Blessed Are The Merciful

He looked at me with eyes of despair,
Too often ignored by others to plead;
I saw him as a child with curly hair,
A mother that tended his ev'ry need!
Who knows the cause that began his descent?
There, but for the grace of God, could be I;
I saw the face of Jesus, in pain rent,
Tugging at the cross, on which He would die!
How could I ignore him, and walk on by,
Pretending not to see him, or his plight?
I gave him the twenty, that was to buy
The bread and milk, on my way home that night!
Don't tell me, he'll buy a gallon of wine;
That's up to God; showing mercy was mine!

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." (Matthew 5:7)

In this 5th Beatitude Jesus changes from ways the Christian is to interact with God to how he is to treat others. His promise is that we who show mercy to others will be shown mercy when we are being judged, and how badly we need mercy! The poem describes a very commonplace experience that faces us, and a very uncommon way of reacting to it. But then, the Christian is taught very uncommon ways of reacting to all of life's situations, because our Teacher, Jesus Christ, taught counter to every reaction practiced in the world. We are confronted very often today by the panhandler on the street; what's unusual is how Jesus expects us to deal with it.

Note that the Christian does not insulate himself from the beggar by walking on by as if he were not there. Instead, he stopped, looked full into his face, and put himself into the shoes of the beggar. He imagined him as a small child, innocent, loved by all, with a mother who had high hopes and dreams for her baby boy. He thought of what misfortune might have caused him to start down the road of vagrancy, and realized that the same might have happened in his own life, but that God had come into it soon enough to help him avoid the same pitfalls that had befallen the poor man. He remembered the Parable of the Sheep and Goats told by Jesus in Matthew 25, in which God on Judgment Day would say to the merciful, You fed me when I was hungry; You clothed me when I was bare; you visited me in jail and when I was sick. When asked, When did I do those things?, God said, Inasmuch as you did them to the least of my brethren, you did them to me. So the Christian saw the face of Jesus in the beggar's face.

Can you do that? Can you stop, look in the beggar's eyes, put yourself in his skin; rather than looking the other direction and passing on by? That is exactly what Jesus expects you to do; and He expects you to show mercy and give. Many believe that if you give money, you are "enabling", or aiding, in their downfall, for they will just buy more wine to drink, but notice that what the man does with your gift is not for you to determine; it is to be left up to God. In Matthew 5:42 Jesus says when asked, you are to give---no equivocation, no ifs or buts, but to give every time.

This poem and commentary is a very limited instance of how we are to show mercy. When you consider all the needs in the world today, you understand that there is absolutely no limit to the amount of mercy it is possible for you to show. Notice that the Christian in the poem gave generously, even to the point of possibly some slight deprivation of his own family needs. There are instances of believers giving all their belongings in responding to Jesus' teachings on mercy; while this is commendable by God, He does not expect the believer to give so much as to deprive his family of basic needs. The problem in today's culture is that we are saturated to excess in riches and don't realize it. Being deprived of a cell phone with texting, photos, and internet is not deprivation. In the time that Jesus lived, a crust of bread was a treasure to most. We in 2010 in America can afford to give much more than we think we can.