Sermon: “God Is Mercy”
Epiphany 7, Year C
The Rev. Rian Adams
Introduction: Mercy as Listening
Jesus says, “Be merciful as your Father is merciful." In Matthew's version, Jesus goes a bit farther, "Go and learn what this means; I want mercy and not sacrifice."
Some of you might know that I'm in the middle of writing a doctoral dissertation on mercy. I can’t pass up this opportunity to preach about it. So the sermon this morning is titled: God is Mercy.
Before we dive too deep, I'd like to give you my definition of mercy. I think it's a compassionate action of leniency when justice is in order.
Sometimes mercy comes in the form of listening.
I served as a military chaplain for nearly a decade. It was a ministry that involved listening to the hurting. I recall a time where a woman walked into my office with tears in her eyes.
She came from the chapel. She went inside to pray and ran out of the building when she saw the altar prepared for Holy Eucharist. Guilt overcame her, and she felt unwelcome in the presence of God. Her husband recently divorced her, embarrassed her, and left her alone to care for their 5-year-old son.
She sat in my office and said, “Father… so many bad things have happened to me, I must not be worthy to stand before God’s altar.” I just listened.
Her parents were staunch Roman Catholics, and she grew up hearing the phrase, "shame on you." I listened to that too.
Then I shared familiar words we often hear…
This is the table, not of the righteous,
but of the poor in spirit.
It is made ready for those who love God
and who want to love God more.
The next Sunday she came to Eucharist, held out her hands, and received, "The body of Christ, the bread of heaven.” That’s when she listened to the words of mercy.
I resonate with her story; most of us probably can too. We have all experienced shame at some point in our lives. Sometimes it comes from our families, our parents, the church, or sometimes it’s from the public.
We can overcome that pain by holding space for people’s stories. Mercy listens to shame; it doesn't perpetuate it.
If you go to church (well, most churches…), you will hear the word mercy. We say it, and we hear it every single Sunday. I counted… apart from the sermon and the prayers, we use the word mercy seven times in today’s service. We use justice… zero.
We hear mercy… but can we listen to it? Can we listen as mercy whispers, "Tell your story with grace instead of shame"
God's mercy always bends an ear toward our circumstances. You’ll never hear God interrupt and say, “I hear you, but…” The answer is always “yes, I hear you.”
Mercy as Action
We know that God hears us, but we shouldn’t stop there. I'm going to be bold and say that mercy is a call to action.
A certain group of people pulled back the curtain of God’s love to revealed God’s mercy to me. I learned more about mercy from these people than I did from seminary, liturgy, theologians, and ethicists combined.
This is an accurate account of a primitive tribe of indigenous peoples in South Africa called the Ubunto. Their culture humbles me because they do not have tools of punishment, no whips, no prisons, they do not even have police.
Yet they do not descend into anarchy and chaos. Here’s how they do it… they show mercy in their actions.
When a person commits a wrong, they take them to the center of the village. For two days they gather around them and speak of the good they have done.
The villagers continually tell the person what is right with them, not what is wrong with them. That is mercy in action.
They believe that deep down, at the core of being, all people are created good.
They even believe that wrongdoing is a cry for help and a call to remembrance.
Hear today’s Gospel reading through their ritual. It fits perfectly with the message of Jesus; each person deserves a chance to reconnect with the soul of who they are. We can help them!
I look back on a few instances in my life, and I wonder how it would have healed my soul if people would have gathered around me and told me what was right with me.
I wonder how different our children and grandchildren can grow in love if we tell them what’s right with them.
The Ubunto know that behavior is not a problem when the community offers compassion and lives mercy.
The mercy of Jesus is found in action.
Mercy As a Position of the Heart
But we can't be people of action unless our hearts are arched toward God.
Mercy begins on the inside. I wondered what kind of heart it would take to have mercy when it wasn’t necessary… or it was even against the rules.
Can God’s love transform our hearts so the words of absolution are a promise? “I will have mercy on you, I will forgive you, and I’ll even strengthen you through the power of the Spirit.”
I see this position of the heart in Pope Francis’s book, The Name of God is Mercy. In it, he tells a story that moved me to tears.
When Pope Francis was a parish priest in Argentina, he met a young mother whose husband abandoned her and their children. She didn’t have a steady income, so between jobs, she would prostitute.
She continued to attend church, and the parish helped her and her children with food and clothing. Then one day she came by the church and asked to see the priest. Pope Francis writes, “I assumed she wanted to thank me for the package of food, so I asked her if she received it.”
"Yes, thank you for that, but I've come here to thank you for more. You knew I lived a life of sin…” she said, as tears ran down her face, “But you never stopped calling me Señora."
(That is the Spanish word for a married woman with dignity.)
Francis went on to write, “Experiences like this teach you how important it is to welcome people delicately and not wound their dignity. For her, the fact that the parish priest continued to call her Señora, was as important – or perhaps even more important – than the food and clothing we gave her.”
Mercy bends the heart toward God's love for all.
Conclusion: Mercy is Jesus
We will find Jesus when we listen and act from a merciful heart.
I wrote a poem about mercy. It’s rather intense, but I want to share it with you.
It’s a poem about a woman, but not just any woman, a woman that God’s justice said must die… but God’s mercy said must live.
Mercy
Broken dreams roll down her face
Streaks of mascara drip from her chin
Their words disfigure her
The insults
The insinuations
The innuendos
The imputations
She sits, she waits
She hopes beyond hope
That tears water wounds
And seeds birth life
From the dust of cruelty
He interrupts the abuse,
"I will never condemn you beautiful soul
My name is Mercy, go, love yourself,
For anything less is suicide.”
