Psalm
51
“Spiritual
Gifts: Mercy”
April
6, 2014
Let me tell you a story about a
woman we’ll call, for the sake of the telling, “Alice”. Well, it’s partly about Alice and partly
about a friend of mine who told me this story over toasted sticky buns at a
diner in Ohio several years ago now.
It’s about how Alice introduced her to the spiritual gift that we call
“mercy”.
Alice liked to talk. Now, there is talking and there is
talking. I like to talk, too. I like to talk too much. I confess that sin here this morning. Alice, however, talked without ever listening
much to anyone else or even paying much attention to whatever the topic of
conversation was when she joined it. She
would enter a group of people talking together like a hijacker bursting into
the cockpit of a plane and declare where the discussion was to go, and pilot it
herself until it went wherever she steered it.
Alice also liked the telephone. She could and would call my friend and as
soon as she answered would just launch into whatever was on her mind and run
with it until she lost steam, which could be an hour or more. Then, if she took a breath, it would take
another who-knows-how-long to politely end the call. My friend said that one time she told Alice
she had to say, “Goodbye,” because she needed to use the bathroom. (How much more direct could she have
been?) Alice said it was okay; she
didn’t mind holding.
She
began to screen her calls. This was back
in the day when we used answering machines with tapes, and Alice would call her
and leave messages that would consume the entire tape. Eventually she reset the machine so that it
allowed for shorter and shorter messages, and this woman would call back over
and over and over, getting more frustrated each time. The first message would start, “This is
Alice.” The second message would begin,
“As I was saying.” The third message
would start, “I think I got cut off.”
The fourth message went to, “This is ridiculous!” and the fifth was, “There’s
something wrong with your machine!”
It
went on for months. Then one day my
friend got a phone call from Alice’s ex-husband, whom she had met once or
twice, telling her that Alice was in the hospital. Her bipolar disorder had gotten out of hand
and the dosage on her medicine needed to be adjusted.
Apparently,
what she had witnessed was not the annoying behavior of someone who didn’t know
when to shut up. It was the symptom of
someone’s brain wrestling with more thoughts than it could handle, trying to
get them under control as they sped up over a period of months when she had
been unable to sleep or sometimes even to sit still, and it all came pouring
out in monologues that went on whether anyone else was listening or not.
As
we sat there in the diner that night, she mulled over ways that she could have
handled the situation better. Perhaps
gentle honesty would have helped.
Perhaps she could have observed (assuming, of course, that she could get
a word in edgewise), “Alice, you seem wound up.” Perhaps she could have checked in with Alice
instead of dodging her, taken charge of the situation. She had a dozen different thoughts on what
she might have done sooner or differently, and they came pouring out of her,
not exactly the way that Alice’s thoughts had done, but in a parallel fashion.
Then
it hit me that she herself was asking in a round-about way if God would pardon her
for being less than fully compassionate.
She knew what Jesus had said on the subject:
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will
receive mercy.”
[Matthew
5:7]
Yet
only someone who has that gift can sense when it is not used well, and the Lord
was working in her, cultivating her soul, showing her how to take her
understanding of the limitations that we have as human beings born into a world
where we are tangled up in troubles from the very beginning, not just our own,
but other people’s, too.
Mercy:
understanding that people are often driven to harmful or destructive actions by
the forces that have shaped and formed their lives. Mercy: setting aside judgment long enough to
ask, “Why is this happening?” Mercy:
something we all need, because, like Alice, we all have that within us that
compels us in directions we don’t always want to go. Mercy: a healing grace offered to us by God, who understands us
inside and out, knows the worst about us, and still loves us, and is far more
patient than we ever are with one another.
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your
steadfast love;
according to
your abundant mercy blot out my
transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me
from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is
ever before me.
Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and
done what is evil in
your sight,
so that you are
justified in your sentence and blameless
when you pass
judgment.
Indeed, I was born guilty,
a sinner when my
mother conceived me.
You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach
me wisdom in my secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I
shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones
that you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all
my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new
and right spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
and do not take
your holy spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in
me a willing spirit.”
[Psalm 51:1-12]
Who in
your life needs mercy? Is it someone
else, or is it you? Who can offer the
mercy needed? It begins with God, but it
doesn’t stop there. It’s one of the
gifts that holds us together.
“As God’s chosen ones,
holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility,
meekness, and patience. Bear with
one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other;
just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with
love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in
your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.” [Colossians 3:12-16]
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