The Lutheran Hour
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"Loving Mercy"
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Text: Matthew 25:34-40
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Matthew 25:34-40 – [Jesus said] “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed Me, I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you visited Me, I was in prison and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? And when did we see You a stranger and welcome You, or naked and clothe You? And when did we see You sick or in prison and visit You?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these My brothers, you did it to Me.'”
Let us pray: Lord, by Your Spirit, give us faith to see You hidden among the poor and the helpless, and to respond with mercy. Your mercy has saved us, Lord. Teach us to love showing mercy toward those who cannot help themselves. In Your Name. Amen.
Over 50 years ago, two behavioral psychologists conducted the famous Good Samaritan Experiment at Princeton University. They chose 40 students at Princeton Theological Seminary, interviewed each of them, and sent them out one by one with an assignment. Some were told they were to go to the next building and present a brief talk on the “Parable of the Good Samaritan.” Others were told to go to the next building and present a talk on jobs at the seminary. A third of the group was told that they had little time and needed to get right over to present their talk ASAP since people were waiting. Another third of the group was told that they needed to be on their way soon. The final third was told that there was no rush.
Unknown to these future pastors was the fact that they would be confronted on the way by an actor the researches had planted in an alley doorway between the two buildings. He was coughing and clearly in need of help. What would the seminarians do? Would they keep going or stop? Would they be the priest and the Levite who walk on by? Would they be the Good Sam and stop to offer mercy? The results were telling.
The assignment, that is, what the seminarians were thinking about on the way—speaking on the Good Samaritan or speaking on jobs opportunities on campus—made no difference in the outcome. There was a difference, though, among the three groups who were given different time pressures. Among the group that was told they needed to hustle over to the next building right away, only 10 percent stopped to assist the guy in trouble, Some actually stepped over the legs of the helpless man. Among those who were told they had a little more time, 45 percent stopped to help. Among those who believed they had a lot of time before their presentation, 60 percent helped. Overall only about 40 percent of those studying for the ministry stopped for mercy’s sake to help a guy who clearly couldn’t help himself.
Researchers concluded that working against a willingness to show mercy to those in need are not only the time pressures we feel but also the conflicting commitments vying for our attention. Their decision to show mercy—or not—turned on their time constraints and their commitment to another task.
I thought of this old experiment again as I read through Jesus’ story of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25. Throughout the Bible God tells us to care for the poor, the widow, the orphan, the homeless, and the sick. The Law, the prophets, and the New Testament all hold up this value. In Micah 6:8 the prophet Micah summarizes the requirements which God places on the ancient people of Judah, and on us. It’s a favorite verse of many. “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
Loving mercy is at the heart of the Christian faith. This is more than just loving the concept or the idea of mercy. It is a love for showing mercy, for actually doing mercy. Despite the time crunch that may rule our lives and despite the myriad of other responsibilities we have, God expects us to help those who cannot help themselves—and to love doing it.
Jesus’ sheep-and-goats story takes this concept of loving mercy to another level. With this story, acts of mercy become measures of faith. Acts of mercy take on an eternal dimension; they matter in the Last Judgment. As James Forbes once wrote, “It appears that nobody gets to heaven without a letter of reference from the poor.”
The story Jesus tells is the last in a series of stories in Matthew 24 and 25 meant to prepare His disciples for His return in glory. It’s the last formal teaching of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew before the account of Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection. Jesus makes it clear that He wants us to be ready when He comes again in glory to judge the nations. It turns out that a part of that readiness is a love of mercy, helping those who cannot help themselves along the way. Mercy, it turns out, matters for eternity.
In Jesus’ story, He calls Himself “the Son of Man.” This is one of His favorite self-designations from the book of Daniel, marking Him as the Messiah. He sits enthroned as both King and Judge. There are three groups of people in the story: the righteous “sheep” He sends to His right hand; the cursed “goats” He sends to His left; and “the least of these” who are hungry, thirsty, homeless, naked, sick, and in prison.
People in Jesus’ day were used to seeing sheep and goats grazing together. But they also knew that shepherds would at times separate the sheep and goats. Goats can destroy a pasture quickly and, generally, sheep are just better followers than goats. In Jesus’ story, the shepherd, king, and judge speaks first to those on his right, the sheep. He calls them “blessed,” and welcomes them into their inheritance, the eternal Kingdom prepared for them. They respond with wonder.
Then Jesus speaks to those on his left, the goats, calling them “cursed,” and sending them into eternal punishment. And in both cases showing mercy is the criterion for judgment. Those on the right had shown mercy to the helpless. Those on the left had not. Four times as Jesus tells the story, a list of six mercies is repeated: feeding the hungry, giving a drink to the thirsty, welcoming the homeless, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, and visiting those in prison. Mercy matters for eternity.
At Ravenna in Italy a sixth-century basilica church houses a mosaic depicting this story Jesus tells. Seated at the judgment seat is Jesus dressed in royal purple. His halo includes a cross with three blue jewels. He is flanked by two angels who look away. His right hand welcomes three sheep to His right almost signaling them as an example, a motivation. At Jesus’ left are three goats at a lower level. He in no way acknowledges their presence. What haunts the viewer, though, are the eyes of King Jesus riveted straight ahead toward anyone looking in. He has told this story for us, and it’s as if He asking each of us, “Which one are you, sheep or goat?” And our answer? It will hinge on loving mercy.
We need to say more about this so that we don’t walk away thinking, “I’d better get busy showing mercy to the helpless or I won’t make it into heaven.” That would miss Jesus’ point completely. Listen, please. This is very important. These acts of mercy do not make the sheep righteous. They are rather the acts of those who are already righteous by grace through their faith in Jesus Christ. Their faith shows itself in mercy. In mercy God has saved us, helpless as we are to save ourselves. Titus 3 says it perfectly: ” But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy.”
The sheep don’t move to the right side because they have earned it through hard acts of mercy; they move because, as Jesus says, they are “blessed” by His Father, because this is their “inheritance,” He says. That inheritance of faith is confirmed and completed in their acts of mercy. It turns out that when Jesus comes into our hearts He brings along with Him all the hurting people of our world. By faith and the work of the Spirit, we become more and more like Christ, and becoming more and more like Christ means showing more and more mercy to those who cannot help themselves.
As for the goats, it’s not their failure to show mercy that sends them to the left and eternal punishment. It’s their lack of faith. Their lack of mercy toward others reveals their lack of faith in Jesus Christ. They are not righteous by faith, and their lack of showing mercy proves it. How did James say it? “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” So the separation of the sheep and the goats is not determined by what they did or by what they failed to do, but by who they are—those with faith and those without it.
There is one more element in this story especially worth mentioning. It’s the element of surprise. The sheep are surprised to hear Jesus say that He was the One who received mercy when they fed the hungry and gave the thirsty a drink, when they welcomed the stranger and clothed the naked, when they cared for the sick and visited those in prison. “When did we ever see You in need and show You mercy?” they asked. “When you did it to the least of these,” Jesus answers, “you did it to Me.” They had missed seeing Jesus in the poor and the helpless, but He was there.
They end up looking much like George Bailey in the classic film, It’s a Wonderful Life, who discovers that unknowingly he has blessed the lives of many in his community simply by being who he is, a kind person with a heart for helping others. Mercy-showers don’t keep score. They don’t look for recognition or a “Servant of the Year” award. They just show mercy simply because, as Jesus liked to say, good trees bear good fruit.
The goats on the left are just as surprised to hear Jesus say that when He needed their mercy, they did not respond. “When did we ever see You hungry, thirsty, a stranger, or naked, sick, or prison, and didn’t help You?” Jesus responds, “When you failed to show mercy to the least of these, you failed to show mercy to Me.”
The righteous acted in faith and did what Jesus does; they showed mercy to the poor. The “cursed,” as Jesus calls them, ignored the needs of others, caring most for themselves, and ultimately getting just that in the end: themselves.
For both, though, there was more going on in their acts of mercy than they could see. It is that way often with Christ. He is present where we do not expect to see Him. He is hidden in the ordinary but especially among the poor and the suffering. We recognize Him in the spiritual realm—in the Word, in Baptism and Communion. We expect to see Him in church, but not in the emaciated body of a malnourished child, not in the mom looking for winter jackets for her kids, not in the 92-year-old at home alone with a bad heart. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, “Christ goes incognito as a beggar among beggars, as an outcast among the outcast, despairing among the despairing, dying among the dying” (Christ The Center, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. 111). But now we know, because Jesus wants us to know. He comes to us hidden in the next person who needs our mercy.
Tim Keller closed out his book, Generous Justice, with the story of a very wealthy older woman. She had never married, and so had no children to whom she could leave her estate. She had a nephew, though, who was hoping to be that beneficiary. He had always been warm and courteous in her presence and attentive to her needs. Yet she had heard otherwise from a few others. Who would receive and ultimately manage her significant wealth clearly mattered to her. So she planned a test. One morning she dressed in old-tattered clothes, disguised herself, and lay on the steps of her nephew’s city townhouse as if she were homeless. Sure enough, her nephew came out, not recognizing her. He cursed at her, telling her to get up and leave or he’d call the police. She learned her nephew’s true nature that morning. In his response to the poor woman on his steps, he showed who he really was. His kindness had been calculated. He lost his inheritance.
The beauty of the six mercies in Jesus’ story is that they are never far from us. Wherever we live, not far from us is someone who is hungry or thirsty, homeless or without adequate clothing, sick or incarcerated. In the United States, for example, 12 percent of the population or 41 million people are hungry. World-wide that number is at 345 million. Will we show mercy, and how?
The wonder of God’s mercy toward us, and, no doubt toward those seminarians who failed to show mercy in the Good Samaritan Experiment, is that mercy will be there for us when we pass by these opportunities for mercy. We cheapen God’s mercy toward us when we fail to show mercy toward others. What it takes is a Christian faith that loves mercy as Christ loves mercy.
Jesus first came among us as hidden, disguised, incognito. To many He was just another rabbi. Uniquely, though, Jesus could be found among those needing mercy: the hungry, the sick, the poor, the grieving, the outcast, and little children. He was homeless Himself with no place to rest His head. This hiddenness of Christ reached its peak when He allowed Himself to be crucified among thieves, a criminal, forsaken by His friends, even by His Father. On the cross, Jesus entered your world of need. You were the one hungry and thirsty for righteousness. You were the poor with a debt you could not pay. You were the one imprisoned by sin. And He came for you in mercy. By grace, you see it. And by grace, you will see Him in the next helpless person waiting for your mercy. You love mercy because You love Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Man, who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. Amen.
Please pray with me. Lord Jesus, help us to love mercy, for in loving mercy we will become more and more like You. Be with all who suffer this day. Lead Your people, Lord, into selfless acts of mercy across the world. Amen.
No Reflections for November 26, 2023
Music Selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by Chris Bergmann. Used by permission.
“The Head That Once Was Crowned with Thorns” arr. John Behnke. From Now Praise the Lord! by the choirs of Concordia University-Wisconsin (© Concordia Publishing House)
“No Saint on Earth Lives Life to Self Alone” by Norman J. Kansfield & Orlando Gibbons, arr. John Eggert. From Hymns for All Saints: Psalms, Hymns, Spiritual Songs (© 2008 Concordia Publishing House)
“The Head That Once Was Crowned with Thorns” From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.