2023.06.11 | Have Mercy!
Have Mercy!
Preached by
Rev. Dr. Marvin Lance Wiser
Eden United Church of Christ
Hayward, CA
11 June 2023
Ewww. Tax collectors and sinners. Oh my! Doesn’t that just make your spine tingle. A cringe-worthy dubious duo. Well, I’m sure it’s meant to. Our scripture passage this morning makes me imagine the religious leaders as having a very Southern response, “Lawd, have mercy!” “Lawd, have mercy,” with its distinctive southern drawl, is employed in contexts when something is so overwhelming or unbelievable that there are just no other words that will do and one must always nod their head 'No' while saying it in order to get the full effect. Can you just see the Pharisees nodding their heads as they try to compute what on earth the crazy Rabbi Jesus is doing eating with tax collectors and sinners?
Jesus is breaking social norms, and when challenged on this point he rebuts with, “Go and learn what “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” means. Jesus here is quoting from one of the 7th century prophets from the Book of the Twelve, or as we have come to know them in later Christian tradition, the Minor Prophets. We tackled why not sacrifice last month, when I preached on how we are “Saved from Sacrifice.” So what then is this mercy that seems so key to understanding Jesus and his ministry? Buckle-up because in this sermon, we’re gonna get a healthy dose of Biblical Studies. In the Hebrew Hosea uses חֶסֶד, translated in context, “I delight in actions of mercy, not sacrifice, in knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6). In the Greek text of the LXX, that is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, חֶסֶד is translated as ἔλεος, which is the exact word Matthew places in Jesus’ mouth in our passage read this morning: “mercy,” that is, an act of kindness expressed to someone in need, compassion acted out.
Apparently, during Jesus’ day mercy was not as en vogue as sacrifice was, at least by the political and temple apparati. This seems to be a running theme throughout Israel’s history, and perhaps our own too. This mercy or compassion is so integral to understanding Jesus’ ministry, because it was so integral to God. Indeed probably one of the earliest fullest expressions of ancient Israelite faith, known as the divine attribute credo, found in Exodus 34:6-7 includes this:
“The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, and abounding in loyal love and faithfulness, keeping חֶסֶד loyal love or mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. But he by no means leaves the guilty unpunished, responding to the transgression of fathers by dealing with children and children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.”
Here we have expressed an understanding of the divine with a sense of balance of mercy and compassion with justice. Many will align with this statement of faith, but will have conflict with the kiddos bearing punishment for the wrongdoings of earlier generations. But the ancients knew this point to be true in their experience. The young of towns felt the wrath of sieges due to the betrayal of geo-political alliances of old, just as extreme heat will be visited upon our grandchildren due to this and previous generations’ excessive output of carbon. Actions having long-standing consequences, no generation is an island.
This ancient tenet of faith or understanding of the world is used by prophets in the Book of the Twelve, in Nahum, Jonah, and Joel, with varying degrees of emphasis.
Both Nahum and Jonah deal with Nineveh, the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which invaded the Northern Kingdom of Israel and conquered its capital Samaria around 721 BCE. Nahum foretells or retells the destruction of the capital of Nineveh, which did happen more than a century later at the hands of the Neo-Babylonians in 612 BCE. Nahum is gloating and rejoicing at the fall of the mighty empire and the destruction of her children. Right from the beginning in Nahum 1:2-3 we read echoes of the familiar divine attribute credo:
A jealous and avenging God is the Lord;
the Lord is avenging and wrathful;
the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries
and prolongs it against his enemies.
The Lord is slow to anger but great in power,
and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.”
Phew! Where a reader with the knowledge of the ancient faith credo would expect, “the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, and abounding in חֶסֶד loyal love and faithfulness, keeping loyal love or mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,” is meet with but a God drunk on justice and vengeance. Where, oh where is the compassion for innocence? Lawd, have mercy!
Out of all of the books of the Bible, the only two that end with a question are Nahum and Jonah. In my opinion, this is not accidental. Indeed it is very pointed. Nahum asks:
“Your destruction is like an incurable wound; your demise is like a fatal injury.
All who hear what has happened to you will clap their hands for joy, for who has ever escaped your endless cruelty?”
In stark contradistinction the LORD God at the end of Jonah asks:
“Should I not be more concerned about Nineveh, this enormous city? There are more than 120,000 people in it who do not know right from wrong, as well as many animals.”
Along with Ruth and Job, Jonah is one of my favorite books of the Bible. While historically, it has been generally accepted that the book of Jonah precedes Nahum, I have argued that the book of Jonah was actually written to counter the book of Nahum. Nahum is actually a passive participle of the word comfort, “the one who is comforted.” In Nahum, Israel is comforted at the destruction of her enemy (3:19), but in Jonah God is the one who gives comfort through the showing of compassion (4:2, 11) to the Ninevites.
In Jonah 4:2 we have echoes of the other side of the credo that Nahum conspicuously left out:
“You are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.”
The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.
You are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment
A jealous and avenging God is the LORD, the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and rages against his enemies. The LORD is slow to anger but great in power, and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty.
In the table on the screen, I hope it is clear to see from the English that both works utilize to their end the earlier Israelite divine attribute credo found in Exod. 34:6-7. Nahum emphasizes the latter justice portion of the credo (Nah 1:2-3), while Jonah emphasizes the former mercy portion (Jon 4:2).
While I won’t bore you with linguistic analysis, it is helpful to note that the book of Jonah was written in Late Biblical Hebrew or during a time when Hebrew was giving way to Aramaic, so it was likely from the Persian period, or written several centuries after the fall of Nineveh. The historical formation of the canon can also help shed some light on which book likely came first.
Here we can see the sequence order of the book of Jonah among one of the earliest, albeit partial, lists of the Book of Twelve from the Fourth cave of Qumran by the Dead Sea, the standard Hebrew Masoretic Text, and the later Greek translation known as the Septuagint. “Jonah likely enjoyed the most flexibility with regard to its position among the Twelve and therefore was also likely the last book to be added to the collection.” Scholar Barry Alan Jones has argued that the placement of Jonah in the list from Qumran is the earliest attestation of the book in known ancient manuscripts.
The take-away here by reviewing these three separate lists of the order of the books in the Book of the Twelve or Minor Prophets is this: Qumran likely shows the order as then understood historical date of actual composition; The Masoretic or Hebrew Bible text shows the order as arranged according to the historical material in which they writings engaged. And the Septuagint was arranged more theologically. The LXX juxtaposes Jonah and Nahum as the fulcrum of the entirety of the Book of the Twelve. Together in sequence, Jonah then Nahum, together complete the divine attribute credo, in its original form as found in Exodus, and does not allow Nahum’s emphasis on justice to stand alone, without mercy and compassion. It is a balancing of divine justice with divine mercy.
In Nahum we are left to either rejoice at the downfall of the enemy, which Proverbs reminds us Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble (Prov 24:17), or ask where’s the mercy?! Jonah is the Have Mercy! Indeed, the entirety of the book of Jonah is God imploring us to have mercy.
Jonah is a decentering text, a narrative challenging of worldview, especially the one in which Nahum was written; upon reading, the dominant structure of how humans and God interrelate are forever altered. Jesus does this for us as well. Just as God demonstrated compassion to the Israelites’ others in the book of Jonah, the Ninevites, Jesus does the same for the icky tax collectors and sinners in the Gospels, challenging his own socio-religious community.
Aside from Jesus, Jonah is the most depicted character of the Bible in early Christian art. This is because in Christianity Jonah prefigured Christ, having been entombed in a fish for three days, visited the Deep and had his own “resurrection” experience–there’s awesome early Jewish Midrash about this–and leading Gentiles to repentance and receiving God’s mercy. Jonah is read by Christians to witness to the Sign of Jonah (Luke 11:29-32) as told by Jesus in the synoptic gospels. And Jonah is read by Jews on their most holy of days, Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement.
The book of Jonah never informs us of Jonah’s response to God’s question, “Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than 120,000 people who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?” The book makes us answer God, just as Jesus directs us to “Go and learn what “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” means.
Jonah and Jesus beckon us to move from the familiar to the foreign, from clan to cosmos. Not to chastise or to demand sacrifice, but to offer mercy, place, belonging. Jesus did not come to condemn the world, but to save it (Jn 3:17), interjecting mercy and reconciliation in our retributive systems.
Jesus expounded on this a bit more in his parable of the Good Samaritan, which is all about extending and receiving acts of mercy to and from societally-conceived enemies. Where can we interject mercy in our lives? From whom should we receive it? Jesus gave Matthew, a reviled tax collector, a seat at his table as well as the poor, and we now read from his account of the Good News because mercy was extended to him. And we are celebrating our 28th Open and Affirming anniversary next month because mercy was chosen 28 years ago as well. Happy Pride!
Now, if we ever catch ourselves nodding our heads and saying to ourselves or aloud, “Lawd have mercy!” Perhaps we are the ones the Lord desires to see a little mercy from. After all, what does the LORD require of us but to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before God (Micah 6:8). Amen.
Blessing:
As with the books of Jonah and Nahum, we can choose to create or desecrate, drown in retribution or dine in mercy. Choose mercy! It’s what God desires. May we go forth from this sanctuary to traverse societally constructed boundaries, building bridges to extend and receive acts of mercy with happy hearts this week. Go in peace. Go in joy. And have mercy. Amen.