Be Merciful

Luke 6:36 “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

So we come back to the fulcrum of the sermon.  We have been shown unfathomable mercy.  Can we fail to do likewise?  Jesus goes on to talk about judgment and discernment.  Most Christians I know look down on other denominations.  Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Evangelicals, Pentacostals, Episcopals.  Name the denomination.  Nobody (else) seems to follow Jesus “the right way”.  My brother has a “better plumber” theory.  “It’s a good thing I’m here,” every plumber ever will say.  “Because the guy who was here last time really messed this up!”  I think on some level, we all know we don’t have it right.  But it is always easier to diagnose someone else’s problem than our own, to take that speck out of our neighbor’s eye, than remove the plank in our own eye.  

Jesus had no speck to remove from his own eye.  And yet, to most people, he was loving, gentle and merciful.  It was only to the religious elite that he was dangerous.  To those who thought their plumbing was working perfectly, he told them that, in fact, their pipes were backing up and their septic system was overflowing.  They stank.

Whatever denomination you belong to, whatever religion you follow, there is only one question:  did you love your neighbor as yourself?  At least three different times, Jesus and Paul indicate that this one verse sums up the entire Bible (Matt 7:12, Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:14) and twice more Jesus says “Love God, Love Neighbor” sums it all up (Matt 22:37-40, Luke 10:27-28).  “Who is my neighbor?” the lawyer asked Jesus in Luke 10.  In response, Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan.  The Good Samaritan was not the neighbor, he was the hero of the story.  The person whose ancestors had left the Jewish faith and become enemies of the Jews.  Was.  The.  Hero.  

The Jewish traveler was the neighbor, the one who needed love and mercy.  That, my friends, is where you and I are.  The villains of the parable are not the robbers, but the priest and the levite, the religious elite who were too intent on following the rules of religion to offer mercy to the injured man.  

If I am driving to church and pass someone whose car has broken down, I should stop and offer help, even if it means being late to church, getting my nice clothes dirty, doing work on the Sabbath.  Do I do this?  I do not.  I do not.  Mark Twain once said, “Never let school interfere with your education.”  I would change that to, “Never let religion interfere with living out your faith.”  I pray I can follow that.