Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful

 "But I say to you who hear:  Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.  To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also.  And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either.  Give to everyone who asks of you.  And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back.  And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise. 

"But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?  For even sinners love those who love them.  And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?  For even sinners do the same.  And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you?  For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back.  But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High.  For He is kind to the unthankful and evil.  Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. 

"Judge not, and you shall not be judged.  Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned.  Forgive, and you will be forgiven.  Give, and it will be given to you:  good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom.  For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."

- Luke 6:27-38

Yesterday we read that Jesus went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.  And when it was day, He called His disciples to Himself; and from them He chose twelve whom He also named apostles:  Simon, whom He also named Peter, and Andrew his brother; James and John; Philip and Bartholomew; Matthew and Thomas; James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called the Zealot; Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot who also became a traitor.  And He came down with them and stood on a level place with a crowd of His disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him and be healed of their diseases, as well as those who were tormented with unclean spirits.  And they were healed.  Then He lifted up His eyes toward the disciples, and said:  "Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.  Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be filled.  Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.  Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you,  And revile you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.  Rejoice in that day and leap for joy! For indeed your reward is great in heaven, for in like manner their fathers did to the prophets.  But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.  Woe to you who are full, for you shall hunger.   Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.  Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets."

"But I say to you who hear:  Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.  To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also.  And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either.  Give to everyone who asks of you.  And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back.  And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise."   Tertullian comments that what Jesus calls us to are counter-intuitive acts of will, but nevertheless ones which grace gives us the means and capacity to make.  The final verse is called the "Golden Rule."  My study bible comments that this statement is a minimum of Christian virtue, as it places human beings' desire for goodness (what Cyril of Alexandria calls "the natural law of self-love") as a basic standard of how to treat others.  It notes that this is the first step on the path to the perfection of virtue.  This perfection is found in verse 36, in which God's mercy -- as opposed to human beings' desire -- is the standard. 

"But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?  For even sinners love those who love them.  And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?  For even sinners do the same.  And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you?  For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back.  But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High.  For He is kind to the unthankful and evil.  Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful."   Many patristic commentators suggest that at His Passion, Jesus will embody all of these teachings.  St. Basil the Great comments, "The hearer cannot help but think of Jesus’ passion, when he willingly was beaten and stripped. Jesus wants [His disciples] to go beyond mere reciprocity into gift giving. But it is a gift and a loan, a gift from us but a loan because what we lend has been given to us by the Lord."  Our aspiration, therefore, under grace, is to embody the mercy of God the Father.

 "Judge not, and you shall not be judged.  Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned.  Forgive, and you will be forgiven.  Give, and it will be given to you:  good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom.  For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."  My study bible notes here that mercy precludes human judgment.  It tells us that good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over are descriptions of how an honest and generous merchant would measure bulk goods.  Flower pressed down yields a more generous amount, for instance, than flour fluffed up.  It adds that the blessings God intends to put into our hearts are more generous than we can possibly contain, but this also depends on the spirit in which we ourselves give and forgive.

 What is mercy, and what does it mean?  Patristic commentators indicate to us that for the early Fathers of the Church, grace plays a giant role in our capacity to carry out Jesus' teaching.  This isn't a matter of mere do-it-yourself grit and self-will.  Rather, it is a question -- as is so much else of what Jesus teaches -- of seeing ourselves in communion with the Father through grace.  Through grace, we are given an immeasurable love that works like a bank of infinite resources, and so we become capable of sharing that love with others, distributing it.  The ultimate Source of everything that we have, all that we possess, whether spiritual or material, is God the Father.  Therefore we can share that mercy with others.  We must see ourselves in this situation in order to understand the gist of Christ's teachings and how our lives can work via this grace.  Our very character becomes molded and shaped through this experience on top of our worldly experiences.  Psychologically, the experience of grace and God's love for us impacts us just as any other worldly experience does.  It prepares us to give love without feeling as though we are cheated, simply because we understand that grace is also source and supply for our souls, our lives.  Those who cannot experience this grace, those who believe that saintly people have simply been stronger, or grittier, or tougher within themselves, simply cannot and do not experience what Christ is talking about.  We must find this depth of communion through the experience of faith.  All we need do is to ask it we shall receive it, Christ promises (Matthew 7:7).  Grace is the gift that works with our weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12:9).  If we think of grace as a kind of infinite bank, then we can understand better what it means to pray to Our Father, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" (Matthew 6:8-13).  Perhaps this is even more clear in the form that Luke gives us.  Literally in the Greek it reads:  "Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us" (Luke 11:2-4).  Where sin and debt are interchangeable, we get a deeper understanding of how grace is at work for us.  What all this means is that the response to life that isn't merely a "giving back of what we get" is expanded and enhanced through grace.  Whatever we've been handed in our worldly lives, God has grace in abundance beyond the debts we think others may owe us.  Let us consider what the depth of that infinite love means and how it impacts our lives.  Faith is the key here; as we experience grace we grow in faith, as we know our faith so we grow in the experience of grace.