Living Wittily

Which of These Showed Mercy?

The parable of the Good Samaritan is a story about mercy. At least to my mind. The question, "Who is my neighbour?", is a request for clarification. What are the limits of neighbour love? Who deserves my mercy? Can we define, with clear criteria, our liabilities within the terms of the command "Love your neighbour as yourself"?

 

The story Jesus told opens up an entire can of - food for the hungry, water for the thirsty, medicine for the hurting, transport for those unable to walk another step of life without help. The question "Who is my neighbour?", is answered by Jesus' question "Who proved to be neighbour to the person in need?" And the lawyer's answer, drawn like a deep rooted tooth reluctant to emerge, "Well, I suppose, the one who showed him mercy."

 

Mercy is thoughtful and costly neighbourliness. Mercy is the tilt of the heart towards those whose lives can be made better by our kindness and generosity. Mercy is compassionate practical caring about what is happening to folk who are struggling.

 

Emotional empathy and practical kindness, feeling and action, embodied kindness, the love of God enacted and demonstrated as a way of life; each a constituent part of mercy. We love because God first loved us; God’s love poured is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. God’s love to us is sufficient motive and our love for the neighbour is the energy source of mercy. "Anyone who does not love his brother or sister [or neighbour] whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

 

Who proved to be neighbour? The one who showed mercy. God and do likewise.

 

Painting by Vincent Van Gogh, an interpretation of a painting by the same name by Delacroix. Painted while Vincent was undergoing an episode of serious mental ill health. Some interpreters see the Samaritan as Vincent's brother Theo, who tried always to be there for him when Van Gogh's life was overturned by illness.

Being a Persuasive Argument for the Mercy of God

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."

 

 

Years ago, an old 80+ year old friend once told me that when the large family gathered for a meal, her grandfather (that takes us back to the late Victorian age,) would look around the table and say, "My, isn't it a mercy we're all spared to be here!"

 

I guess he would be familiar with words that are like cats' eyes on a dark road, from the saddest book of the Bible, Lamentations 3.22-23: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness”

 

So when we hear Jesus promising blessing to those who are merciful, he means that every time we enact and embody mercy to others, we are giving to others strong hints, visible clues, strong evidence, of what God is like. What's more, God's mercies to us are new every morning, so we never run out of the grace, and the love, and the energy, and the imagination, out of which comes every act of kindness, compassion and generosity.

 

It may well be that today, we are one of the mercies God brings into the life of someone for whom life isn't going well. Whatever else mission is, it is to be the walking proof of the mercy of God.

TFTD Aug 5-11: Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow

TEXT FOR THE WEEK.  I Peter 1.3:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Monday

“Praise be to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” That’s where Christian worship, prayer and faithful existence start – with praise. Not our requests and needs, but the heart recognition of who God is and all that God has done through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peter will go on to spell that out in the rest of the text. But impulsive, self-asserting and outspoken Peter has learned this late in life to put first things first. Praise is the music of a heart set free to live and love in the grace of God.

Tuesday

“In his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Mercy is love in action and always involves self-giving care for the other. Praise God, says Peter, for the gift of new life in Christ. Every believer lives with a forward look to hope-filled horizons. All of them illumined by the blazing reality of ‘the resurrection of Jesus Christ.’ The resurrection is the ultimate new beginning, the defeat of death by the life of God, the birth of hope from despair. By resurrection and the gift of new birth, God speaks a reverberating “Yes!” of forgiveness, reconciliation and renewal. 

Wednesday

“…and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.”

New birth, living hope, and now a God-given inheritance, with a triple lock guarantee! It is imperishable, unspoilable, and unfading. What God has given to us in Christ is index-linked to his resurrection. This new life and living hope, with all its blessings of peace with God, the gift of the Spirit, the renewal of the heart for service, are directly dependent on God’s power and mercy, and demonstrated in the death and resurrection of Christ. Our inheritance in Christ is ring-fenced by grace!

Thursday

“This inheritance is kept in heaven for you…”

  Peter was writing to Christians who were facing persecution, the forfeiture of property, exclusion from society, loss of status and everyday freedoms. If we are faithful to Jesus it may well cost us too. Peter’s point is that our salvation, our security in God, our status as children of God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ – whatever else we lose, we can never lose our place in God’s love, and our hope in Christ. What we have received in Christ, all the graces and gifts of salvation, are under the lock and key of heaven, guarded by the eternal promises of God.

Friday

“who through faith are shielded by God’s power…”

In case we missed it, God not only guards and keeps all he has promised to those who are in Christ; but because we live in Christ by faith, we also are shielded by the power of God. An older translation says “we are kept by the power of God.” A shield is only effective when it comes between the heart and danger. The Psalmist even calls God a shield, One who protects and defends when the heart is under siege. 

Saturday

“until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Outside the discourse of the Church, the word salvation is hardly ever used these days. But it is a key word of Christian life. “It contains the ideas of rescue from danger, healing from illness, deliverance from the threat of death, and entering into a state of well-being.” We are born anew into a living hope, so that in faith we look forward to the final revelation of all that God plans for the new creation in Christ. So we live in anticipation, but we do so secure and “kept by the power of God.”

Sunday

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Read the whole text again, and allow your mind and heart to follow its rhythms. Another word hardly used outside church is ‘Doxology.’ Literally, it means to speak words of glory, to give God glory. This week we have explored Peter’s passionate description of Christian salvation, and taken some time to think about the experience and realities of God’s grace and power and love in our own lives.

It seems right to finish with perhaps the most frequently sung four-line verse in English hymnody, written in 1674 by Thomas Ken: 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise him all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heav’nly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

TFTD Aug 5-11: Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.

TEXT FOR THE WEEK.  I Peter 1.3:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Monday

“Praise be to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” That’s where Christian worship, prayer and faithful existence start – with praise. Not our requests and needs, but the heart recognition of who God is and all that God has done through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peter will go on to spell that out in the rest of the text. But impulsive, self-asserting and outspoken Peter has learned this late in life to put first things first. Praise is the music of a heart set free to live and love in the grace of God.

Tuesday

“In his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Mercy is love in action and always involves self-giving care for the other. Praise God, says Peter, for the gift of new life in Christ. Every believer lives with a forward look to hope-filled horizons. All of them illumined by the blazing reality of ‘the resurrection of Jesus Christ.’ The resurrection is the ultimate new beginning, the defeat of death by the life of God, the birth of hope from despair. By resurrection and the gift of new birth, God speaks a reverberating “Yes!” of forgiveness, reconciliation and renewal. 

Wednesday

“…and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.”

New birth, living hope, and now a God-given inheritance, with a triple lock guarantee! It is imperishable, unspoilable, and unfading. What God has given to us in Christ is index-linked to his resurrection. This new life and living hope, with all its blessings of peace with God, the gift of the Spirit, the renewal of the heart for service, are directly dependent on God’s power and mercy, and demonstrated in the death and resurrection of Christ. Our inheritance in Christ is ring-fenced by grace!

Thursday

“This inheritance is kept in heaven for you…”

  Peter was writing to Christians who were facing persecution, the forfeiture of property, exclusion from society, loss of status and everyday freedoms. If we are faithful to Jesus it may well cost us too. Peter’s point is that our salvation, our security in God, our status as children of God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ – whatever else we lose, we can never lose our place in God’s love, and our hope in Christ. What we have received in Christ, all the graces and gifts of salvation, are under the lock and key of heaven, guarded by the eternal promises of God.

Friday

“who through faith are shielded by God’s power…”

In case we missed it, God not only guards and keeps all he has promised to those who are in Christ; but because we live in Christ by faith, we also are shielded by the power of God. An older translation says “we are kept by the power of God.” A shield is only effective when it comes between the heart and danger. The Psalmist even calls God a shield, One who protects and defends when the heart is under siege. 

Saturday

“until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Outside the discourse of the Church, the word salvation is hardly ever used these days. But it is a key word of Christian life. “It contains the ideas of rescue from danger, healing from illness, deliverance from the threat of death, and entering into a state of well-being.” We are born anew into a living hope, so that in faith we look forward to the final revelation of all that God plans for the new creation in Christ. So we live in anticipation, but we do so secure and “kept by the power of God.”

Sunday

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Read the whole text again, and allow your mind and heart to follow its rhythms. Another word hardly used outside church is ‘Doxology.’ Literally, it means to speak words of glory, to give God glory. This week we have explored Peter’s passionate description of Christian salvation, and taken some time to think about the experience and realities of God’s grace and power and love in our own lives.

It seems right to finish with perhaps the most frequently sung four-line verse in English hymnody, written in 1674 by Thomas Ken: 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise him all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heav’nly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.