Mercy

February 6, 2025 Jim Musser

Most of us probably remember where we were last summer when an assassin’s bullet missed killing President Trump by a millimeter. He acknowledged then and most recently at his inauguration that God had spared his life. Many thought, and many hoped, that the experience and the recognition of God’s intervention would change him from a bombastic, crass man into a gentler and kinder one. It didn’t.

President Trump has exhibited what so many of us struggle with: We gladly and thankfully receive mercy from God, but we find it much more challenging to show mercy to others as the Lord has shown mercy to us. We appreciate when people demonstrate mercy to us during rough and challenging times but struggle with being similarly empathetic when others around us are in need, particularly people we have little connection with.

A case in point is the refugees from other countries who come to the U.S. legally and upon invitation from the government. Recently, the Trump administration, in its attempt to quell illegal immigration, also halted legal refugees from entering the country, as well as freezing payments to the organizations helping to resettle them. My wife volunteers with one of those organizations—World Relief—and knows a young Afghan couple who immigrated to the U.S. last fall. He had worked for the U.S. military until the Taliban took over. He and his wife were on one of those planes flying out of Kabul with Afghans hanging desperately onto the plane trying to escape. They spent several years in two different European refugee camps and then were selected to come to this country as legal refugees.

Imagine starting all over in a country new to you without any resources, but what you can carry in one or two bags. Imagine the immense challenges you would face in navigating a new culture and trying to financially survive until you can get feet underneath you. What we are sadly seeing in our country from people proclaiming to be Christians is little compassion or empathy for people like our Afghan friends. Many of these are saying these refugees are not our problem, except that they are siphoning away our hard-earned dollars. Some want to pretend they must be illegal, and others just think it is not our responsibility to help anyone apart from Americans.

Jesus also dealt with these unmerciful attitudes from the religious leaders of his day: “While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ On hearing this, Jesus said, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners”. (Matthew 9:10-13)

If we are not very careful, we can be blind to our own unmerciful attitudes, thinking that we are just being wise, realistic, or practical. The Pharisees truly believed they could somehow be tainted by associating with “sinners.” In trying to be righteous, they instead fell into the sin of neglecting the needs of others. In our staunch political views, are we Christians today in danger of doing the same thing? It’s something worth meditating on and asking the Lord to reveal our hearts (Psalm 139: 23-24), because the Lord desires mercy from each of us.