St Theodore's Sermon

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Sermon of the Week
Look up the passage

9/4/00

Get out of Gaol free: Mercy James 2:1-17
Matt 25:31-46

One day about half way through his earthly ministry, Jesus took three of his disciples, Peter, James and John, up a high mountain where they were privileged to experience a foretaste of the glory that would be his in heaven. We're told he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anything in the world could bleach them. And Elijah and Moses appeared there talking with him. Peter's response to this amazing scene was to say "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." (Mark 9:5 NRSV) He wanted to preserve this sense of wonder, this feeling of being on a spiritual high. But it wasn't to be. A voice came from heaven pronouncing Jesus as God's beloved Son, and it was all over. Moses and Elijah disappeared and it was time to go back. So down the mountain they go. And what happens? No sooner do they get back to where the other disciples are waiting, than they discover a crowd waiting for them. Someone has brought a child to be healed by Jesus. He's possessed by a demon. In Jesus' absence, the disciples have tried to drive it out but they've failed. So now an argument has sprung up over why they couldn't drive out this demon. No sooner has Jesus come back from this wonderful experience of communion with God, than he's enveloped in the mundane troubles of this life.

There's a sense in which the same thing happens as we work our way through the beatitudes. We began at the base of the mountain, with the realisation of our spiritual poverty, we've climbed through mourning over our own and the world's failure to obey God, we've seen the need for discipline if we're to be useful disciples of Christ and we've come to the point of discovering that despite our lack of righteousness, God has provided us with all we need to be made right with him. We've discovered that in Jesus Christ, we've been made holy, purified, so we can stand in God's presence with our heads held high.

It would be so easy to do as Peter wanted to do. To set up our tents and stay here, basking in our new found righteousness. To become self-satisfied because we've found the secret to eternal life. But no, privilege always involves responsibility. Having come to know Jesus Christ, having been made right with God, Jesus tells us: "go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." Having been made righteous we need to learn that righteousness involves not just the idea of being right, but also of doing right.

So the next four beatitudes take us from where we are in our relationship with God, to examining how we're to live out our Christian life in our relationships with others.

So we come to the fifth blessing: "Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy." Let's think about what that might mean. How do we know what showing mercy might entail? Perhaps the place to start is the mercy that God shows. In Luke 6:36, in Luke's version of the sermon on the mount, Jesus speaks about love for one's enemies and he finishes by saying "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." So the model for mercy is God. Ephesians 2 says this: (Eph 2:4-5 NRSV) "But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us ⁵even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved." So God's mercy has to do with his saving love, which brought us back to life, even when we were dead in our sins.

But still, there's more to say about mercy than that. Sometimes we associate mercy with a feeling of pity. It becomes an emotional spasm that responds spontaneously to something it sees or hears about. But that isn't what God's mercy is about at all. His is a mercy that springs from before the creation of the world, that mapped out a plan to be brought to completion at the end of the world. And that saves us now through the death of his son 2000 years ago. So mercy is a redemptive attitude by which we deliberately set out to meet the need we see in another person. It's sympathy in its literal sense. That is, to suffer together with another person.

Do you see how this is at the heart of the gospel? Jesus can sympathise with our weaknesses because he's been tempted in every way just as we are, though without sinning (Heb 4:15) The mercy God shows us is manifested in Jesus becoming a human being and living among us. Through his life and death and resurrection, he lifts us out of our futility and failure and enables us to please God again. That's the model for us showing mercy.

We need to be careful when we think about mercy, because there are all sorts of misconceptions about what mercy involves. You see, being merciful doesn't mean feeling sorry for people and encouraging their self-pity. It doesn't mean letting unrepentant people off the hook when they've disobeyed God's word. Mercy doesn't just overlook issues of justice or truth. Nor does it mean easing the pain but ignoring the cause. A Band-Aid solution may bring some comfort, but it may not be merciful. Of course Band-Aid solutions can also be mistaken efforts to help. There are plenty of examples where well-meaning people have come into a situation trying to help but have actually made the situation worse because they didn't first stop to find out what the real problem was or what the sufferer wanted done.

No, mercy is an identification with a need so that you feel what the other person feels, you see and hear what that other person sees and hears.

So mercy might involve helping a person identify their real need. It might be a specific act of kindness, like the Good Samaritan, who bandaged the injured man's wounds, put him on his donkey and took him to the nearest inn where he arranged for him to be cared for. In the passage we just read from Matthew 25 it was specific acts of kindness: something to eat, something to drink, warm clothing, hospitality, care of the sick, a visit to someone in prison that Jesus commends.

Mercy might involve being honest enough that we can expose root issues and help people work through them. Sometimes that won't feel like we're being merciful though will it? It can be a difficult thing to raise hard issues with someone. So it's even more important that mercy in that instance is combined with a good dose of love, so the person knows they can trust you with the issues that confront them.

Mercy might involve being quick to forgive an offence. We human beings are very good at holding grudges. You come across people from time to time who have been holding onto grudges for years and years. There are still people living around here who are angry because the St Theodore's Drama group was closed down in 1973. That's 27 years ago! But mercy involves a willingness to forgive those who are repentant and who ask for our forgiveness.

It might also mean releasing someone from a rightful claim you might have over them. Paul wrote a letter to Philemon in which he asked Philemon to respond to the mercy of God by treating his runaway slave Onesimus with the same mercy; in fact to treat him the same way he would have treated Paul if it were Paul who was coming to him.

So acts of mercy fall into 2 general categories: mercy related to some personal injury or claim over another, and mercy shown to others who are suffering but where the cause of suffering is out of our direct control.

In the first case, mercy will involve giving up some claim we might have on the person for restitution or whatever other claim we might have. In the second case mercy will involve doing all we can to ameliorate their suffering.

Last week we talked about the need to seek to be reconciled with our Christian brother or sister if they've wronged us in some way, and here again, we find that mercy involves willingly forgiving those who ask for our forgiveness. The promise Jesus attaches to this blessing, that they will receive mercy, is echoed in it's opposite form a number of times in the NT. Jesus himself taught his disciples to pray "forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." And then he added "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; ¹⁵but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." James says "Judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy." (2:13 NRSV) So mercy shown to those who ask us for forgiveness is a necessary condition if we're to ask God for mercy for our own sins.

Similarly, in the Parable of the sheep and the goats that we read from Matt 25, the distinction that's made is as to whether we've shown the second sort of mercy, offering care and relief, to those in need. This might be care shown to those we come across in our normal lives, those people we show hospitality to, who we visit in hospital, who we provide meals for when they're not well enough to cook for themselves. It might be the sort of care we give by sending our old clothes to Anglicare or the Red Cross. It might be sending money to people in need through agencies like Anglicord or TEAR Australia or World Vision. These days there's no shortage of people in need, and no scarcity of organisations set up to help them. The only issue is the level of generosity with which we're prepared to support those people and organisations.

Jesus said, "Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; ³⁵for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.'" (Mat 25:34-36 NRSV)

Finally, lets remember that the distinguishing feature of those who call themselves Jesus' disciples is the love they show for one another. That love is shown most clearly in this most godly of characteristics, mercy.

Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there is hatred let me bring your love;
Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord;
And where there's doubt, true faith in you.

Oh, master, grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved, as to love with all my soul.

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	Sermon of the Week	Look up the passage
	9/4/00
	Get out of Gaol free: Mercy	James 2:1-17 Matt 25:31-46

	One day about half way through his earthly ministry, Jesus took three of his disciples, Peter, James and John, up a high mountain where they were privileged to experience a foretaste of the glory that would be his in heaven. We're told he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anything in the world could bleach them. And Elijah and Moses appeared there talking with him. Peter's response to this amazing scene was to say "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." (Mark 9:5 NRSV) He wanted to preserve this sense of wonder, this feeling of being on a spiritual high. But it wasn't to be. A voice came from heaven pronouncing Jesus as God's beloved Son, and it was all over. Moses and Elijah disappeared and it was time to go back. So down the mountain they go. And what happens? No sooner do they get back to where the other disciples are waiting, than they discover a crowd waiting for them. Someone has brought a child to be healed by Jesus. He's possessed by a demon. In Jesus' absence, the disciples have tried to drive it out but they've failed. So now an argument has sprung up over why they couldn't drive out this demon. No sooner has Jesus come back from this wonderful experience of communion with God, than he's enveloped in the mundane troubles of this life.
	There's a sense in which the same thing happens as we work our way through the beatitudes. We began at the base of the mountain, with the realisation of our spiritual poverty, we've climbed through mourning over our own and the world's failure to obey God, we've seen the need for discipline if we're to be useful disciples of Christ and we've come to the point of discovering that despite our lack of righteousness, God has provided us with all we need to be made right with him. We've discovered that in Jesus Christ, we've been made holy, purified, so we can stand in God's presence with our heads held high.
	It would be so easy to do as Peter wanted to do. To set up our tents and stay here, basking in our new found righteousness. To become self-satisfied because we've found the secret to eternal life. But no, privilege always involves responsibility. Having come to know Jesus Christ, having been made right with God, Jesus tells us: "go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." Having been made righteous we need to learn that righteousness involves not just the idea of being right, but also of doing right.
	So the next four beatitudes take us from where we are in our relationship with God, to examining how we're to live out our Christian life in our relationships with others.
	So we come to the fifth blessing: "Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy." Let's think about what that might mean. How do we know what showing mercy might entail? Perhaps the place to start is the mercy that God shows. In Luke 6:36, in Luke's version of the sermon on the mount, Jesus speaks about love for one's enemies and he finishes by saying "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." So the model for mercy is God. Ephesians 2 says this: (Eph 2:4-5 NRSV) "But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us ⁵even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved." So God's mercy has to do with his saving love, which brought us back to life, even when we were dead in our sins.
	But still, there's more to say about mercy than that. Sometimes we associate mercy with a feeling of pity. It becomes an emotional spasm that responds spontaneously to something it sees or hears about. But that isn't what God's mercy is about at all. His is a mercy that springs from before the creation of the world, that mapped out a plan to be brought to completion at the end of the world. And that saves us now through the death of his son 2000 years ago. So mercy is a redemptive attitude by which we deliberately set out to meet the need we see in another person. It's sympathy in its literal sense. That is, to suffer together with another person.
	Do you see how this is at the heart of the gospel? Jesus can sympathise with our weaknesses because he's been tempted in every way just as we are, though without sinning (Heb 4:15) The mercy God shows us is manifested in Jesus becoming a human being and living among us. Through his life and death and resurrection, he lifts us out of our futility and failure and enables us to please God again. That's the model for us showing mercy.
	We need to be careful when we think about mercy, because there are all sorts of misconceptions about what mercy involves. You see, being merciful doesn't mean feeling sorry for people and encouraging their self-pity. It doesn't mean letting unrepentant people off the hook when they've disobeyed God's word. Mercy doesn't just overlook issues of justice or truth. Nor does it mean easing the pain but ignoring the cause. A Band-Aid solution may bring some comfort, but it may not be merciful. Of course Band-Aid solutions can also be mistaken efforts to help. There are plenty of examples where well-meaning people have come into a situation trying to help but have actually made the situation worse because they didn't first stop to find out what the real problem was or what the sufferer wanted done.
	No, mercy is an identification with a need so that you feel what the other person feels, you see and hear what that other person sees and hears.
	So mercy might involve helping a person identify their real need. It might be a specific act of kindness, like the Good Samaritan, who bandaged the injured man's wounds, put him on his donkey and took him to the nearest inn where he arranged for him to be cared for. In the passage we just read from Matthew 25 it was specific acts of kindness: something to eat, something to drink, warm clothing, hospitality, care of the sick, a visit to someone in prison that Jesus commends.
	Mercy might involve being honest enough that we can expose root issues and help people work through them. Sometimes that won't feel like we're being merciful though will it? It can be a difficult thing to raise hard issues with someone. So it's even more important that mercy in that instance is combined with a good dose of love, so the person knows they can trust you with the issues that confront them.
	Mercy might involve being quick to forgive an offence. We human beings are very good at holding grudges. You come across people from time to time who have been holding onto grudges for years and years. There are still people living around here who are angry because the St Theodore's Drama group was closed down in 1973. That's 27 years ago! But mercy involves a willingness to forgive those who are repentant and who ask for our forgiveness.
	It might also mean releasing someone from a rightful claim you might have over them. Paul wrote a letter to Philemon in which he asked Philemon to respond to the mercy of God by treating his runaway slave Onesimus with the same mercy; in fact to treat him the same way he would have treated Paul if it were Paul who was coming to him.
	So acts of mercy fall into 2 general categories: mercy related to some personal injury or claim over another, and mercy shown to others who are suffering but where the cause of suffering is out of our direct control.
	In the first case, mercy will involve giving up some claim we might have on the person for restitution or whatever other claim we might have. In the second case mercy will involve doing all we can to ameliorate their suffering.
	Last week we talked about the need to seek to be reconciled with our Christian brother or sister if they've wronged us in some way, and here again, we find that mercy involves willingly forgiving those who ask for our forgiveness. The promise Jesus attaches to this blessing, that they will receive mercy, is echoed in it's opposite form a number of times in the NT. Jesus himself taught his disciples to pray "forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." And then he added "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; ¹⁵but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." James says "Judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy." (2:13 NRSV) So mercy shown to those who ask us for forgiveness is a necessary condition if we're to ask God for mercy for our own sins.
	Similarly, in the Parable of the sheep and the goats that we read from Matt 25, the distinction that's made is as to whether we've shown the second sort of mercy, offering care and relief, to those in need. This might be care shown to those we come across in our normal lives, those people we show hospitality to, who we visit in hospital, who we provide meals for when they're not well enough to cook for themselves. It might be the sort of care we give by sending our old clothes to Anglicare or the Red Cross. It might be sending money to people in need through agencies like Anglicord or TEAR Australia or World Vision. These days there's no shortage of people in need, and no scarcity of organisations set up to help them. The only issue is the level of generosity with which we're prepared to support those people and organisations.
	Jesus said, "Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; ³⁵for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.'" (Mat 25:34-36 NRSV)
	Finally, lets remember that the distinguishing feature of those who call themselves Jesus' disciples is the love they show for one another. That love is shown most clearly in this most godly of characteristics, mercy.
	Make me a channel of your peace. Where there is hatred let me bring your love; Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord; And where there's doubt, true faith in you.
	Oh, master, grant that I may never seek So much to be consoled as to console; To be understood as to understand; To be loved, as to love with all my soul.


	Contact us	Check our Mission Statement	Our Mission Strategy	Our 5-Year Plan	Preaching Program	Home		Last Week's Sermon	Index of Sermons