Sometimes phrases come to you for a sermon that feel weightier than others. Biblically, these phrases carry around glory (Hebrew word for glory means weighty). They do not come as often as I would like, but when they do they are gifts from the Holy Spirit. A few weeks ago, I had one such phrase: Restorative Mercy.
The phrase comes from putting together two words, appearing in Matthew 12:1-14. Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” when dialoging with the Pharisees about eating heads of grain on the Sabbath. The point there was that hungry people were present (Jesus’ disciples), and mercy, in that instance, was “feeding” the hungry over “not working” on the Sabbath.
Then, there was a man with a withered hand, and he became an academic case study for the Pharisees. Would Jesus heal on the Sabbath? It’s not could Jesus heal; Jesus had proven that already. But, would Jesus heal on the Sabbath, breaking the Sabbath rule by “working” to heal. Jesus saw right through that and “restored” the man’s hand. Jesus healed through restorative mercy.
As we are coming back from COVID, in this weird interim period between the pandemic and “normal life,” we would be foolish to overlook this periods as an opportunity to rethink what “normal” actually is for church. Jesus, in Matthew 4, sets up His kingdom of preaching, teaching, and healing. Historically, my church tradition has been a great teaching church with our ties to the Sunday School movement. Many of our buildings were built with teaching in mind. Worship in my church tradition is God-honoring and Christ centered whether you sing with a pipe organ and choir, or are led by a guitar driven band. Healing, however, is a place of growth for us. In our tradition, we have shied away from healing, thinking it to be too charismatic or weird. Yet, it’s right there in Jesus’ words and deeds!
How can we heal? We heal through restorative mercy.
Obviously, we cannot heal a shriveled hand like Jesus, but there are people out there with meetable needs. In my particular church in Nashville, we have come together and shown restorative mercy for people who have food insecurity. This week on Spring Break, our church fed 110 families. Some of these families have literally cheered as we have pulled up with our food boxes. We are praying about how we can expand this and show up for more people with restorative mercy. Mercy is the way God chooses to heal the world – the mercy of the cross, the mercy of the forgiveness of sins, and the mercy of eternal life with God. God gives us this mercy not to keep to ourselves, but to show up for others with that same mercy. God has given his church to being a healing church, full of restorative mercy.
What does that journey look like for you? We are walking through these doors of restorative mercy with our eyes open wide, our hearts focused, and our minds seeking to discern the will of God.