My dream for the church, and what we all need from the church (whether we realize it or not) is that church will be above all else a place, a vale, a shelter, an outpost of mercy. I’m not sure any other place, any other institution, any building, any company or club can stake such an audacious claim. Where else do we even speak of or try to embody mercy in our culture of earning, deserving, or even shared interests?
We need mercy always, always have, always will. The breath you just took is entirely by God’s mercy. Before you were – at all! – you were mysteriously and miraculously dependent on God’s mercy. Just coming to be. And your first home. The Hebrew word translated “mercy” is rachamim – from rechem, meaning “womb.” You didn’t earn your place there, nor did you take care of yourself there. Even after your mother bore you – at considerable cost to her own body, not yours – she sought nothing but good for you; she loved you fiercely. God’s mercy is like a mother’s tender care; her mercy is God’s tender care.
Deep inside, don’t you crave mercy? – to be loved despite your craziness, to be handled tenderly? Mercy never passes judgment. Mercy is never shocked by sin, or suffering, or anything at all in the reality of life. Mercy can’t be earned, and laughs at the very notion of earning. A vulnerable child hasn’t earned his place in the family. Children are treated with gentle mercy and unconditioned tenderness because of… well, mercy needs no reasons.
Sure, later on you have to cry out for mercy. A kid was about to pound the daylights out of me on the playground – and I was required to say, out loud, “Mercy.” A terrible, horrible mistake has been made, smashing a well-arranged life, and your regret is so intense that no strategy can extricate you from the mess. The only cry left to make is “Mercy.” You gaze at the crucifix, and you keep looking, letting it nestle down into the marrow of your self, and finally you get it. Your only plea is “Mercy.” And there’s so much mercy in being able to seek that mercy.
Another Hebrew word translated “mercy” is ḥesed, which is steadfast, unshakeably committed love. God sees our waywardness – but instead of being angry, God grieves, pursues, and does not rest until healing is achieved. In church – where else do we dare such a thing??? – we confess our sins. Timothy Radcliffe suggests that in confession, we throw away our dignity, and then claim it. It’s both. Our dignity is we exist as the beneficiaries of God’s mercy. Herbert McCabe named it: “If we go to confession, it is not to plead for forgiveness from God. It is to thank Him for it.”
And we learn in church how to live into Jesus’ Beatitude: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” We learn to be merciful – so counter cultural. God’s mercy is nowhere more brilliantly displayed than when Joseph forgives his vicious brothers and even finds God’s hidden hand bringing good out of evil (Gen. 45). Mercy works mightily, sometimes unnoticed, in the shadows, for good, even using human missteps and meanness for God’s good ends. No wonder that great hymn sings of mercy as plural: “Morning by morning, new mercies I see.”
Mercy isn’t only needed when God’s commandments are broken. The commandments themselves are mercy. Don’t covet? You don’t have to, as God and God’s blessings are enough already. Keep the Sabbath? You can rest, for the world doesn’t depend on your feverish labors, but on God’s mercy. How good of God to show us in mercy the way to a whole, joyful life! Jesus pressed the commandments further, not with a Gotcha! but with higher mercy. Don’t kill? Don’t let anger riddle your soul. Don’t commit adultery? Don’t be ensnared by lust. Jesus, so full of mercy, wishes to set us free from all that is toxic in our heads and hearts. He was fleshing out Psalm 51:6: “You desire truth in my inward being; teach me wisdom in my secret heart.”
Church. Mercy. My dream is these two words, these two realities, will seem synonymous, as if there’s simply no difference. Church is mercy. Mercy is church.