise, someone had to pay for the murder of six Israeli soldiers, even if those killed had nothing to do with the attack.  Oren was just doing his job.  He was following orders.

In our reading from 1 Timothy, the Apostle Paul alludes to his track record as a man of violence and a persecutor of Christians.  As a devout youth, Paul had studied with the esteemed rabbi Gamaliel in Jerusalem and become an expert in the Torah.  Paul practiced Pharisaic teachings, which touted an extreme piety and devotion as the best way to please God.  In his zeal as a young Pharisee, Paul had endorsed the stoning of the deacon Stephen, the first martyr among Jesus’ followers.  Paul had also harassed the church in Jerusalem, and when many fled to Syria, Paul sought special permission to take his violence on the road, to arrest and return to Jerusalem for punishment all who believed that Jesus was the Messiah.  Paul justified his violent behavior, believing that he was rooting out a dangerous sect that defiled Judaism with the news of a false Messiah. 

We may not be members of the Israeli Defense Forces or Pharisees censuring blasphemers, but we know how it feels to be troubled by our pasts, even when we believed that what we were doing was true and righteous.  In fact, our past may continue to haunt our present and trouble our thoughts about the future.

Before coming to Saranac Lake, I enjoyed being a youth pastor in Morton Grove, Illinois.  I like to think that I did some good ministry among the young people of the church, but I think some of my best service was in providing caring presence and compassionate listening for some of the church’s oldest members, our World War II veterans.  They were troubled by remembrance of the friends they left behind on the beaches of Normandy.  They were disturbed by memories of the hate and violence they had directed toward Japanese enemies in the South Pacific.  They realized that they had brought the war home with them after it was over.  They kept secrets from their wives.  They had been emotionally distant with their children.  As Morton Grove welcomed an increasing number of Asian immigrants, they struggled to let go of their painful memories and love their new neighbors.  There were any number of ways that they could reasonably justify their past actions, but their violent pasts still troubled them.

In my twenty-two years of serving churches, I have learned that we can all be troubled by our pasts, whether we have embraced violence and persecution or we have simply engaged in practices that wound the spirit or brought injury to others.  We regret the harm we have caused our families: our impatience and harshness with our children, our failures to care for aging parents, or the too little love that we have shown to our spouse.  We regret the harm we have worked against the human family: our gender bias, our racial hate, our prejudice toward those whose ethnicity, social class, or political views are unlike our own.  We can be adept at justifying our actions and rationalizing our bad behavior, but when we are truly and deeply honest, we know our need for grace.  We know the late-night hours when we pray, “Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner.”

Paul’s past caught up with him as he hurried down the Damascus Road, intent on arresting those who knew Christ as Lord.  According to the Acts of the Apostles, Paul was stopped dead, blinded by a heavenly light, and accused by the aggrieved Jesus, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”  Struck blind and powerless, the incapacitated Paul was taken to Damascus, where he spent three days without sight, neither eating nor drinking, pondering how he had gotten things so wrong.

Oren Kalisman’s turn around came during the Passover in April 2002.  In response to a terror attack in Netanya, Oren and his men were sent into the West Bank with orders to occupy Nablus, using whatever means were necessary.  From the second floor of a home that they had occupied, Oren heard gunfire from the room next door.  There, one of his men, a sniper, was firing at an unarmed old man who was seeking to recover the body of a boy, dead in the street below.  When Oren ordered his soldier to stop firing, he learned of orders from their commanding officer to kill with impunity.  Shocked at the inhumanity they had resorted to, Oren realized the moral quandary he was in.  Remembering that moment, the Israeli says, “We were surrounded by Palestinians who were fighting very bravely and who I realized, like ourselves sixty years ago, were fighting out of desperation for their very homes.”  At the end of the operation, Oren voiced his moral concerns and asked to be replaced.

We all have our Damascus Road moments when we are convicted of the harsh truth of sin.  Sin confronts us in the dysfunction that we instill in our families.  Sin shouts at us from the evening news as the murder of George Floyd, the shooting of Breonna Taylor, or the lead in Jackson, MI drinking water remind us of that racism is part of the fabric of our society.  If we are at all self-aware, we will admit the sin of writing off relationships, doing the wrong thing because it is the easy thing, and allowing ourselves to hate others because their political views are unlike our own.  When we sin against our neighbors, we sin against God.  We sin against Jesus, who asks why we are persecuting him. Lord, have mercy upon us.

Paul tells us good news. Although we act in ignorance and unbelief, the grace of God overflows for us.  Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom Paul deemed himself to be foremost. We are loved and forgiven.  And in the greatness of Christ’s mercy for us, we find a new purpose in service to God and neighbor.  Jesus would use Paul’s zeal to serve God’s Kingdom.  The former persecutor and newly Christened apostle would make multiple missionary journeys, plant countless churches, and touch many lives with the good news of God’s amazing grace that seeks and saves us when we are lost.

Oren Kalisman has found a new purpose.  He has established a chapter of Combatants for Peace in the West Bank community of Nablus where he once was an occupier.  Combatants for Peace brings together former members of the Israeli Defense Forces and former Palestinian combatants.  They share their stories, build relationships, and learn principles of non-violent conflict resolution.  Their goal is nothing less than building a foundation for Israelis and Palestinians that will bring lasting peace to the land.

My wise World War II friends knew that the only way forward from a war to end all wars was through the love and grace of God in Jesus Christ.  They trusted that, even though they might always be troubled by their war experiences, the grace of God overflowed for them.  They poured out their lives in God’s service in simple heartfelt ways. They attended church every Sunday. They shared their skills and abilities for God’s glory: founding a church, building a manse, tending the church gardens, serving on session. They kept God at the heart of their families with Sunday School and table graces, mission trips and church potlucks.  They knew their weakness and trusted that the Lord could do what they could not.  In the eighteen years since I served as one of their pastors, those men have all died.  I have no doubts that grace led each of them home.

The grace of Jesus Christ overflows for us this morning.  We are loved and God is faithful, even if we are, like Paul, the foremost of sinners.  Our immortal, invisible, only-wise God redeems us with a love that is stronger than the persecution of Pharisees or the intractable violence between Israelis and Palestinians.  God’s mercy for us is bigger than the legacy of war or all the ways that we can get things so wrong in our families and the human family. The mercy of God abounds for us and claims us for God’s purpose.  Lord, have mercy!

Resources:

The story of Oren Kalisman was recorded for The Forgiveness Project and may be read at https://www.theforgivenessproject.com/stories-library/oren-kalisman/

If you would like to learn more about Combatants for Peace, you can at this link: https://cfpeace.org/

Eric Barreto. “Commentary on 1 Tim. 1:12-17” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 11, 2016. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org

Benjamin Fiore. “Commentary on 1 Tim. 1:12-17” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 15, 2019. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org

Christian Eberhart. “Commentary on 1 Tim. 1:12-17” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 15, 2013. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org

A.K.M. Adam. “Commentary on 1 Tim. 1:12-17” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 12, 2010. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org

1 Timothy 1:12-17

12 I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he considered me faithful and appointed me to his service, 13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost. 16 But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience as an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life. 17 To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

By Chief Photographer’s Mate (CPHoM) Robert F. Sargent, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17040973

The Good Measure

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — Luke 6:27-38 “The Good Measure”

On October 2, 2006, milk truck driver Charles Carl Roberts IV barricaded himself inside the one-room West Nickel Mines School in Lancaster County, PA.  He had taken ten Amish girls, aged 6-13, hostage.  He lined them up and bound their feet.  As police sought to breach the schoolhouse, Roberts opened fire, killing five children and wounding five others before taking his own life.  Later that day, when the parents of Charles Carl Roberts learned that their son had been the shooter, they were shocked.  The husband Charlie turned to his wife Terri and said, “I will never face my Amish neighbors again.” 

But face them he did.  After the private funeral that the Roberts family held for their son, their Amish neighbors surprised them at the gravesite.  About thirty Amish, some of whom had buried their daughters the day before, showed up, arriving in their buggies and walking across the fields.  They surrounded the Roberts family in a crescent, as a sign of forgiveness and love.  Charlie Roberts’s Amish neighbor came to his home and spent an hour with his arm around him, offering comfort.  Ten months after the tragic attack, the Amish shocked the Roberts and the world again.  Community members had contributed money to create the Roberts Family Fund to support the widow and three young children of the man who had taken the lives of five of their own.

Those gestures of mercy from the Amish may have humbled, puzzled, or even outraged us.  We may have shaken our heads and thought, “Those people are better than I am.  There’s no way I could have put myself at that gravesite.”  Or we could have asked ourselves, “What’s up with that?  How could you hold in your heart both the anguish of untimely, tragic grief and the possibility of compassion for a stone-cold killer?”  Or we may just not have believed it.  Vocal critics at the time argued that the Amish didn’t forgive.  They simply went through the motions of mercy that had been imprinted upon them by their culture.  Yet on the day of the shooting, a grandfather of one of the Amish girls turned his family away from hate, saying, “We must not think evil of this man.”  Another father said, “He had a mother and a wife and a soul and now he is standing before a just God.”

“Love your enemies, do what is good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. . . Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.”  The forgiveness and mercy of the Amish in the wake of the West Nickel Mines school shooting put hands and feet and hearts to those tough words that Jesus spoke to listeners when he delivered that Sermon on the Plain.  For the disciples and others who had gathered to hear Jesus preach, those words would have felt impractical and unthinkable. 

The Ancient Near East was a world driven by retributive violence.  An accidental death could readily explode into the murder of an entire family.  Blood feuds pitted neighbor against neighbor and nation against nation for generations.  If you’d like to read a story of this sort of explosive, escalating, unstoppable violence, take some time to read Genesis 34.  The sons of Jacob took retribution against Shechem, who had sexually assaulted and married their sister Dinah.  To exact revenge, Levi and Simon came upon Shechem and his kin unawares and slaughtered all the men.  Then, Jacob’s other ten sons plundered the community, taking for themselves all the valuables, livestock, children, and wives.

The covenant of the Torah, the Jewish law, tried to limit this escalating cycle of blood violence by teaching a tit-for-tat justice.  Exodus 21 instructs that vengeance must be measured and reciprocal, “If there is an injury, then you must give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, bruise for bruise, wound for wound.”  To help the people move away from blood vengeance, six cities of refuge were designated in Israel. There the perpetrators of accidental manslaughter could claim the right of asylum and await appropriate justice.

Yet Jesus broke even with this moderate teaching of measured retaliation by insisting that his followers exceed the standards of the Torah.  Instead of pulling out their opponent’s teeth and blacking their eyes, Jesus’s friends were to love, do good for, bless, and pray for their enemies.  It was a completely new ethic that flew in the face of everything that his followers knew and experienced.  The love that Jesus enjoined his disciples to practice is agape, the love that God practices.  Agape chooses to act for the good of the other, regardless of what our hearts might be telling us. 

Love your enemies?  Love / agape is a tough choice that we learn to make.  We can only find the ability to practice agape when we consider the mercy of God to us.  Those of you who studied the ten commandments with me a number of years ago will remember that disobeying the moral code that Moses imparted to us carries a death penalty.  We are all deserving of Yahweh’s judgment, and yet God is shockingly merciful.  Instead of judgment and death, God became flesh and entered into this world’s darkness.  In Jesus, God chose to live for us and show to us the way of agape.  Traditional enemies like Romans, Samaritans, and Canaanites were welcomed, helped, and healed.  Clueless, fickle disciples and merciless executioners were prayed for and forgiven.  In the ultimate act of agape, on a merciless cross, flanked by common criminals, Jesus revealed that God loves us enough to die for us.

It is in the enormity of God’s costly love for us that we begin to see another way.  We begin to think that maybe we can move away from demanding an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.  We begin to see that only love can heal hearts, transform an enemy into a friend, and make a changed future possible.  With frail and feeble efforts, we begin to choose love.  We fail often.  And yet, we trust that God’s mercy is there to catch us when we fall.  The grace of Christ is sufficient for us. 

What might this transformational ethic of agape look like for us?  It might be letting go of a long-held grudge.  It could be letting bygones be bygones in a family feud.  It might be giving a second chance to a friend who betrayed a confidence.  It could be working hard together to mend a marriage that has endured infidelity.  It is choosing to act always in the best interest of the other and knowing that we can borrow some of God’s love when ours is in short supply.

Jesus described the fruit of a life lived in agape.  He called it the “good measure.”  When you went to a first century marketplace for grain, the merchant filled a measure to the brim and then gave it a good shake to ensure that every nook and cranny was filled.  The merchant then poured that overflowing measure into your apron to carry home.  It’s a beautiful earthy metaphor for a life that abounds with goodness.  When we practice and experience agape, the world gets blessed and so do we.  As we haltingly live into agape, we show God’s Kingdom to the world and in some immeasurable and hopeful way, that Kingdom comes.

In the days following the terrible events at the West Nickel Mines School, Terri and Charlie Roberts, the parents of the shooter, considered leaving the area.  Their grief, shame, and pain were so immense that they couldn’t imagine a way forward, but the Amish did more than forgive the couple, they embraced them as part of the community.  That generous agape prompted the Roberts to host a summer picnic in their backyard for their Amish neighbors, nine months after the attack.  They all came, including a little girl named Rosanna King, wheelchair bound, unable to speak or feed herself, the youngest of their son’s victims. 

A few months later, Terri Roberts asked Rosanna’s mother if she could help with the girl’s care.  Until her death from breast cancer in 2017, Terri spent nearly every Thursday evening at the King Family farm, bathing, reading, and attending to Rosanna until her bedtime.  Terri Roberts remembered the evening that a father said to her, ‘None of us would have ever chosen this.  But the relationships that we have built through it, you cannot put a price on that.”  Terri believed that the Amish choice for agape, the decision to allow life to move forward with love, was profoundly healing for her and her family.  Terri said that is “a message the world needs.” 

“Love your enemies, do what is good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. . .  Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.”

Resources:

Colby Itkowitz. “Her Son Shot Their Daughters 10 Years Ago, Then These Amish Families Embraced Her as a Friend” in The Washington Post, October 1, 2016.  Accessed online at washingtonpost.com.

Story Corps. “A Decade After Amish School Shooting, Gunman’s Mother Talks of Forgiveness” in Morning Edition, Sept. 20, 2016.  Accessed online at npr.org.

Sarah Henrick. “Commentary on Luke 6:27-38” in Preaching This Week, Feb. 20, 2022.  Accessed online at workingpreacher.com.

Ronald Allen. “Commentary on Luke 6:27-38” in Preaching This Week, Feb. 24, 2019.  Accessed online at workingpreacher.com.

Susan E. Hylen. “Theological Perspective on Luke 6:27-38” in Feasting on the Word, Year C, vol. 1. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.

Charles Bugg. “Pastoral Perspective on Luke 6:27-38” in Feasting on the Word, Year C, vol. 1. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.

Luke 6:27-38

27“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31Do to others as you would have them do to you. 32“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. 35But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. 36Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

37“Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; 38give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

Image source: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/us/03amish.html