Be Merciful

Jesu Juva

St. Luke 6:27-38                                                             

February 20, 2022

Epiphany 7C                                               

 Dear Saints of Our Savior~

          Mercy is the main course on today’s menu.  In fact, today’s Holy Gospel can be simply summarized with a single sentence from the lips of our Lord:  Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. 

          All the imperatives—all the commands—spoken by the Savior today are really just different expressions of mercy—different ways of doing mercy:  Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you, turn the other cheek, do unto others as you wish others would do to you.  Judge not; condemn not; forgive all. It’s all mercy.  If you can muster the strength to show kindness and do good where it is least deserved, then you are on your way to mastering mercy.

          The liturgy teaches us our great need for mercy.  And the liturgy leads us to pray for mercy—as we do in the Kyrie—nearly every Sunday:  Lord, have mercy upon us.  Christ, have mercy upon us.  Lord, have mercy upon us.  That’s how we normally think about mercy—how much mercy we need to receive for ourselves.  But praying for mercy and receiving mercy is one thing.  Actually showing mercy—extending mercy to another person—that’s something altogether different.  Actually being merciful is a tall order indeed.  To paraphrase Shakespeare, to receive mercy is human; to be merciful is divine.

          Showing mercy to others is so difficult that it’s led some Bible scholars to water down these words of Jesus.  Loving your enemies, doing good to those who hate you, blessing those who curse you, praying for those who abuse you, turning the other cheek—it all sounds so utterly preposterous that some people have decided that Jesus was just exaggerating.  He didn’t really mean it!  Jesus was just using hyperbole—a rhetorical technique to make people sit up and pay attention.  Like when He said to cut off your hand if it causes you to sin.  But the Savior’s mandate for mercy is not optional.  You can’t opt out of this mandate.  He said it.  He meant it.  It applies to your life literally, not just figuratively:  Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. 

          Today’s Old Testament reading gives us a great illustration of mercy.  What does it mean to be merciful?  What does it look like?  To be merciful is to be like Joseph.  You remember Joseph, don’t you?—how he was hated by his older

brothers, how he was stripped of his colorful robe, cast into a pit, sold into slavery and, how because he refused to sleep with another man’s wife, ended up in a dank, dark, Egyptian dungeon?  Mercy is years later—now as the most powerful man in all of Egypt—to have these same brothers standing before you—able to do to them anything you want, to take any kind of revenge your heart desires—but then to forgive them, kiss them, shed tears of joy, and embrace them as your long-lost family.  That is mercy.

          If only Jesus had said, “Be merciful, just as Joseph was merciful.”  For then we could have something to shoot for—something to aspire to—a goal on which we could set our sights.  But what Jesus said was, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”  To be merciful, then, is to be like God.  God shows mercy by sending His Son to gather up all His wayward children, only to have them reject His Son and spit in His face.  God shows mercy by sending His Son into the world—by opening His hands to sinners and offering them the treasures of heaven—only to have them pierce those hands with nails, crown His head with thorns, and watch with anticipation as blood and oxygen drain away into death.  That is the mercy of our heavenly Father.

          Be merciful, Jesus says, just as your Father is merciful.  But you won’t do it.  You refuse to do it.  Loving your enemies, doing good to those who hate you, turning the other cheek—none of this is hardwired into the content of your character.  What is hardwired into your DNA is a boundless love for yourself.  You can’t be merciful to others, ultimately, because you love yourself too much.  You think you have to defend your honor.  You think you have to protect your future.  You think it’s not fair for people to walk all over you like some doormat.  You think people will take advantage of you if you start showing mercy like some saint.  You think . . . well, you think primarily of yourself.  And that’s a problem.

          Who needs mercy from you?  It’s not those who love you and do good to you.  It’s your enemies who need your mercy.  It’s those who aim to make you miserable—those who, if given the chance, will drive you to despair and sometimes even to tears.  They work overtime to bring out the worst in you.  They cause you pain.  They cost you sleep.  They have used you and abused you.  They have taken advantage of you and would likely do so again.  And to them, Jesus says, be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.  Martin Luther, preaching on this text, said that “the mercy of Christians must . . . be complete and comprehensive, regarding friend and foe alike, just as our Father in heaven does.”  And then Luther spoke the Law in its full severity in one short sentence:  Where this mercy is absent, faith also is absent.

          All we can do is repent.  All we can do is confess that we cannot free ourselves from our sinful condition.  It’s true that we are far, far from showing mercy as our Father in heaven does.  But what is truer still is that your heavenly Father is still merciful to you.  His mercy endures forever!  On us—who are much more like Joseph’s brothers than Joseph—on us our gracious God lavishes forgiveness, pardon for sin, and embraces us with tears of joy as His own dear family. 

          Jesus is our brother indeed.  He’s the new and greater Joseph—who for us men and for our salvation was stripped of His robe by the soldiers and was cast into the pit of the tomb.  Your sin is no match for His mercy.  He was crucified for your transgressions.  No matter how hot the flames of your sin may burn, He has more than enough mercy to douse those flames.

          Luther said it this way:  If [God] should give to us according to our merit, He could give us nothing but hell fire and eternal condemnation.  Therefore, whatever good and honor He gives us, it is out of sheer mercy.  He sees that we are stuck in death, and He has mercy upon us and gives us life.  He sees that we are children of hell, and He has mercy upon us and gives us heaven (Day by Day, p.258).

          Jesus Christ has done it all for you.  Jesus is God’s mercy in human flesh.  What sounds impossible and preposterous to us was actually the beating heart of Jesus’ earthly ministry.  It was Jesus who turned the other cheek again and again—who wound up broken and bruised, beaten and bloody.  It was Jesus who gave the tunic off His back, to have that back stripped of skin by the soldiers, who forgave His enemies from the cross, who died in nakedness and shame.  It was Jesus who gave away all He had and all He was—who lived in such a recklessly generous way that He poured out His life unto death.  Jesus Christ was merciful to all the enemies of God—including you and me.

          All that would condemn us before God has been attached to the bloody wood of Jesus’ cross.  Our idolatries and infidelities, our greed and our sad love of self—they are forgiven.  Jesus is judged that you might be acquitted.  Jesus is condemned so that you might be justified.  His mercy comes down like gentle raindrops from heaven, falling into the font, and washing you clean in your baptism.  His mercy seasons your life as your lips receive His most precious body and blood.  In this meal His perfect mercy is made manifest in you.

          Finally, a question:  Who needs mercy from you?  Who has judged you and condemned you and cursed you?  Which ungrateful, unforgiving soul needs mercy from you?  You are perfectly positioned to show them the miracle of God’s mercy—to do the divine thing—to do unto others what Jesus Christ has done for you.

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.