Blessed are the merciful: They shall have mercy shown them.
—Matthew 5:7
Father Richard teaches that mercy is the essence of who God is:
Mercy is like the mystery of forgiveness. By definition, mercy and forgiveness are unearned, undeserved, and not owed. If it isn’t all those three, it won’t be experienced as mercy. If we think mercy is mandatory, or that it must be earned, we lose the mystery of both mercy and forgiveness. I believe with all my heart that mercy and forgiveness are the whole gospel.
The experience of forgiveness or mercy is the experience of a magnanimous God who loves out of total gratuitousness. There’s no tit for tat with God, no buying or selling in the temple. We cannot buy or sell God’s love by worthiness or achievement. Salvation is God’s lovingkindness, a lovingkindness that is “forever.” Read Psalm 136 for an ecstatic description.
More than a description of something God does now and then, mercy is who God is.
According to Jesus, “Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13; 12:7). The word mercy is hesed in Hebrew: “the steadfast, enduring love which is unbreakable.” Sometimes the word is translated as “lovingkindness” or “covenant love.” God has made a covenant with creation and will never break the divine side of the covenant. It’s only broken from our side. God’s love is steadfast. It is written in the divine image within us. We are the ones who instead clutch at our sins and punish ourselves instead of surrendering to the divine mercy. The refusal to be forgiven is a form of pride. It is saying, “I’m better than mercy. I’m only going to accept it when I’m worthy and can preserve my so-called self-esteem.” Only the humble person can live in and after mercy. [1]
Clarence Jordan (1912–1969), an activist for racial and economic justice, considers the economic outcome of being immersed in God’s mercy:
The word translated “mercy” … isn’t a cold, condescending kind of mercy such as one in power might extend to his victim in return for gratitude or service. It is warm, compassionate, tender, and never seeks to barter. It is almost exactly the same word that Jesus uses later on in the Sermon in referring to “almsgiving.”… Jesus rescued that world from the mere act of proudly pitching a coin to a beggar and made it into a whole attitude of life.
By “the merciful” he means those who have an attitude of such compassion toward all [people] that they want to share gladly all that they have with one another and with the world…. To them, [people] are no longer beggars to whom one gives a part, but brothers [and sisters] with whom one shares all. This concept of charity, or mercy, led some of the early Christians to a state of voluntary poverty in which “All the believers were together and held all things in common” (Acts 2:44). [2]
References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Jesus’ Alternative Plan: The Sermon on the Mount (Franciscan Media, 2022), 144–146.
[2] Clarence Jordan, Sermon on the Mount, rev. ed. (Judson Press, 1993), 30–31.
Image credit and inspiration: Malek Larif, untitled (detail), 2019, photo, India, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Like a raindrop poised on a leaf, the Beatitudes provide a drop-by-drop prescription to counter-culturally create the kin-dom of God.
Story from Our Community:
Cynthia Bourgeault’s meditation on the laborers in the vineyard reminds me that God is always inviting us into the kingdom of heaven. Some spend their entire life in devotion to God, and some come around near the end of their life. It’s the same reward for all.
—Mark S.
