Mercy: The Forgotten Virtue

“I hope you don’t mind that I never call you Rev. Miller.”




“No, Not many people do” I replied.



The worry lines on her face did not go away.



“I don’t mean to be disrespectful of you, I really don’t. It’s just that my church teaches us not to.”



“I understand” I assured her.



The worry was still in her eyes, but there was relief there too.



“You see, it’s not that we think we’re better than any other church, it’s just that we are so afraid we might do something wrong. That’s why we must be so very careful.”



“So afraid we might do something wrong” - that admission has stuck with me for 20 years. And I have felt sorry, and sad, for a very nice person who earnestly tried to do what God wanted her to do, but could not get beyond her barrier of fear. She trembled before an unforgiving and vengeful God.



A Plumb Line



Our texts this morning suggest one reason why. We have been taught to quail before the perfection of God. Amos uses the analogy of a plumb line. It establishes the norm, it measures anything that is off balance, and threatens horrible consequences for any misdeed. The Pharisee, asking Jesus about the requirements for a holy life is looking for a plumb line also. He is as fearful as was the woman I mentioned earlier. When you strive to worship and be obedient to a vengeful God, you do well to be afraid. There is no rigging the results of a plumb line. It will disclose your every deviation from the perpendicular.



As for Amos, we need to remember he was not a priest or a holy man in the accepted sense of the word. He was a shepherd, an uncouth one at that apparently, who spoke bluntly and could be insulting. When Amaziah, the priest of Bethel protested, Amos was unrepentant. He redoubled his threats of woe about to fall upon the nation. You see, both men lived in a time of relative peace and prosperity where people were not overly-scrupulous in their observance of the Mosaic Law. Amos was offended by what he saw and held up a plumb line as his measuring device for how far the people had fallen away from the perfect norm he expected of them. When perfection is your measurement, there is no leeway, no “gimmes”, no almosts being good enough. It’s all good or equally bad.



When Israel failed to measure up, the consequence was divine retribution. You break the law, you pay for your sins. It’s as simple as that.



By the time of Jesus, the laws were more refined, the voices of prophets more muted. I suppose the Jews had grown more skeptical of God doing much to rescue them from the Romans. But this did not mean they had lost interest in the possibility of a Messiah. Sadly, the law had become so difficult to observe, only the very wealthy had much chance of ever observing it satisfactorily. The priestly class and the social elite were the most likely to be “saved” - the rest could forget about it.



This, I think, is why Jesus so often emphasized the plight of the poor, the naked, the widowed and the orphaned. These were people who could not meet the requirements of the Law and had given up trying. They were beyond caring.



I remember Rosalie, a young woman in counseling who remarked in a matter-of-fact voice, “I’ll never get to heaven. I’ve done too many bad things. I’m unforgivable.”

She did not elaborate on just what it was she had done, but it hardly mattered. Her despair was palpable and irrevokable. She had seen the plumb line, if you will, and knew what it meant.



Mercy



In the face of such pessimism we hear a simple story about a despised man, a down and outer, if you will, showing compassion to a victim lying beside the road. This Samaritan was not a good candidate for the grace of God. Despised by God for worshiping a wrong God in a wrong temple in a wrong place, the Samaritan represents a human being who has no “pull” with God, if you will. How fitting that he should be the one to show mercy. In that one word, Jesus cuts through the theological arguments of what is sin and what is not, and simply shows the healing power of God in a gesture of compassion and mercy.



I have stumbled over this parable, wondering who represents what in the story. I’m not the only one. I’ve also been troubled by the example of the Samaritan when I think of the poor and down-trodden I’ve passed on the other side of the road. Must I stop and pick up every stray I see on the highway? How dare I look the other way when a fellow human being is in obvious need? Can I really be a Christian if I haven’t helped the stricken one?



Unfortunately, what I have done is literalized the story and overlooked the pertinent lesson. This is not about helping beggars, although it can be. This is about having an attitude of compassion for others. It is about having the capacity to empathize with others. It is the act of putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes. It is laying aside the plumb line, and considering the circumstances instead.



I remember Margaret who was so offended by a decision by our Presbytery that she indignantly cried out, “But what about the purity of the Church?” never stopping to think of how the Pharisees had sought to do away with Jesus for precisely the same reason. How dare we exercise mercy before an immaculate: Heaven forbids it.



The Perfect Law



Yet isn’t that precisely what God did for us in Jesus Christ? Lay down the plumb line in order that we might have a right relationship reestablished with him and with our neighbor? Jesus asks the Pharisee, “How do you read the Law?” and the Pharisee quotes Deuteronomy - “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus says “Exactly. Do that and live”. But the righteous man, uncomfortable with such a broad interpretation, seeks clarification. “Who is my neighbor?” The answer? The one who showed mercy.”



You see, the victim beside the road is not just anybody, that victim is you and me. We are the ones who have suffered and been left helpless. The good neighbor is God who sees our plight and does for us what we’ve never been able to do on our own. And Jesus Christ is how God showed us that mercy.



If we accept that gift of mercy, then we are in the position to pass that gift on to others. By being agents of mercy ourselves. We are here to walk beside one another, to affirm the value of one another, to be caring and loving, to lay aside judgment and show acceptance instead. To be merciful.



God forgive me if all I have to say to my Lord at the end of my life is that I did my best to live a good life by keeping as many of the rules as I possibly could. I remember as story I heard eons ago about the miser who upon arriving at St Peter’s gate is asked to name one reason why he should be admitted into heaven? Can he remember a single act of kindness or generosity he had ever committed? After much thought he finally remembered how he had once given a dime to a newspaper boy for a newspaper that only cost a nickel and told the boy to keep the change. “That’s all?” Peter asks. “I’m afraid so.” Peter turned to the recording angel and said, “Give him his nickel and tell him to go to the devil!”



The question that really matters is “Did you show mercy where it was undeserved?” Did you care when no one else did? Were you a true neighbor to one in need? Mercy: the forgotten virtue - and the one, after all, that really counts! Amen