The Fourth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 2 Samuel 9

In Christ Jesus, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is ever rich in mercy toward us sinners, dear fellow redeemed:

In ancient times, it often happened that when a king was defeated by an adversary, not only was he killed or imprisoned but so were his sons and grandsons. The new king would not risk a member of the former royal family challenging his throne. But David did not do this. He made promises to both King Saul and his son Jonathan that he would not exterminate the family when his time came to reign, but that he would show kindness to them.

Saul and three of his sons were killed in the same battle against the Philistines (1Sa. 31). When the nurse of Saul’s grandson heard the news of their deaths, she expected that Saul’s enemies would seek to kill all his family members. So she picked up the five-year-old boy and fled with him, “and as she fled in her haste, he fell and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth” (2Sa. 4:4). When the last of Saul’s sons was later murdered, this left the crippled Mephibosheth as the only male heir of Saul.

David showed kindness to him not because he was worthy of it, but because David was merciful. He showed mercy because the LORD had been merciful to him. We, too, have opportunities each day to reflect the mercy to others that God has shown to us. God has not called us to show mercy only to those who treat us well and have earned our respect. He calls us to show mercy to all people, just as He has done.

Jesus says in today’s Holy Gospel, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luk. 6:36). Our mercy does not start with us; it starts with our heavenly Father. If it had to start with us, it would never happen. We learn mercy from Him. “For God so loved the world, that he gave” (Joh. 3:16). He looked upon each member of the human race as a lost sheep that must be saved and not as an enemy that must be punished. “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (v. 17). He sent His Son to die on the cross, so that our many sins are not counted against us but are blotted out by His blood.

God has not given us what we deserved. He is merciful—full of mercy toward us. He has redeemed us from our sin and brought us to faith in Him. By faith in Jesus, we are credited with His perfection. We are covered by His righteousness. His perfect mercifulness is attributed to us. As members of His holy body, we get to participate in His mercy work. We get to serve as His hands and feet and mouth in a world that needs His mercy.

Throughout its history, the Christian Church has shown mercy in countless ways. Christians have founded hospitals, orphanages, and care facilities around the world. They have protected those who are most vulnerable, from the unborn to the elderly. They have shown mercy to the poor, weak, sick, and handicapped. When disasters struck, they were the first to pitch in and help. They have promoted justice and fairness even for those who despised them and their beliefs. The whole world has experienced the mercy of the Christian Church.

But is the Christian Church carrying out this vital mercy work today? In many places it is, but there is a lot more to be done. Some in society have a positive view of the Church; they see the acts of kindness and love that are taking place, the ways that Christians are helping the helpless. But for many others, their view of the Church is that “Christians are just a bunch of hypocrites; they talk a good game but rarely do what they say.” Or, they say, “the Church only cares about taking our money.”

We can’t deny that there is a lot of hypocrisy, selfishness, and greed in the visible Christian Church. We don’t have the power to make these problems go away, and we don’t need some high-priced PR campaign to try to change people’s perceptions about the Church on earth. There will always be sin in the visible Christian Church. But for our part, we can focus on showing love and mercy to the people around us who need our help.

One of the things that keeps us from taking action is that we wait for others to take the lead. When we hear about the mercy work of the Church, we might think that the Church as an institution or each individual congregation has to organize this. “I’m willing to get to work,” we say, “if someone tells me where to be and what to do.” But the Church is not primarily an institution or a social service organization. The Church consists of all believers in Jesus.

You are the Church. You are the help and support that your neighbors need. You are the reflection of God’s love in your community. You don’t need to wait for someone to tell you where and when to have mercy. God presents these opportunities to you as you carry out your vocations, as you go about your regular activities, as you open your eyes and ears to the needs of the people around you.

Like David, we want to show mercy for mercy’s sake and not for personal gain. We want to humbly pursue acts of love and service toward others because we are children of the all-merciful God. That mercy starts in our own homes with our spouse, our children, our parents, our siblings. Then it branches out to our fellow congregation members, our next-door neighbors, the people we go to school with or work with, and the needy in places outside our communities. St. Paul writes by inspiration, “let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10).

We are especially called to do good to our fellow believers in Christ. That should be obvious since we are united in our understanding and appreciation of God’s mercy and grace toward us. But it is often the case that the people we are closest to are the ones we consistently struggle to show love and mercy to. Maybe this is because we take them for granted, or because we expect more from them than we do from others whom we don’t know as well. But mercy needs to start right at home in “the household of faith.”

Part of doing good and showing mercy is not being too quick to judge and condemn, as Jesus teaches in today’s Holy Gospel (Luk. 6:36-42). It means being eager to forgive, ignoring the speck in a brother’s eye, and being honest about the log of sin in our own eye. This is challenging work. We can think of many times that we fell short of this. Instead of showing mercy, we held a grudge and hoped that others would feel the hurt that we did. Or we decided that someone wasn’t worthy of receiving our mercy; they were too far below us.

But look at what powerful King David did. He restored all the land of King Saul to his grandson Mephibosheth, even though Saul often tried to have David killed. David also honored Mephibosheth by giving him a place at his table. It was pure mercy, and Mephibosheth knew it. He said, “What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?”

Our merciful Lord has done the same thing for us. Mephibosheth was in the line of a failed king, and he was lame in both feet. We were lost in the devil’s kingdom, and we were crippled by our sin. But God sought us out, brought us before His mercy seat, and announced that we would be honored members of His kingdom. He put His name on us at our Baptism and invited us to eat and drink at His holy table.

Anyone who knows us—the mistakes we’ve made, the sins we’ve committed—might wonder how the Lord could possibly look on us with such favor. They could point out the many times that we failed to show mercy, acted selfishly, judged others as lower than ourselves, pridefully refused to help. But like Mephibosheth who did nothing to merit David’s mercy, we have received everything from God by His grace. Our merciful Lord says, “I forgive you all your sins. I won’t count them against you now or ever. Come and join Me at My table.”

It is a joy to join the King at His table along with our brothers and sisters in Christ. None of us deserves to be here. None of us has earned this mercy. But we have it in full. Our Lord Is Full of Mercy Toward Us, and He has plenty of mercy to share with other helpless sinners like us. We pray that He keeps us ready for opportunities to share His mercy by our words and actions, so that others are blessed to know along with us His unchanging love. “O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endures forever” (Psa. 106:1).

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.

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(picture from “The Sermon on the Mount” by Carl Bloch, 1877)