to love mercy

We are told to love mercy.

And who loves mercy?  People who have been shown much mercy, love mercy.


When we think of someone who has been shown much mercy, we cannot help but think of King David.  It was during the time when the king should have been off to war, but this king stayed home.  And when he saw Bathsheba bathing on the roof, he called his servants to go and collect her for him.  Although David had many wives and concubines, he wanted Bathsheba and he took her.

Her husband, Uriah, was at war.  When she became pregnant, David called her husband back hoping that everyone would be bad at math and he wouldn't get caught.  But, Uriah refused to leave the gates of the palace.  He begged to return to the battlefield to serve his country.  David sent him back, with secret instructions for the general to send him first and have everyone else pull back - ensuring his death.

An adulterer and a murderer.  Shevchenko wrote about David in his well known poem, Kavkaz.

Бо благоденствує! У нас
Святую Біблію читає
Святий чернець і научає,
Що цар якийсь-то свині пас
Та дружню жінку взяв до себе,
А друга вбив. Тепер на небі.
Об бачите, які у нас
Сидять на небі! Ви ще темні,
Святим хрестом не просвіщенні,
У нас навчіться!.. 

These are the kind of people who are sitting in heaven.  And what is more, David was known as a man after God's own heart.  David was known for his goodness and faithfulness.  David was shown mercy by God.



We are guilty of tremendous sin, and our punishment is death.

We deserve that death, but Christ hangs on the cross in the way of our punishment.  This is what we deserve, but our of God's great love - we receive something else.



Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.  People who love mercy, they show mercy.

We are not ashamed or embarrassed to be in need of mercy.  We love the mercy that God shows us.  When I stand before you, dear friends, I feel so entirely inadequate.  I feel like I don't have anything to say, or that my life is too messed up - and I realize that a lot of those feelings stem from some embarrassment of all the mercy God has shown me.  God's mercy is something that we should love and delight in.  I need a tremendous amount of grace and mercy from God.  I stand before you as a sinner, who knows the great love of a merciful God.  And, I think that's a pretty great place to be.

It's hard to understand the exact words used in this verse.  This idea of mercy is complicated.  The word in the original Greek is Chesed (хесед).  It is this idea of loving kindness.




The first time I remember hearing about the slavic world, was when I was a teenager.  Americans are known around the world for not knowing much about the rest of the world - and sadly, this is true.  When I was a teenager, a family friend, Diane, came to one of my classes with a guest.  This man worked for the government and worked with international aide.  It was so interesting, because at first he began talking about coming to Ukraine in the early 90s to help the poor Ukrainians.  He told us about the collective farms, and that the tractors they used were very inefficient - they left a lot of the crop behind on the ground.  So, this man brought tractors in from the US that were much more efficient.

And this is often our understanding of justice that we learned about last week.  There is a problem, and we go in and we fix it.

It was the story I had grown up hearing, about how America helped other countries.  But this man, he went on - and he told us the rest of the story. Before his arrival, after the inefficient tractors had gone through, old women had followed behind and picked up the rest.  They had gleaned the field.  The had sold some of this on the roadside and had taken the rest home for their families to eat.  The story of Ruth is a story of mercy.  .  These women without a kinsman, without a man to provide for them, they were left to the mercy of the community.  This community could have left them for dead, but instead they were kind enough to allow them to glean behind the farmers.  Ruth's mother-in-law is named Naomi.  Her name meant sweet, but when she was left alone without a man to provide for her, she asked to be called "bitter" instead.  It is through this that Ruth meets Boaz and is able to provide for her mother-in-law.  It is through their mercy to Ruth's mother-in-law, that she returned to being known as Naomi.  Through pain and suffering she is made bitter, through mercy she is made sweet.

This American continued the story in a way that really surprised me.  With the new, efficient, American tractors; there was nothing left for the old women to glean.  These women began to suffer terribly.  They lost income and they lost food.  This man went on to explain to us the way that he and his team had ruined the lives of these women by not paying attention.  He saw a problem and fixed it, but he created many, many more problems.

But our sense of doing justice must be tempered by our love for mercy.  Mercy is tenderness and gentleness.  If this man had spent more time studying and observing, and listening to the people he wanted to help - he could have shown mercy to these older women as well.

It was such a powerful lesson to me about consequences of our actions.  That even when we try to do good, we can still cause harm.  When we talked about justice, the verb was "to act" or "to do"  when Micah talks about Mercy, he isn't calling us to go and to do something.  There isn't an action that is part of this.  Mercy is one of those things you can't plan for.  You have to love mercy every day. You have to joyfully receive God's mercy, and in doing both of those - you will be able to show mercy as well.  


My grandfather is a big, tall, strong man.  All of my life, he has seemed to be bigger and taller and stronger than all of my friend's grandfathers.  He's got a big smile and thick glasses, and people almost always like him.  He makes strangers smile and remembers their names.  When he was in school, his nickname was Radar.  His glasses were very thick, but he wasn't allowed to wear them on the football field. But,  It seemed he always knew where the football was, and he was always one of the best players.  My grandfather is very Italian, and their stereotype is that they will do anything for those they love.   He and my grandma were high-school sweethearts.  One day, he was walking my grandma to her house and another boy pulled up in his truck.  The boy said that he was in love with Elaine, and my grandpa said, "Well, so am I - the only difference is that she loves me back."  The other boy tried to run him over with his truck.  I just assume that the other boy spent some time in the hospital  after that.

My grandparents have been married for almost 65 years.  As my grandma has gotten older, she has lost her memory.  She usually doesn't recognize me, and often forgets who my mom is as well.  Sometimes she doesn't even recognize her own husband.  My grandfather was always the stereotype of a 1950s husband.  He earned the paycheck, and grandma did everything around the house.  When grandma started forgetting recipes and burning food, grandpa learned how to cook all of their favorite foods and how often to serve them.  He washes all the dishes.  He keeps the house spotless.  He does the laundry and irons the clothes.  And he doesn't correct or argue with grandma.  When he is reading the mail she just brought in, and she decides she should check for the mail, he watches out the window to make sure she is safe.   He helps her all day long and makes sure she is comfortable.

My grandpa was always so rough and strong and manly.  It surprises our whole family to see how gentle and tender he is with grandma now.  I think because we here are all so young, it's hard to think about love in very real ways.  We think about love in terms of lust and affection.  We think about doing fun things with someone special.  I don't think when we are young and we are in love, that we think about helping someone in and out of bed and sitting with them through scary doctors appointments.  We probably don't think about real love and the real ways that we will show it when it really happens.

This word, Chesed, it is used in Genesis 20:13 to describe Abraham and Sarah's relationship when they are both well into old age.  And this is our example of showing mercy to one another.  We must care deeply about each other's feelings.

When my grandparents were married 65 years ago, this wasn't something they were thinking about.  They weren't thinking about their old age.  They were young and in love.  But each day, they grew in love and kindness.  They learned to show each other mercy.  And, when grandma's memory began to fail, to show mercy was the natural reaction for grandpa.

When we love mercy, we care more for the feelings of others than for our own.  We show mercy because we accept mercy from God.  Go forth this day, and show others the mercy you have received.