Under The Mercy

1 Timothy 1:12-17

(Greet the congregation with “Good morning, saints.” After they reply, greet them again with “Good morning, sinners.” They’ll probably miss a beat before replying, but the point will be made.)

We’re both saints and sinners, aren’t we? We’re saints seeking God, and sinners aware of our need of his mercy and grace.

In the opening of Paul’s first letter to his young protege Timothy, he uses the benediction, ‘Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord” (v. 2). It may be significant that only in these two letters to Timothy does Paul include the blessing of “mercy” along with “grace and peace.” If so, why do you think that is? One possibility is that Paul realizes that Timothy, as a young man facing life’s considerable challenges and temptations, needs to be reminded of God’s great mercy. Or, perhaps Paul himself, an older man by the time of writing these letters, has a richer appreciation of the blessing of God’s mercy in his own life. I tend to believe that both of these are probably true.

In fact, listen to Paul’s words to this effect just several verses later: “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (1:12-17)

It’s an ironic truth that those we consider “saints” are also acutely aware of their own sinfulness and desperate need of God’s mercy. That was certainly true of Paul. As Thomas Merton, the late Catholic monk and writer has said, “A man becomes a saint not by the conviction that he is better than sinners, but by the realization that he is one of them, and that all together need the mercy of God.” The humility of the great saints is sincere, and it frees them from the burdens of self-righteousness and its related sin of judgmentalism. In fact, their honest self-awareness teaches them greater compassion and mercy for other people, since we all share the same fallen human nature.

On one occasion, Merton was granted permission by his abbot to travel to Louisville for medical treatment, and it was while he was waiting to cross the street of a busy downtown intersection during lunch hour that he had a powerful epiphany: “I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all of those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one of us is in God’s eyes. If only we could see each other that way all the time.” He seems to have been given a rare glimpse of divine compassion. Interestingly, there’s an historical marker at that street corner today marking that revelation.

Here, in writing to his apprentice Timothy, the Apostle Paul tells of God showing mercy and pouring out his grace on him, despite his past sins against the believers. And when he calls himself a “violent man,” he uses a word for describing a sadist who cruelly inflicts pain on others for his own pleasure. Paul had become so blinded by self-righteousness in persecuting the church that he couldn’t see the monster he had become.

Paul had been a Pharisee, from a family of Pharisees; it was part of his heritage, and in his blood. And as any reader of the Gospels knows, the Pharisees featured prominently, and almost always negatively, in their resistance to Jesus’ ministry. The name Pharisee means “separated one,” and that’s how they saw themselves. They were extremely scrupulous in their observance of the law, but to such an extreme that they also became stubbornly self-righteous and judgmental of Jesus and all of the marginal people he associated with--“sinners” who would never have attended the synagogue or Temple, and probably wouldn’t have been welcomed there if they had tried. Today we call them the lost and unchurched, and many of them would still never darken the doors of a church--nor feel welcome if they did, in many cases.