Cultivate the seeds of mercy and compassion

by the Right Reverend Thomas Clark Ely, Bishop of Vermont
Mountain Echo
September 2004

In a 1907 collection entitled Tales and Maxims from the Midrash, the Reverend Samuel Rapaport recounts this teaching about mercy and compassion.

Mercy and compassion are the great virtues which bring with them their own rewards, for they are recompensed with mercy and loving kindness from the Mercy-seat of God. There was once a great drought in Palestine, which afflicted its inhabitants long and severely. Rabbi Tanchuma proclaimed a fast day once, twice and thrice without propitiating the heavens to send down the much needed rain. He then assembled the people for prayer.

Before the congregation engaged in prayer, the good man intended to address his flock; but a report was brought to him that a certain man had been seen giving a woman some money within the precincts of the House of Assembly, an act which, under all the circumstances, could not but excite suspicion. The Rabbi had the man brought before him and asked him in what relationship he stood with the person to whom he was seen to have given money outside. ‘She is my divorced wife,’ answered the man simply. ‘And how is it,’ insisted the Rabbi, ‘that you are on cordial terms with her and continue to give her money?’ ‘I am on no friendly footing with her; as for giving her money, she is in want, and that is a sufficient reason for my relieving her distress,’ replied the man. ‘Her want obscured all other considerations and the peculiarity of our relationship.’

The Rabbi was much affected by the man’s generous nature and kindliness, and preached his sermon on charity and brotherly love, a sermon worthy of the distinguished sage, showing that those virtues stand on an eminently higher level and are more efficacious than fasting and chastising of the body, and asking his audience to imitate ‘the man in the street,’ who set them such a good example. The good man then lifted up his heart in prayer, in which the congregation joined, and invoked the Throne of Mercy on behalf of a people imbued with mercy and compassion. The service was barely brought to a close when copious showers came down to refresh the parched ground and replenish the empty water tanks, and the people were once more happy.

When Jesus encountered the Samaritan woman at the well, mercy and compassion trumped the hostility of religious separation that long existed between Jews and Samaritans.

When the Samaritan interrupted his journey to care for the robbed and injured traveler on the Jericho road, mercy and compassion demonstrated their priority over devotion to religious ritual laws.

When the woman washed the feet of Jesus with her tears, dried them with her hair, and anointed them with costly oil in the house of Simon the Pharisee, mercy and compassion overwhelmed the narrow lens through which one person looked at another.

When the 5,000 were fed with what appeared to be a meager offering, mercy and compassion opened the door to proclaim the divine economy of God’s abundant, gracious hospitality.

When the man born blind is set free to see, mercy and compassion befuddle long-held assumptions about sin and disease.

When the father welcomes home the prodigal, mercy and compassion challenge the selfish and jealous heart.

The blind given sight, the hungry fed, the weary given comfort, the injured given aid, the outsider welcomed, the irresponsible welcomed home. Each set in motion by a heart committed to mercy and compassion.

Please, stop reading this column right now, ponder those stories and add to the list other Bible stories that demonstrate for you the power and possibilities unleashed by the incarnation of mercy and compassion.

Okay, now finish reading the column.

Mercy and compassion give expression to both love of neighbor and love of God. Mercy and compassion put flesh on the bone of seeking and serving Christ in all persons. Mercy and compassion lead the way to release, reconciliation, restored relationships, and rebirth. Mercy and compassion are the precious seeds of forgiveness, a driving force for peace, and the great building blocks of justice.

Today, I find myself thinking more and more about mercy and compassion and how the expression of those great virtues does indeed bring its own reward—not in the sense of some programmed divine transaction, but in the sense of good seeds sowing good fruit. So, more and more I’m looking to cultivate those seeds in my own life and in the life of the church. I invite you to join me in that pursuit, both for the sake of the church and for the life the world.

Faithfully,
+Thomas