MERCY MATTERS

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the WEIGHTIER MATTERS of the law: justice, MERCY and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone” – Matthew 23:23

It is expedient to re-emphasize the truth that MERCY MATTERS! Mercy is one of the “weightier matters” of life; one of the Kingdom fundamentals: Justice, Mercy, and Faith. These priorities are always in danger of being neglected because of our pursuit of frivolities and preoccupation with trifles – secular or religious. Secular trifles include watching too much television, wasting hours on the internet or engaging in empty and vain entertainment. A religious trifle is any religious activity – however spiritual it may seem – that does not cultivate a heart that is preoccupied with the weightier matters of life, like Mercy. We see the opposite of Mercy in these stinging words of the Lord: “Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!” (Mt.23:24). The opposite of mercy is the straining out of gnats – giving priority to religious impulses over and above Kingdom fundamentals, of which Mercy is chief!

In Matthew 9:10-13, Jesus contrasts Mercy with Sacrifice: “But go and learn what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice…” (Mt.9:13a). This is a quote from Hosea 6:6, where God accused the people that their love is like the dew of the grass. It is there for a brief morning hour, and then is gone, and all that is left is the empty form of burnt offerings. God wants His people to be alive in their hearts. He wants us to have feelings of affection toward Him and mercy toward each other. He does not want a people who do religious duties in a perfunctory or merely formal manner. Jesus viewed the tax collectors – the rich money-movers of the day – as sick sinners and miserable folk in need of a physician. But all that the ‘holier-than-thou’ Pharisees saw was a ceremonial problem with being contaminated by eating with sinners. Their lives seemed to be a mechanical application of rules. Something huge was at stake here – eternal sickness of souls in need of salvation; but the Pharisees could not see or feel it. They were enslaved to the trivial issues of ceremonial cleanness.

The opposite of Mercy is bondage to religious triviality. The bondage of triviality is the curse of the unmerciful. The proof of the spiritual pudding is in the power to show mercy, share compassion, and perform relief, even toward an enemy (Mt.5:43-44). When Jesus says, “Don’t neglect the weightier matters,” He means, “Beware of going through your day doing only trivial things, thinking only trivial thoughts, feeling only trivial feelings. Be conscious of, plan for, and get involved in the weighty Matter of Mercy”! Devote your life, and invest your life in the weightier matters of the law: Justice, Mercy, Faith!”

We see in the story of the Good Samaritan, the truth that Mercy Matters (Lk.10:25-37). A lawyer asked Jesus how a person should act who expects to find Mercy at the Judgement day and inherit eternal life. Jesus answered that those who will receive Mercy of eternal life are those who have loved God with all their hearts and their neighbour as themselves. Here are Four Dimensions of Mercy extracted from that story:

- Mercy sees distress: “But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him…” (v.33a)

- Mercy responds internally with a heart of compassion toward a person in distress: “…he had compassion on him” (v.33b)

- Mercy responds externally with practical effort and expense to relieve the distress: “and went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him” (v.34)

- Mercy acts even when the person in distress is an enemy: “But a certain Samaritan…” – a half-breed Jew with a warped religious tradition stopped to help the Jew who hates him!

An eye for distress, a heart of compassion, and an expensive effort to help in spite of enmity – that’ Mercy, and it matters!