The Quality of Mercy

It has been a while since I have written anything here.  Toward the end of my blogging, I kinda felt that I was just putting content out there that wasn’t really my voice in saying what I felt needed to be said.  So with sickness came the time to reflect and read what others were saying and to begin to feel the need to bring something fresh to the debates, and hopefully now to return to edifying many, not only on the plight of the Homeless, but to offer something enlightening to us all.

We live in a judgmental society, so many are filled with the pain of indignation of the shameful acts of others.  It is a seriously understandable reaction to state of this world.  Crimes against our humanity and our souls are taking place daily and upset over them is a reasonable response.  With molestations, abuses, rampant greed and suffocating apathy threaten to drain the last drops of compassion from our hearts with each new news report.  Man seems to be wholesale wallowing in a pit of his own manure and relishing it.  Yes, you have ever right to be appalled, upset and angry.  But, no matter how tempting it is, is passing judgment over even the most base and low down of our society a productive thing to do?

The place where I live is called Grace House, and Grace means ‘unmerited favor’, you can do nothing to earn grace, grace is given like the smile of your child, out of the blue and freely.  Her twin sister mercy is just like that many times.  Mercy can not be given to those who earn it for it to be real and perfect; mercy needs to given to the ones that are the least deserving to get the most from it.

One can not save when and where to apply mercy, and there are two reasons for that.  1.  The arbitrary use of mercy for those deemed the most ‘worthy’ of its receipt, cheapens the quality of mercy.  Putting some sort of caste system in the judgment centers of our brains, ranking the most deserved to the least deserved (by our own questionable standards) puts us in the unnatural position of Lording over someone else.  The crack addict who steals and kills the grandmother of four on her way to Wednesday night Bible study does not deserve mercy, but the woman who kills her abuser does?  (I am talking here of personal judgment, judgment of the heart and mind not the judgment reserved within the confines of our legal system – that use of judgment is for ethical (societal) use and is very necessary to ensure the rights of all…what we are discussing here is intimately more personal and can breed the seeds of bitterness and hatred in our hearts)  

2. And this reason is the ultimate qualifier… Has anyone ever showed you mercy when you real REALLY didn’t deserve it?  Did anyone defer judgment on you when you should have been cast out, locked up or trodden under?  Christ did that for you.  He gave you grace and mercy when you not only deserved but were already slated to die.  He only asks us one thing…to Love others as He has loved us…and He loved us filthy, He loved us funky and foul, He loved us past our disgusting and  murderous ways (did you know that gossip is murder?  Who have you ‘slain’ in your heart today?).  He loved us to the point that when we were still his enemies he died on the cross for each and every one of us.  (Romans 5:8).

I can’t say this is easy, it is crazy hard to hear of a child molester destroying the innocence of a four month old baby and not want to lash out in ‘righteous indignation’.  I will, but ask you to remember one thing.  No one acts in a vacuum…those that hurt were first hurt by someone else…and though they do deserve to be tried by the courts and suffer the penalty for their actions, let us be careful not to throw a one such as this into the prison of our minds , under the bars of bitterness and anger.  Remember, someone loved you past your pain…even when that pain hurt others.  I am no saint, I struggle with this to…I am just asking us all to remember…

From Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, 1596.

PORTIA: The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.