Blessed are the merciful: for they shall receive mercy.

We’ve been looking at the Beatitudes, the statements of blessing, in the gospel of Matthew

The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12)

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure of heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called children of God.
Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven.

This morning I want to bring some brief thoughts about blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.

Before we get to that - many commentators on the beatitudes have suggested that they need to be seen as an integrated and closely interdependent set. They’re not a smorgasbord of options to choose from for your preferred characteristic of worthiness.

Taken together they become a challenge and a guide for how to act in any situation.

William Barclay suggests that the Beatitudes can be the ethics in a permissive society. When the rules and traditions of behaviour are swept away the qualities that are blessed in the beatitudes suffice for ethical and moral behaviour.

We need to keep that in mind as we look at this one beatitude.

One way of understanding what Jesus might have meant by “the merciful” is to consider what it might have meant when it was first heard and remembered and written down. What might Jesus have been referring to and how might it have been received by those listening.

From there we could think about what it might mean for us now 2000 years later in a very different society.

One of the clues for its original meaning can be found in the people that it might have been there when Jesus said it.

Who would have been in the audience, and what would it have meant to them?

Clues can also be found in the other things that Jesus said.

So first, let’s look at the audience.

The people that the gospels typically record listening to Jesus - in conversation or crowds - include, scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and many common people.

Let’s imagine these people amongst the crowd of listeners gathered to hear Jesus speak. Who were they? What were their worries and interests?

Scribes were scholars of the law, in some passages of the gospels they’re called doctors of the law. They could draft legal documents and advise on the law. Every village would have had a scribe – the community lawyer. The law of the Torah and the traditions around it were their expertise.

Scribes would have been interested in what Jesus was teaching and how it stood up to the law. He was known for giving a new teaching, and experts on the law would’ve been cautious and critical about new interpretations and ideas. Jesus responded to their criticism that this new teaching was a deviation from the law and commandments. He said, I haven’t come to abolish the law but to fulfil it.

Pharisees were a party of great influence. They were motivated by the belief that the historical disasters the Jews had experienced were because God withdrew his blessing when his people had failed to properly obey the God-given law and commandments.

In the Torah, the sacred books of the law, there were hundreds of specific rules and commandments – moral, dietary, spiritual, and ritual. Pharisees were anxious that they all were properly followed and obeyed - for the good of the nation in being worthy of God’s blessing.

They thought hard about how to interpret the law in its most detailed and strictest way and thereby ensure proper and full obedience to God.

Their aim was to be absolutely certain they were miles away from doing anything that would breach a commandment in any way.

The kind of argument the Pharisee’s were known for would go something like this:

God has commanded us to rest and stop working on the sabbath day; stopping work might involve more than just stopping farming for the day or fishing or building or preparing food. To be certain work has stopped we need to include activities that are incidental work, activities like carrying things; and more than that, if we are to stop carrying things, we shouldn’t do anything that might require sometimes carrying things such as making a fire; and if fire is out of bounds, what about everything else that involves lighting, such as lighting lamps? That might be work also, so just in case, don’t do it.

They called this way of interpretating, placing a hedge around the commandment that shielded you from the merest possibility of breaking it.

When Jesus said, if you get angry with your brother you are guilty of murder, or if you call him a fool you are for the hellfire, or if you look after a woman, you are committing adultery, he was referring to this way of interpreting the law – and at the same time pointing out, that no hedge makes you safe from failing to be perfect as God is perfect. And in that failing we can only rely on God’s loving mercy and forgiveness.

Some Pharisees became so extreme in their practices that they withdrew from society into their own communities. But most mixed in wider society instructing people to obey the law as they interpreted it – sometimes in the Gospels they were referred to as “teachers of the law.”

In the gospels, we see that they were interested in what Jesus had to say about holiness, righteousness, and the meaning of the Law. Some wanted to learn from him and thought he might be onto something. Others tried to show he was misguided with his new teaching.

Pharisees were mostly middle class, landowners and traders. They were not typically poor people, who would have had little time to engage in such speculations.

Sadducees were a party who tended to be of the upper class and the wealthy. The high priest was of the Sadducee party. Temple ritual and significance was important to them - holiness and righteousness that you could pay for. As upper-class people they would probably have many who were in debt to them.

Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees were all intensely concerned with God’s blessing being on the nation and on their individual lives, and in what might bring it about - knowing the law, obeying it scrupulously, observing the correct holiness rituals.

But Jesus would often point out that their ways had become a pointless pretence. He says in one place:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you are being hypocritical! You scrupulously tithe the few herbs you flavour your food with. But you have disregarded the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness…” 

He jokes with them or at them:

“You are like blind guides! You will strain a gnat out of your drink but swallow a camel.”

And again:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside it is full of greed and self-indulgence.…”

And in another place:

“Woe to you who are rich now, for you have had your blessing.”

“Woe” here is the word used by the English translators to mean the opposite of “blessing.”

The common people would probably be the greatest number gathered to hear Jesus. The people Jesus attracted and spent much time with were insulted by his critics as tax-gathers, publicans, prostitutes and sinners. Probably some of them were of these despised professions, but many would have been quite unremarkable ordinary folk. We can guess from Jesus’s illustrations and parables, that amongst them were tenant farmers and day labourers. They would have been living a subsistence life, often in debt.

Debt was a key issue behind this beatitude.

In those times most debtors were mainly in debt to landlords. In principle it was a compassionate arrangement – although it didn’t always work out that way.

Debt meant letting rents be deferred, which in turn allowed the tenant to continue to farm and live and support the family.

Allowing such debt was seen as imitating the compassion of God. The idea was that sin was debt to God. And God was compassionate in forgiving that debt – because we could not possibly repay it.

We see this view of sin and debt in the Lord’s prayer in its different English translations. One is: forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Another is: forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Debt and sin are equivalent here.

But poor debtors weren’t always treated with compassion. The demand for repayment could result in eviction from land and livelihood, or even being sold into slavery, both the debtor and his entire family, so that their sale price would recoup the debt owed. This was always a risk, and in bad farming years lots of people would be in debt to the landowners making the risk far higher that landlords would try to ameliorate their losses by calling in the debts – even though it was the worst time for the tenants to meet that demand.

Imagine the people gathered to hear Jesus:

Wealthy and well-off people, who were landowners and landlords,

Tenant farmers and debtors, poor people, and

People who were committed to interpreting the law correctly in every aspect of everyday life and in the rituals of the temple with the aim of obtaining God’s blessing,

And Jesus says stands up in front of them all and says – this is where God’s blessing is really going to be given.

Blessed are they who…

And he sets about challenging the prevailing views about who would receive God’s blessing and how. It won’t be what you think, he’s saying. For example, it won’t be the person who thinks I am righteous, I thank you God that I am not like sinners, but instead the person who feels the opposite, and hungers and thirsts to become righteous, and be free from their debt of sin.

And amongst his list of the blessed he says; blessed are the merciful.

Jesus had talked about dynamics of the merciful and receiving mercy and blessing at other times in other ways, and these give us a clue of what it might mean here. You might remember this one.

Peter approached Jesus and said, “How many times do I have to forgive my brother of sister who keeps offending me? Seven times?” Jesus answered, “Not seven times, but seventy times seven times!

“The kingdom of heaven is like this:

“There was a lord whose servants had borrowed money. He decided to settle accounts with each of them. One servant owed him a huge amount – bags of gold. He called the servant and said, ‘Pay me what you owe me.’ When his servant was unable to repay his debt, the lord ordered that he be sold as a slave along with his wife and children and every possession they owned. The servant threw himself facedown at his master’s feet and begged for mercy. ‘Please be patient with me. Just give me more time and I will repay you all that I owe.’ Upon hearing his pleas, the lord had compassion on his servant, and released him, and forgave his entire debt.

“No sooner had the servant left when he met one of his fellow servants, who owed him a few silver coins. He seized him by the throat, saying, ‘pay me right now what you owe me!’ His fellow servant threw himself facedown at his feet and begged, ‘Please be patient with me. If you’ll just give me time, I will pay you back but I haven’t any money right now.’ But the one who had his debt forgiven refused to forgive what was owed him. He had his fellow servant thrown into prison and demanded he remain there until he repaid the debt.

“When his fellow servants saw what was going on, they were angry and went to the lord and told him. The lord called the servant again and said to him, ‘You wicked rogue! Is this the way you respond to my mercy? Because you begged me, I forgave you the great debt that you owed me. Why didn’t you show the same mercy to your fellow servant that I showed to you?’ In anger, the lord turned him over to the prison guards until all his debt was repaid.

“In this same way, my heavenly Father will deal with any of you if you do not extend forgiveness from your heart to your brother or sister.”

So people would have known what Jesus was meaning by the merciful. It applied to lenders and landlords and others who were due to be repaid in some way but forgave the debts or had compassion for those in debt and helped them out.

Not only were they being called on to be merciful with those who were subject to them, but also to recognise that they were also in debt, in debt to God through their own sins and failings, and needing themselves to receive mercy.

What does that mean to us now?

There are some key words from the parable – forgiveness, compassion and mercy – that might give us insight.

Mercy is an act from a position of power – the haves to the have not - the strong to the weak -the judge to the judged – the debtor to the lender – those with rights under the law to those who are under the law – the boss to the worker – the wronged to the wrong doer – the offended to the offender.

Those who have force, or law, or convention, or public opinion, or money, on their side against someone else are the people who are called on to be merciful.

Compassion – is to have feeling for the pain of someone. But it is meaningless without action. It has no value unless it goes out from the heart to the brother or sister in some action. Compassion is the beginning and motivation of a merciful act. But compassion, the feeling is not sufficient. Compassion with no act is locked in the heart and doesn’t touch anyone.

Both Mercy and Compassion speak of something that is not an entitlement.

No-one has the right to compassion. If it is given as a right, it is not compassion it is a duty owed. Compassion goes beyond duty. Compassionate acts, merciful acts, go further than what you must do.

For the merciful, forgiveness is one of the acts – forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And also in the Lord’s prayer: let it be done on earth as it is in heaven. Forgiveness is the way of the kingdom of heaven.

Much of what Jesus does is his ministry is to demonstrate the kingdom of God and one thing he demonstrates is an extravagance of forgiveness. This was one of the charges against him: He forgives sins willy nilly.

Forgiveness is like the air that sustains the kingdom of heaven – you can’t be in the kingdom of heaven without forgiveness, without being forgiven, and without participating in it, breathing it in to give life, and breathing it out contribute to all around.

We live in a world increasingly reluctant to forgive. I don’t want to go into this, but I think you can imagine what I mean. If not, try social media. But a society, any society without forgiveness, without the hope of redemption and rehabilitation, becomes a brutal society.

Sometimes though, surely forgiving is the wrong thing. There must be limits.

But not in the mind of Christ. There forgiveness is limitless. It keeps on, seventy times seven – a number the Jews of Jesus’s time used to express numberlessness. Forgiveness is the ready the expression of the merciful.

One of the aphorisms of the late philosopher Jacques Derrida was forgiveness is only necessary for the unforgiveable. Anything readily forgivable is either trivial and able to be ignored or it is excusable.

It is the worst situations that bring forth the merciful, it is the greatest debts of offence, or hurt, or assault that call for forgiveness.

Forgiveness is for giving. It is a gift. For the other person.

But forgiveness is also good for the giver. It stops the cycle of resentment. Resentment literally means re-feeling – feeling again. Forgiveness releases the forgiver from those feelings.

And from there, it prevents the possibility of resentment’s escalation from loss and hurt to self-righteousness, anger, vengefulness, and violence in various ways – spiteful, emotional, physical, whatever.

Unforgiveness makes it impossible to ever receive forgiveness.

Without the understanding of what it is to forgive, somehow, there can be no comprehension of what it is to be forgiven. The capability, psychologically, emotionally, and in the deepest way to receive forgiveness and the blessing of mercy becomes withered and dried up.

And so, it is the merciful who are able to receive mercy and in doing so enter the kingdom of heaven of God’s blessing - and in that they also become capable of -

seeking and recognizing the need for righteousness; and being peacemakers; and being meek and gracious; and having a pure and integrated heart and mind and will.

Jesus says: God’s blessing is on the merciful, the compassionate, the forgivers – for they will be able to receive, and they shall receive, mercy.