Beatitudes Cont.

Here we go, moving on to "blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." I'm really looking forward to this Sunday and the opportunity to discuss this beatitude. I've been confronted with the depth of this truth over the last couple weeks. What does it mean to show mercy to those around us? How does it extend to those who embrace Christ and those who don't? Mercy doesn't show favoritism based on where one falls on that decision. Rather, mercy is a way of life. Recognizing first that in order for me to show mercy I must realize I have been shown mercy. While I was yet far from God, while I cared only about me, while I thought God was a joke, he loved me with a love that was bigger and stronger than my selfishness. It was a love that would not be diverted no matter how much I might have pushed away. So, when I deal with my deep need for Christ's forgiveness and grace, can I really respond any differently to those around me?

I'm surprised at times within my heart at how easy it is for me to become proud and pompous. It's not that I set out to be that way, but there's this insidious character within me that at some level becomes proud of the relationship with Christ and my identity as his follower. So, rather than looking at all others with the same grace and love and compassion with which he has looked on me, it becomes easy to see the lack of character in another. And not with the intent of extending compassion and mercy there, but to evaluate their standing as a human. Actually, I think deep down more than that, to set them at a less elevated or "privileged" status than how I see myself. Talk about the opposite of mercy! It makes me sick when I notice this kind of junk making its way to the surface, but I'm also grateful that the Spirit allows me to deal with the destructive humanness that still lays below the surface.

I believe this is the conflict that most angered Christ when dealing with the Pharisees. And I've found that those in the church love to pile on the Pharisees, but it may be that we love to put the attention on them, because we don't have to look inside to deal with the Pharisee within our own hearts. Really, who enjoys dealing with that reality? Even within our new identity as Children of Christ we must continue to go to the cross to be transformed.

I wonder what the church would really look like, if we gave faces, arms and feet to the kind of mercy we have been given and have been called to give. What difference would there be in our families? churches? communities? world?

Lord, just as you have overwhelmed me with mercy, may I extent that mercy so that you may be known!