Tidings for Tuesday
And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go and do thou likewise. Luke 10:37
The children were curious about the task their grandfather had asked them to help him with. They accompanied him to the shed where he pulled out the wheelbarrow and several rakes and shovels, and then across the meadow to a neighbour’s house to where a huge apple tree stood in the front lawn. Many of the apples had fallen onto the lawn, and were worm-eaten and half rotten. Their grandfather handed out the rakes to the children and showed them how to rake up the fallen apples and shovel them into the wheelbarrow. They then wheeled the barrow to a compost area behind the barn and emptied it. Then they returned for another load. As they worked, the children asked why their grandfather was helping the owner of that apple tree. He was a mean old person who had given their grandfather no end of problems and complaints over the years, they reminded him. The man certainly didn’t deserve to have any help cleaning up the apples. But their grandfather told them that the owner of the tree had been too sick to tend to his lawn. Normally, he took great pride in his lawn, and always kept the fallen apples cleaned off the property. So, their grandfather told them, it was the neighbourly thing to do to help the man. No, he reminded them, the man did not deserve it. But, he added, ‘We are doing it because of who we are, not because of what he deserves’.
In our text, the lawyer is responding to a question by Jesus as to who was neighbour to the man who had fallen among the thieves. The lawyer gave the right answer: the neighbour was the one who showed mercy. We know it was the right answer because the Lord Jesus agreed with him and told him to do likewise. And if the lawyer was to do likewise, so should we. Just like the grandfather in our illustration, we do not perform acts of mercy because people deserve them. In fact, the definition of mercy means that the people don’t deserve them. Being a neighbour is what we are, not what people deserve. It’s not the world’s definition of a neighbour, but it is the definition that the Lord Jesus observed and that His followers should observe as well. After all, we did not deserve His mercy when He reached out to us and saved us. We do not deserve His mercy when He grants to us preservation, comfort, and supply every day.
We show mercy to our neighbours when we share the Gospel with them and testify before them. We show mercy when we are kind to people, even those who are not kind – or even those who are antagonistic – to us. We show mercy when we pray for those who despitefully use us. And we show mercy when we perform acts of selflessness that help anybody, whether we know them or not.
Being merciful is being like the Lord Jesus. Are we too proud to be like Him in this? -Jim MacIntosh