What does God require of you?  He has told you.  Act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.  These commands, act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God come from the Old Testament, specifically, the prophet Micah.  A prophet is one appointed by God to bring God’s Word to the people in the present so that they can repent and have a future.  Last week, we talked about what it means to act justly.  Justice starts with an uncorrupted life.  It is a justice that is uncorrupted by the status of others or the desire to obtain favor for the way we behave.  It is a justice that reflects the outward working of the Holy Spirit that is within.  It is not loud.  It is not proud.  It is a justice, a just way of behaving that does, however, let God shine in all things.  I believe that is the simple message of Micah’s first point of acting justly.  We are to imitate God, imitate Christ, Follow the Holy Spirit, not just in addressing the needs of others that are obvious but by being uncorrupted and continuously acting justly toward everyone in the house in everything we do.

          Today, I would like us to explore the second element of the Biblical statement, namely, “to love mercy.”  What is Micah speaking about when he said God requires three things, act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.  What is involved in the love of mercy?

          I think first we need to understand mercy.  The English word, mercy, comes from the Hebrew word, hesed.  What does hesed mean?  Hesed is an action taken by someone in a uniquely stronger position toward someone who is in a situationally weaker position.  And that behavior, that action, by the stronger toward the weaker is essential to the weaker because the weaker cannot remedy on their own or through other means an existential need, something that threatens their life or wellbeing. 

There are some fancy words in those definitions and often people confuse kindness and mercy.  So let’s consider two quick examples that might help our understanding.  Let’s say you are in the drive through line at Dunkin Donuts.  You place your order and drive up to the window to pay for coffee. You do so and then you also pay for the order for the people behind you.  In doing so, you have been kind to the person behind you but you have not extended mercy.  The person behind you is not in some in a situation they cannot remedy for themselves, a situation that leads or could lead to death or risk of their wellbeing.  The person behind you ordered coffee and perhaps something to eat and had the money to pay for it.  But you paid for it instead.  That is kind of you but not merciful.

Let’s look at a second example.  Let’s say you are alone with a friend.  Suddenly, you realize your friend is choking on some food.  Your friend collapses unconscious and is not breathing.  In that moment, your friend is in a situationally weaker position than you because they are not breathing, and you are breathing. You are in a uniquely stronger position than they are because there is no one else available to help them.  Your friend needs action because without it, he or she will die, or at the very least their well-being is threatened.  So, you act, and you remove the obstruction from the throat of your friend and he or she begins to breathe again and soon after regains consciousness.  This is an illustration of mercy.  You have been merciful to your friend.  By your actions, you removed your friend from a situation they could not escape from on their own and in doing so you gave them a new chance in life.  Hopefully these two illustrations help us understand the difference between kindness and mercy.  Said most broadly, mercy is acting to relieve a person from a threatening situation from which they cannot free themselves.

And so with that bit of understanding about the definition of mercy, we return to the Scripture from Micah, Chapter 6, verse 8 in which we are told one of the three things God requires is to “love mercy.”  We know what mercy is now but what does it mean to “love” mercy?  In this verse, in the Hebrew, the word for love is Ahava. This word, Ahava, is rooted, draws its meaning from the root word, the verb, Hav, which means “to give.”  This reveals to us that according to the original Hebrew usage, giving is at the root of love. To love then is to seek to fulfill, to give, to meet the needs of others.  So, to love mercy then is to seek to give to another to relieve that person from a situation from which they cannot free themselves.  The sense here is that we always should have a desire to give mercy.  Now that is a lot to take in.  In some ways, we might think, “How in the world can I exercise such love, such mercy to another person, that I relieve them of a situation from which they cannot free themselves?  How can I do what God requires when he says I must love mercy?”

          To answer those questions, let’s look at God’s Word as taught to us by Jesus, God, himself.  Let’s turn our attention to the Gospel of Matthew, which has significant interplay with the Old Testament.  In Chapter 18 of the Gospel of Matthew we find Jesus teaching his disciples using parables.  While together, “21 Peter asked Jesus, ‘Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?’ 22 Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times’” (Matthew 18:21-22).  Some translations have the number of times someone should be forgiven as seven times seventy.  In other words, Jesus is saying forgive often and so frequently as to make it impractical to remember the number of times you have forgiven.

          Now immediately following the exchange between Jesus and Peter about forgiveness, Jesus told this parable.  Jesus said, “23 Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he [the king] began the settlement, a man [a servant] who owed him [the king] ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him [the king]. 25 Since he [the servant] was not able to pay, the master ordered that he [the servant] and his wife and his children and all that he [the servant] had be sold to repay the debt.  26 At this the servant fell on his knees before him [the king]. ‘Be patient with me,’ he [the servant] begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master [the king] took pity on him [the servant], canceled the debt and let him go” (Matthew 18:23-27). 

Let’s pause there for a moment.  The servant owed the king 10,000 bags of gold.  Clearly the servant could never repay such a debt.  That was Jesus’ point in picking such a large sum of money. The debt could not be repaid, ever. Therefore, the servant found himself in a position in which the servant’s wellbeing was threatened and the servant could not free himself.  The king was in a uniquely superior position to the servant.  The debt was to the king and only the king could receive payment of the debt, or the king could cancel the debt.  In this parable, the king chose to pardon the servant, to relieve that servant, from a situation from which the servant could not free himself.  As the giver, the king loved mercy and gave mercy to the servant by canceling the servant’s debt. 

But by the end of the parable, we are going to find out that the forgiven servant did not love mercy. The servant did not have any sense of what it meant to love mercy.  We will also learn at the end of the parable that Jesus expects his disciples to understand that king in the story represents God and the servant represents the disciples of Christ, who now include us.  And so, through this story, Jesus was teaching his disciples that each of us owes a debt to God, a debt brought about by our own sin.  The cumulative effect of that debt is as if his disciples, we, owed the king 10,000 bags of gold, a sum we could not hope to pay.  But Jesus wanted his disciples to know, and for us to know, that God loves them, loves us, and that God is merciful.  If we ask God, “Please forgive me,” God is willing and merciful to cancel our debt.  God canceled our debt through the completed work of Jesus upon the cross.  When we repent, that is to turn toward God’s way, and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, accept what Jesus has done for us, then God grants forgiveness of our sins, not some of our sins but all our sins.  We have at that point then received mercy through the love of Christ.

The lyrics in our opening song today, “My Life is Proof,” poetically put the act of mercy this way: There were things I couldn't quit.  Damage I just couldn't fix.  I couldn't do it on my own.  But Jesus did.  All of my sins are washed away.  Whoever I was ain't here today.  My life is proof.  Of all the stories I could tell.  This is the one that haunts me still.  How your mercy pulled me from the gates of hell.  No matter how long it has been.  Don't ever let my soul forget.  How you loved me back to life.  When I was dead.”  This is a song about the love of the mercy that singer has received through Christ.

 And so, we are left with an important question.  If I have accepted Christ, do we love the mercy I have received?  Do I love having been forgiven, brought back from the gates of hell?  Do I love mercy?

          We are going to learn that the forgiven servant did not love the mercy he had received and thus did not love mercy when given the opportunity to grant mercy.  Jesus said, “28 But when that [forgiven] servant went out [from the presence of the king], he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. The [forgiven] servant grabbed this fellow servant and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ the [forgiven] servant demanded. 29 His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him [the forgiven servant], ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’  30 But he [forgiven servant] refused. Instead, he [the forgiven servant] went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master [the king] everything that had happened.  32 “Then the master called the [forgiven] servant in [into the king’s presence]. ‘You wicked servant,’ he [the king] said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master [the king] handed him [the wicked servant] over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed, [which the wicked servant could not do] (Matthew 18:28-34).

          How quickly the situation for this servant changed. This servant was indebted to the king owing an amount he could never pay.  The servant was, if you will at the gates of hell.  The king gave mercy to the servant, forgiving the servant everything, if you will, giving life to the servant when he was dead.  The forgiven servant, when presented with the opportunity to love mercy by forgiving a fellow servant, did not.  Instead, the forgiven servant withheld forgiveness and became known as wicked.  The king then reinstated the debt the wicked servant owed and sent him to eternal punishment, to hell itself.  I suspect the disciples were quiet as Jesus reached this point in the story.

          In the tension of that quiet, Jesus then said, “35 This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart” (Matthew 18:35). And so we hear the words of Micah ringing loudly in our ears, “8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you?” (Micah 6:8a) but “to love mercy.” Jesus was making it clear that the most obvious way for us to love mercy is to grant forgiveness to one another. When we forgive someone for their debt against us, for a sin against us, we are showing mercy because we have released someone from a situation from which they cannot release themselves.  If I sin against someone, it does matter how many times I say to myself “George, I forgive you, George,” it does not change my situation, my debt remains, because I need forgiveness from the person whom I offended.  And so, forgiveness is at the heart of the way that each of us can act to love mercy. Forgiveness is such an important part of the love mercy command that Jesus included it in what we now call the Lord’s prayer, “And forgive us our debts, pull us back from the gates of hell, as we forgive, show mercy, our debtors.”  The Lord grants us mercy so that we can too can love the mercy we have received and extend that love of mercy to those around us.

          Micah said, ““8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good” (Micah 6:8a).  God has shown you what is good because God loves mercy and, if you have accepted Jesus, then you have received God’s mercy.  Again, that leaves us with the question, “Do you, do I, love the mercy God has shown us?  Do you, do I, see that mercy as good in all regards?”  These are not questions that we should answer with our voices.  These are questions that we should answer by our actions.  If we love the mercy of God that we have received, then that should be evident in all our actions towards others because we have shown mercy to them.

          Do we forgive others for their offenses against us? If we do, then we love mercy.  Do we use our time to enter someone’s life to break the loneliness of another?  If we do, then we love mercy.  Do we come along side those who are hopeless and offer our tears of encouragement?  If we do, then we love mercy.  Do we share the good news of Christ and his mercy with those who if their lives do not change because at this moment they are at the gates of hell and stand before Christ the Judge not the Savior?  If we do, if we share Christ, then we love mercy. 

There are so many ways we can be merciful, but we will only do so if we first love the mercy we have already received from God.  If we treat the embodied in our own salvation with indifference, as though it is no big deal, then we will treat the hardships of others with indifference and not mercy.

          “8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.” (Micah 6:8a).  Love mercy. Amen and Amen.