Mercy, Miracle, Mission

Mercy. Simply defined, mercy is kindness or help given to people in desperate situations, or forgiveness of someone who could be treated harshly.[1] It comes from the Latin word mercedem meaning reward or wages.[2]

While it is important to understand the definition and origin of our words, visuals help us appreciate meaning. A web search for images of mercy turns up pictures of Jesus, Mother Teresa, Pope Francis and Rembrandt’s The Return of the Prodigal. These give us an idea of what mercy looks like.

What does mercy sound like? Fifty years ago, Joe Zawinul, an Austrian jazz pianist, wrote a tune for Cannonball Adderly called Mercy, Mercy, Mercy. It quickly became a jazz standard.[3]

Introducing the song to an audience, Adderly prefaced his performance by saying this. “Sometime we’re not prepared for adversity. When it happens, sometime we’re caught short. We don’t know exactly how to handle it when it comes up. Sometimes we don’t know just what to do when adversity takes over. And I have advice for all of us. I got it from my pianist, Joe Zawinul, who wrote this tune. And it sounds like what you’re supposed to say when you have that kind of problem. It’s called Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.”[4]

It sounds like what you’re supposed to say when you have that kind of problem. Mercy is the groundwork for our Gospel because out of context the passage sounds like a miracle story rather than one of mercy and mission.

Our passage opens with the words, “After he finished all his sayings … he entered Capernaum.”[5] What sayings? Those found in chapter six: Beatitudes, Love of Enemies, and Judgment of Others; and the parables of the Blind Leading the Blind, a Tree and its Fruit, and Building Your House.

Apart from Jesus’ sayings, we focus on the miracle. Within the greater context, we understand and appreciate not only the miracle, but also Jesus’ mercy and his mission. Jesus said what he wanted to say, and people heard and understood the hardness of his words. Therefore, the phrase “all his words,” emphasizes the significance of Jesus’ teaching in relation to his miracles.[6]

One of the words Jesus taught was mercy. In chapter six, Jesus taught that God “is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. [Therefore,] Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. … Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give [mercy], and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be poured into your lap. For the measure you use … will be measured back to you.”[7]

Mercy comes from God through Jesus and His Church. As a pastor, I announce mercy to you. As Christians, we announce God’s mercy to the world by our acts of forgiveness to believers and unbelievers. At times, I may find it difficult to hear and understand the hardness of Jesus’ teaching – God will measure out to me the measure of my forgiveness to others.

Sometimes we’re not prepared to measure out a generous portion of mercy because of the adversity we face. But we know what mercy is. We know what mercy looks like and how it sounds when we accept it. And sometimes, when we face adversity, all we need to say is mercy, mercy, mercy.

From mercy to miracle, my second point. A miracle is an amazing or unusual event or achievement caused by the power of God.[8] Sports fans say that when the Miracle on Ice and the Immaculate Reception occurred the sports gods smiled on the Americans and Steelers. The word miracle comes from the Latin mirari meaning to wonder at, marvel or be astonished. The Greek word meidan means to smile.[9] In short, we can say that when a miracle occurs, God smiles.

Before we get to how God smiled upon the centurion’s slave – our miracle, let us examine the text. First, note the differences between Matthew’s account and Luke’s. Yes, there are similarities. The main characters are Jesus and the centurion. The slave is the object of healing.

However, Matthew wrote that the centurion came in person to Jesus, whereas, in Luke, Jesus and the centurion never met. He spoke to Jesus through the elders of the Jews and friends. The elders are significant intermediaries who present the request from a Jewish point of view. They pleaded with Jesus, “If anyone deserves your help, he does for he loves the Jewish people and even built a synagogue for us.”[10] The centurion is a wealthy God-fearing man attracted to the Jews’ teaching and worship without formally converting.[11]

The irony is that a Roman centurion, a Gentile, sent Jewish leaders to Jesus, a Jewish teacher. Another irony is that the leaders thought him worthy, while the centurion considered himself unworthy. But Jesus had the last word. He commended the centurion for his faith – something unfound in Israel.

The centurion expressed repentant faith. He respected Jewish purity laws that prevented Jesus from visiting a Gentile’s house. Therefore, a word would do, for Jesus’ word is the vehicle of miracles. He recognized Jesus’ authority over demons, disease and death. Luke wrote this because his hearers and readers saw and appreciated the relationship between Jesus’ word – his teaching – and his healing, between mercy and miracle. They knew what it looked like and how it sounded. Luke framed the miracle with references to the slave’s sickness and healing in order to demonstrate the power of Jesus’ word.

With this passage, Luke reinforced the historical foundations of faith, which surpassed that of Israel. He established a new milestone of the word that came first to John, but was now identified with the word of Jesus. In chapter 3, we read, “the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.”[12]

However, by chapter four, we see that the power of the word dwelt in Jesus. We read, “All spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. … They were all amazed and said to one another, ‘What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!’”[13]

Later, Luke recorded, “The crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God.” … And when Jesus ordered Simon to lower the nets for a catch, he “answered, ‘Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.’”[14] The word identified with Jesus. So, when Jesus smiled because of the centurion’s faith in him, His heavenly Father smiled upon the centurion’s servant. A miracle indeed.

And so, we move from miracle to mission. Mission is from the Latin mittere meaning to send. In diplomacy, mission means a body of persons sent to a foreign land on commercial or political business. From this, we get the word embassy. Mission also means to dispatch an aircraft or a military operation, which we later extended to spacecraft flights. Hence, mission control.[15]

Corporations and congregations write mission statements, short summaries that identify who we are and what we do. Our Gospel expresses not only who Jesus was and what he did, but also the identity and work of the Church. The two – Jesus and Church – are inseparable. When we see what Jesus did, we see what the Church did.

Returning to our passage, we see that Jesus returned to Capernaum. Recall that after the leaders of Nazareth rejected him, Jesus went to Capernaum and taught in the synagogue where people “were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority.”[16] They were amazed when he healed the man with the unclean spirit “and said to one another, ‘What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!’ And reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region.”[17]

At this point you are thinking, “Oh, the centurion built the synagogue in Capernaum where Jesus healed a man! This is how the centurion knew about Jesus!” So, Jesus returned to Capernaum, but this time to minister to Gentiles, who were among the many who came to hear Jesus preach God’s word.

The centurion represented the believing Gentile community living within Jewish territory.[18] Luke often related parallel events from the life of Jesus and the life of the Church. Our passage foreshadows what occurred in Acts, chapter 10. Jesus’ ministry to the Gentiles provided an authoritative precedent to the Church’s ministry in Acts.

In that passage we read, “At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God.”[19] Prodded by the Spirit, Simon Peter entered the Gentile’s house, preached, baptized and broke bread with his household.[20] As Jesus reached out to the Gentiles, the early Jewish Church reached out to Gentiles, like Cornelius.

To whom do we reach out today? There are many ways to answer my question. Today, I provide a ready-made answer. It came to me in the mail: the June issue of Christianity Today features Charleston: One Year Later.

Two days after Dylann Roof killed nine and injured five members of AME Church, the nation simmered with outrage and disbelief, as the families were allowed to speak to Roof via closed circuit TV. Networks carried the event live as each of the victim’s family members stepped forward. One after another, they spoke words of forgiveness even as their voices shook with grief and anger. One person said this:

“I forgive you. You took something very precious away from me. I will never get to talk to her ever again – but I forgive you, and have mercy on your soul. … You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people. If God forgives you, I forgive you.”[21]

If God forgives you, I forgive you. Folks, that is our mission as Church for the power of Jesus’ words extends mercy to men like Dylann Roof. If you want to see a miracle, forgive without measure, and the measure with which you give will be poured into your lap, pressed down and flowing over. Who of us can pass on such a generous portion of divine mercy?

Friends, as you reflect on today’s Gospel, call to mind what mercy is, how it looks and sounds. Call to mind the power of Jesus’ words to heal. Finally, in light of that, ask yourself what our mission is as individual believers and as Church. And if all of that is too much to remember, just breathe and repeat these words, “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.” When you do, may the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mercy

[2] http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mercy

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercy,_Mercy,_Mercy

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRrFWp4DUho

[5] Luke 7:1.

[6] Arthur A. Just, Jr., Luke 1:1 – 9:50. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1996), 303.

[7] Luke 6:35-38.

[8] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/miracle

[9] http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=miracle

[10] Luke 7:4-5. New Living Translation.

[11] For this section, I rely upon the work of Arthur A. Just, 304.

[12] Luke 3:2.

[13] Luke 4:22, 26.

[14] Luke 5:1, 5.

[15] http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mission

[16] Luke 4:32.

[17] Luke 4:36-37.

[18] Fred B. Craddock, Luke. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 94.

[19] Acts 10:1-2.

[20] Acts 10:24ff.

[21] Jonathan Hanson, “A Fragile Forgiveness: Portraits of Resilience,” Christianity Today (June 2016), 32 ff.