Our current sermon series is “What’s the Good
Word?” We’re looking at various words that we use in church and talking
about what they really mean. Our word for today is “mercy”.
Unlike last week, when we talked about God’s wrath, “mercy”
is one of our favorite words to talk about. Because here’s what mercy
means: “compassion or
forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or
harm.”
And we all know that
we need that. No matter how hard we may try to cover it up, no matter how
hard we may try not to think about it, no matter how hard we may try to
convince others or even ourselves otherwise, we all know how much we need
mercy. We know, as the Apostle Paul writes in Romans Chapter three, that
we have all sin and fallen short of the glory of God.
We know that we are
weak, fallen, sinful people. And we know, even though we don’t like to
think about it too much, that God has the power to punish us for that.
And we know that God would have every right to do it. And so we need God to exercise compassion or
forgiveness toward us. We need God to exercise mercy.
We know that, and
yet--a lot of times we don’t think about it much. And when we do think
about it, there are a lot of times we don’t really seem to appreciate it.
Too many times, we take God’s mercy for granted.
I think there are a
couple of reasons why we do that. For one thing, even though we know how
much we need mercy, we don’t really think about it very much. We like to
tell ourselves that we’re pretty good.
Not perfect, we know that, but pretty good. We do a lot of good things. We’re nice
people, most of the time. We’re
certainly better than some people we can think of. We tell ourselves that we’re doing as well as
anybody could reasonably expect. In fact, we’re doing as well as God could
reasonably expect. Yeah, we’ve could do better, but you know, really, the
bottom line is that most of us think we’re pretty much okay the way we are.
And I feel that way, too, a lot of times. That’s why I can
describe the feeling--because I feel it sometimes, too. But it’s not a
good thing. That’s the attitude the
Pharisee had in our reading from Luke, right? He stood up and prayed
about how he was doing so well, how he was doing all these wonderful things,
how he was so much better than other people. It’s not a very good
attitude to have.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we should sit around beating
ourselves up and thinking that we’re terrible, horrible, awful people.
That’s not helpful or healthy, either.
But at the same time, we need to recognize who we are. We need to not just gloss over our failings
and faults. We need to not just accept them because, hey, that’s who I
am. We should not obsess over our flaws,
but we should not just accept them, either.
We need to acknowledge and confess our sins to God.
That’s what the tax collector did. He acknowledged who he
was. He confessed his sins to God.
And he pleaded and begged for mercy.
And that leads to the
other reason we take God’s mercy for granted. You know, we say things
like “God is love” and “God is forgiveness” and “God is mercy” all the time.
And of course, those things are true.
But we’ve said them so much, and we’ve heard them so much, that too
often we take them for granted. We think, well, I don’t really need to
worry about getting mercy from God.
After all, God is mercy. It’s
God’s job to have mercy on me. Sure, God
would have the power to punish me, but God would never use that power. I
don’t really need to worry about God forgiving me. God always forgives. God always shows mercy. That’s just what God does.
The tax collector did
not take God’s mercy for granted. He did not say, I don’t need to worry
about getting mercy from God because that’s just what God does. He was
desperate. He begged God for mercy. He pleaded with God for mercy. He would not even look to heaven. He
did not think God was obligated to forgive him.
He did not think God would just automatically give him mercy because
that’s what God does. The tax collector approached God humbly. He knew he did not deserve mercy from
God. But he asked for it anyway, not
because he thought he deserved it, but because he knew how desperately he
needed it.
That’s the attitude
we need to have. When we approach God to ask for mercy, we need to do it
humbly. We need to recognize who we are and what we’ve done. We need to ask God for mercy, not because we
deserve it, but because we know how desperately we need it.
But there’s one other
aspect of God’s mercy that we need to talk about. It’s one that we tend
to gloss over, even though Jesus talked about it several times. It’s even
included in the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus
said that the amount of mercy we get from God is related to the amount of mercy
we give to others. The amount of forgiveness we get from God is related
to the amount of forgiveness we give others.
After all, what do we say every week in the Lord’s Prayer?
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”.
Jesus makes that
point in our reading from Matthew today, too. He tells a story about a
servant who owes the king a huge amount of money--ten thousand bags of gold.
The king is going to have the servant sold into slavery, along with his
family, to pay the debt. The servant
begs for forgiveness and mercy, and the king gives it to him. He not only
does not have the man sold into slavery, he forgives the debt and lets him
go. But then that same servant finds
another man who owes him a much smaller money. The other man begs for forgiveness and mercy,
too, but the servant refuses to give it to him. He has the man thrown
into prison. The king finds out, gets
angry, and has the servant thrown into jail and tortured. And Jesus says, “This is how my heavenly
Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from
your heart.”
It seems to me that’s
a pretty plain message. There’s not a lot of equivocation there. There’s not any “maybe” or “could be”.
There’s no room for a loophole, either.
Jesus says this is how it is.
Period.
And that’s a message
that makes a lot of us uncomfortable. Because I know there are some of us
here who are struggling to forgive someone. And it’s not because we’re
terrible people or anything. It’s
because we’ve been hurt. Some of us have been hurt really badly. It may be recent or it may have been a long
time ago. But no matter when it was, the wound is still fresh. And it’s deep. And we cannot bring ourselves to forgive the
person who we think caused it. We know we should forgive. Maybe we even want to forgive. But we just cannot do it. Not yet, anyway. It just hurts too much. And besides, we think, the person who hurt us
does not deserve forgiveness anyway.
If that’s you, know
this: God understands. God knows
how badly you’ve been hurt. God knows why it’s hard for you to
forgive. Remember, God, through Jesus,
was hurt about as badly as anyone can be hurt. Betrayed by one of his
closest friends, turned over to his enemies to be beaten and killed. It’s hard to be hurt more than that.
God understands why it’s hard for us to forgive sometimes. And God understands why sometimes, we’re just
not ready to do it yet.
But we need to try, anyway. And God wants to help us. After all, God, through Jesus, gave us the
ultimate example of forgiveness. Jesus was hanging on a cross, dying, and
yet he asked God to forgive the people who were responsible for their death.
Whether they deserved forgiveness was irrelevant. Jesus asked God to forgive them anyway. I cannot think of a better example of
forgiveness than that.
Now of course, you
and I are not Jesus. And God does not expect us to be. But we should not use that as an excuse,
either. Because again, God wants to help us forgive.
So, when there’s
someone we know we should forgive, but we just cannot do it, take it to God.
Pray for God’s help. Let’s pray
for God to forgive, and for God to help us forgive. Let’s pray for God to show mercy, and for God
to help us show mercy.
And let’s ask God to help us not think about whether they deserve it.
The tax collector in the story from Luke did not deserve mercy. The servant in the story from Matthew did not
deserve mercy. And the truth is, you and I don’t deserve mercy,
either. But that’s okay. Mercy is not something we deserve. It’s something God gives out of love.
And it’s something we need to give out of love, too.
God is not obligated to forgive us or to be merciful to us. But
God will forgive, and God will be merciful, if we go to God humbly, confess our
sins, and ask for forgiveness and mercy. God will do that even though we
don’t deserve it. And God will help us
find a way to show forgiveness and mercy to others, even when they don’t
deserve it. It may not be easy for us.
It may take us some time. But we
can do it, with God’s help. And when we
do, we’ll be much closer to being the people God wants us to be.
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