Mercy is a God-word, liquid in that it seems to take the shape of any container open to it. Poured without a container it can soak in a random way, refreshing dryness and encouraging new growth, regardless of the boundaries of belief systems. As Scripture says, it falls like the rain on all.
Little wonder then, that it’s very easy to become poetic about Mercy. We all know it as God’s gift. But it is less easy to say what Mercy actually is.
When I go to a dictionary of synonyms, I find a long list of definitions: benevolence, blessing, charity, clemency, compassion, forbearance, forgiveness, generosity, goodwill, grace, leniency, patience, pity, sympathy, tenderness, tolerance.
Together these definitions say much about God’s abundance, but the dictionary is lacking a certain word. Perhaps it’s the most important word of all, because it describes the very nature of God. That word is Love.
This is something to think about. Without love, our ground of mercy becomes uneven. There can be a suggestion of division that is almost elitist: the giver and the receiver, the rich and the poor, the fortunate and the unfortunate, the forgiver and the forgiven. Such a separation makes us feel uncomfortable.
The more I reflect on this, the more I hear St Paul thundering in the background, “Without love you are as the sounding of brass!” (I Corinthians 13.) Worse still, there comes an echo of a quote from an Anglican Bishop: “The world is divided two ways – the righteous and the unrighteous. And it is the righteous who do the dividing.”
At this stage of reflection, I remember the times I’ve thrown money in the hats of people begging, without pausing to find out their names and who they were. Then I dare to go further, examining that dictionary list, testing each word against experience. How much of my giving came from a sense of duty? Do I detect a whiff of righteousness?
Where was love?
My failure rate is quite high; but I don’t waste time on guilt. Repentance is better. It means rethinking, which is what Lent is all about. So I rethink the many aspects of God’s mercy, how they flow into me, and what I do with them.
Of course I grab a heap for myself. I need mercy as much as anyone. And while this time of reflection has been a valuable exercise, it may not create much change except to make me a little more realistic about myself.
One thing, though, is definitely going to change: LOVE is being added to the dictionary list of synonyms. It will not be alphabetically listed, but will go first and in capital letters because it is an essential ingredient of all the others.
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