1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word this 7th Sunday after Epiphany is taken from Luke 6:27-38. In this portion of his Sermon on the Plain, Jesus offers us glimpses of the kingdom breaking forth on earth. The message is entitled, “Moments of Mercy,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. A disciple is hated and responds with love. A disciple is cursed and responds with blessing. A disciple is abused and responds with prayer. When encountering a beggar, a disciple gives. When having things stolen, a disciple does not seek repayment. Again and again, in situation after situation, Jesus reveals one principle that rules over all: Mercy. Jesus says in Luke 6:36, "Be merciful even as your Father is merciful."
3. What delights me about this list is that these are only moments. Moments of mercy. By listing a series of situations in rapid succession, Jesus overwhelms us with how practical, how real, how tangible, how concrete, life in the kingdom of God can be.
4. We don't need special skills to be a Christian. Having received mercy, we offer mercy. We don't need to surround ourselves with only certain kinds of people. When confronted with anger, disparagement, and rejection, we suffer. When coming across those who are homeless, helpless, and hopeless, we love. We continue to live in the world, but we do so fully invested in our daily lives because we know that the kingdom of God is present here. Anytime and everywhere, moments of mercy can break out in our world.
5. The beauty of this is that moments of mercy can be quite powerful. God can use a moment of mercy to change a person's life. I think of Victor Hugo's literary masterpiece Les Misérables, where he unfolds how a simple act of mercy changes a criminal's life. Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for stealing bread to feed his sister's children, has been marked for life. He will always be a convict, forced to display his yellow passport and be treated like an outcast. When passing through a town, he can’t find a place to stay and ultimately is offered refuge in a clergyman's home. Jean Valjean responds to this gracious hospitality by stealing the household silver. When Valjean is caught and accused, the clergyman says the silver was a gift and that Valjean had forgotten to take the candlesticks as well. In Hugo's story, this one small moment of mercy becomes the beginning of a lifelong transformation.
6. Hugo's literary imagination echoes the words of Jesus in our text. "From one who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either" he says in Luke 6:29. In the hand of God, one small act of mercy can be the beginning of new life for the lost. To those fully schooled in the ways of the world, this way of the kingdom seems wrong. Unjust. You should defend yourself, claim your rights, guard your possessions, and repay evil with evil. But in the kingdom of God, moments of mercy are the wrong that makes things right.
7. We realize that we are to love and give. After all, everything we have is given to us as a gift from God. God has given us many material gifts, just as he gave many gifts to those who followed him in those readings we’ve heard throughout the season of epiphany. Even if we are not rich, God has given us many gifts (body, mind, family, friends, support).
8. Quite naturally, though, we are selective with our love and our gifts. Our first instinct is to keep, guard, and hold onto any and every gift we are given. We first have to trust a person (date or be friends for a time) before loving them. We count and measure out every dime we have and what we need to keep before thinking about giving any of it away, even giving it to the church.
9. We try to judge whether someone really needs or is worthy of our love and gifts. Instead, Jesus tells us to love and give even to our enemies. We use strict judgment and a stingier measure with those we don’t know. We may not give to our neighbor if we think the gift will be misused (spent on drugs or alcohol).
10. It is even harder to give to our enemies or those we do not like or who mistreat us. We may be willing to buy our friend lunch once or twice, but we do not likely give our lunch money to the school bully. But, the fact is, we’re no better than any other sinner when we give only to those who are worthy of our charity. Jesus says in Luke 6:32–34, “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount.” Still, we can love and give to all because we have been loved and given good in Christ.
11. You are in a position to give love, for you were first given and loved by your Heavenly Father who is merciful. You have been given much love and many gifts by God. You are unworthy, yet God had mercy upon you (Luke 6:36). God gave you, his enemy, not just another cheek, a tunic, or an amount of money, but his very own Son. God has taken what seemed bad and made it for your good and the good of your neighbor, much as he did for Joseph in our Old Testament lesson for today (Gen. 45:3–15).
12. Jesus’ horrible death is your greatest gift, that accomplishes completely everything necessary for your salvation. This worst event and loss of the life of Jesus is your greatest benefit (χάρις). By Jesus’ cross, you have been forgiven. In Christ, God promises you forgiveness even for selfishness and judgments. Nothing is won or lost by having more stuff. We are free of the necessity to do anything to earn eternal life or to gain anything for ourselves. What remains in this life isn’t a burden or something that must be done to qualify you for heaven but a gift and an opportunity to love your neighbors and show them the love you have in Christ Jesus (Ps 103:1–13).
13. Consider how Christ made us children of the kingdom. He came to us in our sinfulness and bought our lives with his innocent suffering and death. As Martin Luther reminds us in his explanation of the 2nd Article of the Apostles’ Creed, "he has redeemed me . . . not with gold or silver but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death." The death of Jesus is the wrong that makes things right.
14. God, the Father, sent his Son into our world to be the spring of his bountiful mercy. By his death and resurrection, Jesus opens a fountain of mercy that has a never-ending stream. Just as water can awaken life in soil that has been dry and dead for years, so too God brings life in the wilderness of our world through moments of mercy.
15. This is important because we live in a world that has lost sight of mercy. Our culture is changing. We are becoming a cancel culture. In a cancel culture, if a moment of sin or error is uncovered, then the one who committed that sin is canceled. A text message from twenty years ago containing a racial slur is enough to cancel the career of a sports announcer. It doesn't matter that a teenage boy can grow and change and even repent of his earlier actions. In a cancel culture, the answer to sin is cancelation. Not forgiveness. And certainly not restoration. In a cancel culture, the cure actually kills the patient. Cancellation purifies by exclusion. It sanctifies by silencing. And soon our streets will be filled with people who don't matter.
16. Into such a world, Jesus speaks these words to his people. He awakens in our lives an echo of his grace. Repentance, forgiveness, new life are foreign concepts in a culture obsessed with canceling. But in the kingdom of God, these are the ways of God's working. So, it is a blessing not only for us but for our world that Jesus comes and speaks these words today. He reminds us that the kingdom we live in is a kingdom of grace, with moments of life-changing mercy breaking out in our world. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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