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| ps from ps/pk John 8:2-11; Matthew 23:23The Inconvenience of Mercy – reflections from Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail The inconvenience of mercy is that it’s hardly ever merited.But good grief, does Jesus talk ad nauseam about mercy in the Bible; perhaps most famously telling his disciples—to their great chagrin— they must forgive their siblings seventy-seven times for the same sin (Matthew 18:21-22). He calls the merciful blessed in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:7). And then there are his words as he is dying, on a cross, surrounded by criminals and his weeping mother and the mob that lynched him: “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34). In John 8:2-11, he embodies mercy with a woman whom I am rather inclined to think has received little mercy in her life, but that’s my own protective instincts kicking in for women in patriarchal places. It’s entirely possible she “deserves” little of what Jesus is offering her.Mercy—unmerited, inadvisably offered, and brimming with foolish hope—is the making of a Christ-follower.It’s not that I think practicing mercy is particularly easy.I doubt Jesus would talk so much about forgiveness and mercy if it were easy—God tends to repeat what we struggle to listen to. No, mercy is brutal.Mercy is what we ask for when we have messed up so mightily in our relationships, our marriages, our parenting, our friendships, that we face either the death of that relationship or the death of who we thought we were. Perhaps this is the kind of death this woman had experienced in her home, and the anger of the crowd was merely reflective of how hurt they were to see a home torn apart. Maybe she had been dealt a death-dealing marriage and was looking for escape. How dare she, then, receive. . . mercy?And yet, mercy makes no sense. It is not logical, or equally beneficial. Mercy does not make us money or make us look good. But mercy is what makes us God’s own.The receiving and extending of mercy in the most awful and improbable of places is what makes me know that God is still at work in this world.Mercy is a practice of hoping and knowing that there is more than the thing that hurts us—more than the thing that haunts us. This, too, is how mercy is part of God’s justice, for God’s justice is God’s joy. God’s justice does not align with our human metrics of justice and punishment. God’s justice is the delight God feels at the lost sheep coming home, the coin being found. God’s goodness is not retributive. God’s goodness is rooted in goodness propagating in the face of death.Which is, perhaps, why Jesus tells her: Go. Sin no more. And live.ReflectRecount a time when you received mercy. How did it feel?Blessings,PS and PK |
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