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The God Like Attribute of Mercy

“Then I said, “But Lord God, I don’t know how to speak. I am only a boy.” But the Lord said to me, “Don’t say, ‘I am only a boy.’ You must go everywhere I send you, and you must say everything I tell you to say.”  Jeremiah 1:6-7a

Jeremiah had a tough job. It would be challenging, difficult, and at times he would refer to himself as a laughing stock. There were moments he was downright angry with God. I would not have wanted to be Jeremiah.

Jeremiah was tasked with telling the truth to powerful people, who did not want to hear truth. In fact most of us, would prefer not to hear the difficult truth, when that impacts the way we live our lives . . . Or challenges our values, our attitudes and sometimes even our version of common sense.

We prefer our prophets speak to us with kindness, compassion, affirmation, and only tell us what we want to hear. We don’t want to have our plans questioned, especially by self-proclaimed truth tellers.

So one can understand, why President Trump, was so upset with Bishop Mariann Budd when she challenged him to compassion, to mercy and to a deeper love for all of God’s people.

This past week has been a whirl of activity, with executive orders, firing of long term civil servants, ICE raids in workplaces, along with  removal of protections for schools, churches and hospitals. There has been an upending of resources for non-profits and federal programs that affect state programs, resulting in chaos and turmoil.

Last week, Bishop Bud spoke truth to power. With gentleness and persistence she pleaded with a newly inaugurated President Trump to be merciful, even as he had experienced mercy with an escape from an assassin’s bullet. Her plea was simply to be merciful, to the immigrant workers so involved in the service industry, to be merciful to those that were afraid, to be merciful to  members of the LGBT community. It was indeed a gentle plea.

Showing mercy is a Christian value.  

Shakespeare wrote of mercy,
“The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
. . . And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.”

The scripture warns those who refuse to show mercy, “There will be no mercy in judgment for anyone who hasn’t shown mercy.” James 2:13 CEB

I pray that President Trump takes to heart the Bishop’s plea, to show mercy and have compassion on those who struggle so hard in life.

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8 thoughts on “The God Like Attribute of Mercy”

  1. It’s one thing to deport criminals. I don’t think any reasonable person is against that. But the poor Dreamers who can’t get a straight answer as to whether they can stay in this country or not, and the Haitians who’ve been accused of eating pets and are also accused of being here illegally even though they have asylum and are here perfectly legally, and the millions of hardworking immigrants in our communities who are assumed to be illegal just because they have dark skin but are actually new citizens … it makes me sad. What really bothers me are Christians who bad-mouth immigrants and want to make it harder for people to become citizens legally, when the Bible clearly says we are to welcome the immigrant.

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    • It is painful to watch all of that. Dreamers who should have had a path to citizenship long ago, people here for safety, being villainized, and scapegoating anyone who doesn’t have the right color of skin is hard to see. It is terribly sad, that Jesus and what he said, is being abandoned in the pursuit of political power.

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  2. I pray that for all our leaders, Shirley. “Mercy” is something people tend to convey to some but not to others. To deport terrorists, murderers, rapists, drug dealers, and child traffickers may not seem merciful to those being deported, but I would submit to you that their victims and those who have been terrorized by them are long overdue for some mercy themselves.

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    • If it was only dangerous criminals being deported, I don’t believe any of us would be upset. Today, protections are being removed for people from several countries where they face danger or death if they return. I used to live in a community that had a lot of migrant workers come through in the summer. They did jobs no one else wanted to do. They worked long hours in the field, often from dawn to dusk. The parsonage was next door to our church, so I often had people stopping to ask for help. Looking back, I’m sure some of the people I helped were undocumented. I knew them to be hard working people, trying to do the best for their family.

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