“But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’”  Jesus in Matthew 9:13

I am a lawbreaker. 

In my 45 year driving history, at last count, I’ve had 38 moving violations. (Don’t judge me.) Most of them for speeding, some for “driving too fast for conditions” and “failing to come to a complete stop”, with a reckless driving  thrown in for good measure. I have paid thousands of dollars in fines, the penalty for my transgressions.

And I get it. Crime and punishment. Law and order. It’s the way a fallen world works. Otherwise you’d have anarchy, and nobody wants that, including me.

But it’s not just moving violations. I have broken plenty of other laws as well.

City Laws? Check.

State laws? Yep.

Federal laws? Guilty as charged.

Trespassing on private property? Uh huh.

Trespassing on federal land? Also guilty.

Trespassing in a foreign country? Again, guilty.

And we don’t have time for me to count the ways I’ve sinned against God and others. The word count would be in the hundreds of thousands.

The only criminal offense I had was reckless driving. All of the rest are civil offenses or misdemeanors. (As a point of comparison, so is illegal immigration. Unlawful presence is a civil offense and unlawful entry is a misdemeanor.)

The truth is, I’m a lawbreaker. A criminal. 

And every single time I’ve been caught breaking the law, I wasn’t hoping for justice. I wanted something else. In fact, I wanted the opposite!

I wanted mercy.

The reality is it’s easy for me to want justice for all…until I mess up. Or my kid messes up.

Then I want mercy.

The context for the verse I quoted above is Jesus and lawbreakers. Jesus is hanging out with tax collectors, welcoming prostitutes, and notorious sinners into the Kingdom of Heaven. But the Pharisees, those that were “righteous in their own eyes”, muttered about it. In their minds, lawbreakers should be shunned, excluded, kicked out. You get the picture. So Jesus, who is God in the flesh, quotes a surprising Old Testament passage from Hosea 6:6, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” And he says go and learn what it means. 

Go and learn. How do we do that? Well, we typically learn best by doing. So if you want to learn mercy, it will come from extending mercy. To those who have hurt you, taken from you, spoken ill of you, sinned against you. Lawbreakers

That’s the thing about mercy. It can only be given to lawbreakers. You don’t have to extend mercy to those who are getting it right.

By the way, this is not a one-off teaching of Jesus. It’s a consistent theme throughout all of his earthly ministry. In the famously quoted beatitudes, he says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)

I know I want mercy.

But what if they are our enemies? Jesus has that covered too. “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend to ‘sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” 

Think about that. He is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. 

That’s me by the way. Ungrateful. Wicked. A lawbreaker.

Then he says, “Go be like your Father. Be merciful to the ungrateful and the wicked, just like Him.”

So extend mercy today. To that person who wronged you, slandered you, lied to you, stole from you…choose forgiveness. And learn the joy of mercy!

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash