O Lord, baptise our hearts into a sense of the conditions and need of all men.

—George Fox

It’s a cold world we live in. Hard and cruel. Self-seeking, self-absorbed, self-obsessed. Millions of children fend for themselves on the streets and garbage dumps of third-world countries. Poor young women from Eastern Europe are bought and sold like cattle. Students are run over by tanks in far away squares. Whole populations starve while politicians quibble. Continents are dying of disease while pharmaceutical companies make billions. All over the world people are enslaving, depriving, maiming, and killing each other for land, power, religion, and ethnic hatred. For every Mother Teresa there are a thousand Sadams, Musevenis, and Milosevics.

Ignoring the Problem

We in the West are largely insulated from the worst this world has to offer. The most abject poverty is at a safe distance. The greatest atrocities happen over the horizon. The cruelty of this world is something we have the luxury to ignore. We can afford to be blind and deaf to the misery. We have remote controls, after all; we can always change the channel.

Even in our own towns and cities, however, the cruelty of this cold world can be seen. Scratch our civilities and we bleed self-interest. Scratch our social policies, and there are dark glimmers of control and neglect beneath.

It’s a cold world we live in. Which is why there is nothing so arresting, so startling in our world, as acts of indiscriminate kindness and senseless mercy. Which is why the old Beatitude—”Blessed are the merciful”—remains so powerful and counter-cultural.

“Mercy” is the capacity to rise above the flood of selfishness around us (and within us) in order to rest our eyes on someone besides ourselves. Mercy is the capacity to notice the plight of others . . . to have a heart vulnerable to others’ needs . . . to make time for hurting people . . . to touch others with comfort and healing in our hands.

Jesus dripped with this kind of mercy throughout his ministry. It leaked out of him when a man with a withered hand wandered into a synagogue (Mark 3:1-6). It poured out of him when a sinful woman crashed a party at a Pharisee’s house and wept on his feet (Luke 7:36-50). It flooded from him when a thieving nobody asked to be remembered as the two of them died (Luke 23:42-43). People lined up along the path of Jesus’ life and cried out, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on us!”

And he did. Beggars and blind men. The feeble and the failed. The wounded and the worn. Jesus had eyes for them all. It didn’t matter his agenda. He would stop teaching . . . he would stop worshiping . . . he would stop dying long enough to give the sweet gift of mercy. Forgiveness for one. Healing for another. Some time and attention for a third. But mercy for them all. Mercy in all its guises. Mercy with a hundred faces.

His mercy was so pronounced, so at variance with the cold, cruel world in which he moved, that it always provoked reaction. He was rebuked for his mercy, ridiculed and refused. He opened himself to endless criticism. They wondered why he was merciful to sinners. They thought he was soft and too tolerant. And when they could not put his mercy in a box, when they could not confine and contain it, they decided to kill him (Mark 3:6). Mercy can’t be unleashed so freely. Mercy should have its limits.

Engaging the Problem

It makes you wonder what would happen if the mercy of Jesus made an appearance in this world again. I’m not talking about programs or benevolence initiatives. I’m talking about individual Christians by the thousands walking through their day with Jesus’ eyes, Jesus’ heart, Jesus’ determination to see mercy as the heart of ministry. What difference would it make if we noticed others like Jesus did? What if our agendas were dispensable? What if someone else’s pain or hunger or loneliness or lostness or confusion were enough to make us stop whatever we were doing to say, “This is God’s true business”?

I think the world might react to us as it did to Jesus. “Stop that!” “Don’t show mercy to them!” “She doesn’t deserve second chances!” The world would criticize and blame such mercy. They would mock it. They might even try to stamp it out.

But I bet they would notice it. I bet, in the darkness of this cold world, such mercy would blaze forth like a bonfire in the night. What a witness a mercy like that would be in our self-pursuing culture. What a confrontation of the values of this world it would pose.

The world might not appreciate the mercy of Jesus breaking out among his followers. But it could not ignore it. So, go forth. Be merciful this week. Who knows? We might just change the world. |L

Dr. Tim Woodroof is senior minister of Otter Creek Church of Christ in Nashville, Tennessee.

OTHER COLUMNS:
November 8, 2009 - Why I believe in God
October 25, 2009 - Commuting in days of evil
October 11, 2009 - Poets and don’t know it
September 27, 2009 - How Hollywood proves abortion is wrong
September 13, 2009 - Significance
August 30, 2009 - Dance alternatives
August 16, 2009 - Gluttons for gossip
August 2, 2009 - Truth from Twilight
July 19, 2009 - Visitor-friendly churches
July 5, 2009 - The Shack
June 21, 2009 - When forgiveness fails
June 7, 2009 - Re-imagining Education (Part Six)
May 24, 2009 - We are not alone
May 3, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part five)
April 26, 2009 - Conviction
April 12, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part four)
March 29, 2009 - An evangelistic proposal
March 15, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part three)
March 1, 2009 - He makes me sick
February 15, 2009 - Re-imagining education (Part Two)
February 1, 2009 - Spiritual insecurity
January 18, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part one)
January 4, 2009 - Church and politics
December 21, 2008 - Heaven’s music
December 7, 2008 - The church and marriage
November 23, 2008 - God and the president
November 9, 2008 - A time for courage
October 26, 2008 - Likes and dislikes: the Prince Caspian movie
October 12, 2008 - What’s that noise?
September 28, 2008 - Modesty matters (part two)
September 14, 2008 - All it takes is some TLC
August 31, 2008 - Modesty matters (part one)
August 17, 2008 - What would you fight for?
August 3, 2008 - Staying through the credits
July 20, 2008 - Honor to whom honor
July 6, 2008 - Tyler Perry and the movies you’re missing
June 22, 2008 - The peaceable kingdom
May 25, 2008 - Another generation grew up
May 25, 2008 - Technology and the Bible (part two)
May 11, 2008 - Technology and the Bible (part one)
April 27, 2008 - What is truth?
April 13, 2008 - And the geek shall inherit the earth
March 30, 2008 - A charactered God
March 16, 2008 - The college choice (part two)
March 2, 2008 - Good news can be hard to hear
February 17, 2008 - The college choice (part one)
February 5, 2008 - Ten suggestions for a godly standard of living
January 20, 2008 - Expelled: that “Bueller” guy’s pro-God movie
January 6, 2008 - Choosing a lifestyle
December 23, 2007 - Teachable TV?
December 9, 2007 - Owners or stewards?
November 25, 2007 - Christians teaching Christians to change TV and film
November 11, 2007 - My money is God’s business
October 28, 2007 - Navigating under the radar
October 14, 2007 - The things God values
September 30, 2007 - Movie moments
September 16, 2007 - God’s economics
September 2, 2007 - The best books to read
August 19, 2007 - There’s a rat in ‘separate’
August 5, 2007 - The art of reading
July 22, 2007 - Atheist chic
July 8, 2007 - Why books matter: the sequel
June 10, 2007 - Books: why they matter
June 3, 2007 - The non-impact of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”
May 27, 2007 - The universal gospel
May 13, 2007 - Loving Muslims through culture
April 29, 2007 - Hope
April 15, 2007 - God in the dark
April 1, 2007 - The gospel goes to the movies
March 18, 2007 - What the Bible movies can teach us
March 4, 2007 - What will you hurt for?
February 18, 2007 - Why Heroes . . .
February 4, 2007 - Give peace a chance
January 21, 2007 - When fairy tales are true
January 7, 2007 - WYSIWYG lives
December 31, 2006 - What’s coming next?
December 3, 2006 - Proof of evolution!
November 19, 2006 - Hungering for God
November 5, 2006 - Violence and government, war and peace
October 22, 2006 - The mighty meek
October 8, 2006 - The Battlestar and the Bible
September 24, 2006 - Soap for the soul
September 10, 2006 - Right vs. cool
August 27, 2006 - The painful truth
August 13, 2006 - More Lies Hollywood Tells
July 30, 2006 - Christian counter culture
July 16, 2006 - The lies Hollywood tells