Mercy not Sacrifice - Matthew 9: 9-13

Jesus admonishes the Pharisees here when he says. “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’”. He was quoting the prophet Hosea, who, centuries earlier, had condemned the Jews for attempting to excuse their idolatry and their oppression of the poor by offering the prescribed animal sacrifices. God always values “mercy” over “sacrifice.” But what exactly does that mean?

 

At many points throughout the year, many of us seek opportunities to engage in what we consider acts of mercy. We may help to prepare and serve a turkey dinner at a soup kitchen. Or we may participate in a coat drive for the homeless, or fill a shoebox with gifts.  But are these acts of kindness what Jesus truly meant when he challenged us to learn the difference between sacrifice and mercy?

 

If we want to move beyond sacrifice to mercy, we need to get our hearts involved. At St Athanasius, we have an event called the Day of Service when we ask parishioners, many times the elderly, if we can help them with non-professional tasks around the house, like raking.

 

Many sign up to be a part of our volunteer army to go out into the neighborhoods and help fulfill those requests. When they do, someone (we’ll call her Amy) may say to herself, “I think this experience will be good for me—make me more aware of my blessings and increase my compassion for those less fortunate.” A worthy response. But let’s think about that.

 

We may have noticed the prominence of the words me, my, and I in Amy’s response. My acts of sacrifice were all about me. What hopefully will occur in Amy’s heart will be a yearning to take the next step– to mercy.

 

So let’s say the next Day of Service rolls around and Amy dutifully engages in this volunteer effort. She proceeds out there with her rake, knocks on the door of an elderly parishioner (Irma) and proceeds to rake Irma’s leaves. Upon completing the task she comes back to the door to let Irma know that she’s done. She engages Irma in a little conversation.  It’s clear that Irma has kind of a lonely existence, with no family in the area.

 

At that moment, what happens to Amy? Does she cut the conversation a little short, knowing that she doesn’t want her leaf-raking activities to encroach too much on her afternoon, or does she come in for the cup of coffee that Irma offered to her which would allow for a more extended conversation?  So she decides to come in for that coffee and conversation. The conversation covers everything from Irma’s family to illness and beyond.

 

As the months pass, Amy sees Irma at weekend Mass and even pays her a visit on occasion. She says to Irma, “How are you feeling this week, Irma? Is your cold gone? Have your new meds made it easier for you to sleep at night? Is your nephew in Altoona gonna need surgery?” In her private prayer time, Amy even prays for Irma, and her nephew.

 

What happened there for Amy? She developed a relationship with Irma. In the Gospel, the Pharisees looked around Matthew’s house and saw nameless “tax collectors” and “sinners.” Jesus saw people he cared about, people he wanted to hang out with. And he knew their names.

 

When we view what we do in Jesus’s name as simply nameless, faceless sacrifices, we have missed the whole concept of “love as I have loved you”. It’s all personal with Jesus. It is all about relationships.

 

So many ministries and organizations vie for our time, money, and interest. Not even a millionaire could help them all. But if we truly want to move beyond sacrifice to mercy—as Jesus calls us to do—we need to get our hearts involved. We need to develop relationships with people—people with names and stories, joys and sorrows, and prayer requests. Otherwise, we, like the Pharisees, will never really understand what Jesus meant by “mercy, not sacrifice.”

 

Part of the problem is that mercy maybe sounds too much like pity to us. The dictionary defines mercy as “compassion or forbearance”—words that convey maybe a certain condescension: “Aren’t I something, helping out this person who’s less fortunate than I am?”

 

Jesus never responded to people with that attitude, even though he, the sinless Son of God, was indeed stooping to their level. Instead, he placed himself in a position—as he did in Matthew’s house—of reaching across the table, of treating each person with respect and dignity.

 

Jesus longs for us to move beyond the idea of sacrifice—what we feel obligated to give up to be perceived as religious. He wants us to get our hearts involved, tangled up with other people’s lives, so the word sacrifice drops out of our vocabulary, and that all we know is the passion to love others as he loves us.

 

And so we ask God today to move us toward that kind of love. We aspire not to be satisfied with hands-on rituals. We want God to move us toward “hearts-in” mercy, Jesus’ mercy. Let us become willing to move beyond the periodic, suitable-for-the-occasion sacrifices, toward year-round, inconvenient mercy and love that build relationships!