The Quality of Mercy

July 30, 2017

The Quality of Mercy Pastor Carol P. Taylor

Psalm 145:1-10

A psalm of praise. Of David.

1  I will exalt you,  my God the King;
        I will praise your name  for ever and ever.
2  Every day I will praise  you
        and extol your name  for ever and ever.

3  Great  is the  Lord  and most worthy of praise;
        his greatness no one can fathom.4  One generation  commends your works to another;
        they tell  of your mighty acts.5  They speak of the glorious splendor  of your majesty―
        and I will meditate on your wonderful works.[b]
6  They tell  of the power of your awesome works―
        and I will proclaim  your great deeds.7  They celebrate your abundant goodness
        and joyfully sing  of your righteousness.

8  The  Lord  is gracious and compassionate,
        slow to anger and rich in love.

9  The  Lord  is good  to all;
        he has compassion  on all he has made.

10 All your works praise you,  Lord;
        your faithful people extol  you.

Sermon Series The Beatitudes of Jesus

I love the Beatitudes. Steve and I talked several weeks ago and he said he had decided to do this series over the summer. I was pretty psyched, I have notes....extensive notes from leading in depth studies of in two different groups a few years ago. The Beatitudes have been studied in a lot of ways, they challenge us. Especially now with new scholarship, new knowledge of how Jesus and his people lived, with better information about their customs and traditions, we can better understand.

As one author wrote; Rooted in the texts and traditions of ancient Judaism, they (Beatitudes) crystallize the very heart of a message God has been trying to convey to us from the beginning of time: a blessed life is a life transformed, and blessed lives gathered in community are capable of transforming the entire world.

Our text this morning is Blessed are the Merciful, for they will be shown mercy Matthew 5:7

Other Translations say “obtain mercy or receive mercy”

So.. short answer.. when we show others mercy, we will receive it ourselves! So what is mercy... Definition of  mercy

plural  mercies

1. 1a  :  compassion or forbearance (see  forbearance  1) shown especially to an offender or to one subject to one's power;  also  :  lenient or compassionate treatment  begged for  mercyb  :  imprisonment rather than death imposed as penalty for first-degree murder
2. 2a  :  a blessing that is an act of divine favor or compassion  May God have  mercy  on us.b  :  a fortunate circumstance  it was a  mercy  they found her before she froze
3. 3:  compassionate treatment of those in distress  works of  mercy  among the poor

Our psalm says God has compassion on all he has made! God is gracious and compassionate...slow to anger and rich in love! God knows and understands what we go through. And is so interested in us, God's own creation, that God's own self, Jesus came to live as a human being! Wow. Since we know that all all through history, humans fail at loving God as we should, God sent Jesus to BE one of us! To finally show us, and perhaps to even more fully comprehend what humanity is like!

So we are to show mercy, as God shows us mercy! To forgive as we have been forgiven. And we will then obtain more mercy!! more compassion, blessing.
When we pray, forgive us our debts, our trespasses, our sins. Forgive us,..as we forgive those who sin against us.

Some of us struggle to forgive. So perhaps our prayer, and we can pray this mentally as we pray the lords prayer.. maybe our prayer can be “Help us to forgive others...as we have been forgiven by You, dear Lord!

The amount of our own ability or willingness to forgive others does NOT limit God's ability and willingness to forgive us. God is LOVE and God's loving-kindness, mercy, grace.. means that God MUST forgive, out of God's unlimited love and compassion.

Now let's look at our New Testament lesson. It is from the book of Jude. This is one of the letters, written sometime between 40 - 60 years after the death of Jesus. The author, Jude is likely related to Jesus, possibly his half-brother.

The author writes to warn about false teachers in the early church.

Jude 1:17-22

A Call to Persevere

17  But, dear friends, remember what the apostles  of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold.  18  They said to you, “In the last times  there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.”  19  These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

20  But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up  in your most holy faith  and praying in the Holy Spirit,  21  keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait  for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

22  Be merciful to those who doubt; 

May God add a blessing to the reading of His word,. Amen.

As we wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus to bring us to eternal life...we are to be merciful to those who doubt. You see, just as now, when people are speaking falsely, they may speak rudely, and provoke divisiveness between people! God's Love brings people together!

Mercy = forgiveness (of course!)

but there is more to it! Mercy is God's gift of grace and unconditional love. God's mercy, which includes healing and justice. To be merciful is to seek to be more like Jesus, reaching out in His name. To recognize that everyone is a child of God, that what we may dislike in ourselves and others may well be what God adores, and is an expression of God's creativity.

God's mercy promotes unity, never division.

The word in the NT for mercy -†ἐƒÉƒÃέƒÖ  eleéō,  el-eh-eh'-o; from  G1656; to compassionate (by word or deed, specially, by divine grace):―have compassion (pity on), have (obtain, receive, shew) mercy (on).

This is related to the Hebrew word used in the OT for mercy and unconditional love, Chesed. So in both the Hebrew scriptures and in the NT the words for mercy have to do with love and so much more!

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy!

So we see that Mercy = forgiveness (of course!)

but there is more to it! To be merciful is to seek to be more like Jesus, reaching out in His name. To be merciful, we remember that God is never, ever done with us! And we gain compassion, because we've received it.

Author Henri Nouwen's description of compassion: it "grows with the inner recognition that your neighbor shares your humanity with you. This partnership cuts through all walls which might have kept you separate. Across all barriers of land and language, wealth and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, we are one, created from the same dust, subject to the same laws, destined for the same end."

And we recognize that everyone is a child of God, that what we may dislike in ourselves and others may well be what God adores, and is an expression of God's creativity.

God's mercy promotes unity, never division. This is what the author of Jude is saying. And that we are to be merciful...have compassion on those who don't believe. So we pray for them. And pray for ourselves perhaps, to have more kindness and compassion ourselves. To live a bit better in and for the Love of Jesus, that undying mercy and grace and truth. The beatitudes proclaim a message from God ... a blessed life is a life transformed, and blessed lives gathered in community are capable of transforming the entire world.

You see, the Beatitudes can be viewed as a progression, as we grow in our faith. We recognize our need for God, for Jesus!! one may mourn the past, and by learning more about the love and grace and compassion of God through Jesus, we learn to control our emotions..that's meekness. we yearn for more of the love and comfort and joy of the Lord! And we want others to know about it! Then we're growing in the knowledge of the love and forgiveness and compassion of the Lord and we know that that love has changed us, and we share it. When we share in small ways as well as big ones..there is a ripple effect. Something as simple and as easy as sharing a pleasantry with a waitress or grocery store clerk, can go a long way. And as we go along, we are growing in our own faith and affecting others in a positive way.

So...we worship, pray together, work in our various jobs and volunteer positions...and any of those can be a ministry! When we are kind and compassionate, we are sharing the love of Christ! In the next few weeks, we will house homeless families, get school supplies to needy families, deliver meals on wheels and many other means of outreach. What a blessing!

Holy God, thank you for your mercy, so freely given. Help us to live mercifully, and so be blessed and be a blessing. Let your Light and love shine in us this day and always! In Jesus name and spirit we pray, amen.