SermonStudio

"Lord, have mercy on me." My earliest memory of that statement goes back to a little farm in central Alabama. It was summertime. That meant I would be spending about two weeks with my Aunt Etta and Uncle Lee near Fayette. One of my favorite times was when I would hear in the distance that familiar rumble of the mail truck. I ran to meet the mailman as fast as my feet would carry me. I could hardly wait to give the letter to Aunt Etta, because without doubt she would say, "Lord, have mercy on me" if she received a letter from her sister, my grandmother.

I thought it was an old term because it seemed to me that old people were the only ones who used the term: people like Sam, the old black man who came to help out around our little farm. Whenever there was a reason for any type of amazement, the words Sam always said were, "Have mercy on my soul."

I wondered what the word mercy meant. Have mercy on me! Have mercy on my soul!

"Your Honor, my client knows that what he did was damaging to the families involved, to the community, to his own family, and even to himself. He would like to throw himself on the mercy of this court."

In the temple - in the Holy of Holies - the Ark of the Covenant sat. The mercy seat flanked by two cherubim was on top of the Ark. It was there that once a year the high priest would sprinkle blood from a lamb to atone for the sins of the people.

Mercy: Jesus told a story about two men who went to the temple to pray. One felt very self--righteous. He prayed loudly, thanking God that he was not like other people. He was filled with an attitude of superiority as he prayed. The other man who came to the temple to pray would not even lift his eyes toward heaven. He prayed to God saying, "Lord, forgive me a sinner. Lord, have mercy on me."

I wondered and so I asked Aunt Etta one day after she got one of those long--awaited letters. "What does it mean? These words you say: 'Have mercy on me'?"

"Well, let me see," she began, "that word mercy means God doing something good for you." All that summer I walked around saying, "Have mercy on me," but somehow it didn't really feel the same as when I heard older people say it. So I just thought about it.

But I have come to learn that she was right. I learned that grace is the unmerited favor of God. Grace is getting something you do not deserve. I learned that justice is the dreaded sentence of getting what you deserve. And, mercy is that gift of not getting what you deserve. In other words, "God is doing something good for you."

I remember Dr. Rex Turner when I was first taking religion classes. One day he opened his class with an unusual question. "Which would you rather have from God, justice or mercy?" This was his way of opening up dialogue in the area of what it means for God to be merciful, as well as what it means for us to be merciful.

Paul makes the statement that God is merciful to all people - to all people. One of the most difficult concepts for us to understand is God's choice to be merciful to all people. I want God to be merciful to all good people in life.

I recently watched a program on A & E about Death Row inmates. They were waiting to be put to death. In our hearts we say, "Give them what they deserve. They killed. They raped. They should get what they deserve. The courts have said they should be put to death, so put them to death." Paul says that God will be merciful to people even if they have committed some of the most heinous crimes imaginable. You see, this word mercy means you don't get what you deserve.

On a lesser scale - imagine the scenario that you have been going to church with him for 35 years, and five years ago you stopped speaking. It was in a board meeting that the voices got loud, the faces got red, and the hands got shaky. Things were said that shouldn't have been said, in a way that shouldn't have been expressed. How do you come together and pray, sing, and celebrate? It seems there is only one way for reconciliation and peace. There is only one way, and that one way is mercy.

Giving mercy isn't the easiest thing to do. For when you do it, it seems like you just go along with the wrong. Whenever there is a decision by a jury or a judge that seems full of mercy, the feeling that comes is that they have aligned themselves with the crime. The comment comes very quickly. "I can't believe that judge would just go along with that sort of thing."

Or imagine this scene:

"Albert, what are you doing?"

"Well, Mother, I'm moving back home."

"Son, I know you are 45, but why would you do that? Have you been seeing Shirley?"

"Yes, Mother, I have."

"Well, do I need to remind you what she did?"

"Mother, I'm going back."

"If it were me, I would give her exactly what she deserves and that is nothing. She would not get the house, the cars, and especially the children."

"Mother, you don't understand. I have forgiven her."

"Of all things, I can't believe my only son would go along with a thing like she has done. How can you condone actions like these?"

You see, when you put mercy into life and let it work, it looks very much like we are just going along.

Paul said, "Look at life this way: just as you have received mercy, they have received mercy." Maybe the reason it seems so hard is because we not only want to be treated well, we do not want other people to be treated better than we think they should be. This seems to be the major point of the parable Jesus told as recorded in Matthew 20:1--20. It is a story of a man who goes to the market early in the morning and hires workers and agrees on what the wage should be. He returns to hire more at 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m., and 5 p.m. However, when the day is done at 6 p.m., he pays them all the same starting from the ones that were hired last. This causes a great deal of dissatisfaction to the ones who were hired first, for they thought the others were overcompensated. The act of mercy often causes that type of feeling that we are over--compensating people. They are people that everyone knows, including God, do not deserve what they are getting.

When we come down to the bottom line of our hearts, we know it is true. Mercy is giving to all these people what they do not deserve. The only thing is that the people we are talking about is us. We, most of all, need this wonderful little word, mercy. Aunt Etta was right. Mercy is God doing something good for you. May God have mercy on us.