MINISTER'S MOMENT

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

I had finished making some visitations recently at an area hospital and decided to take the elevator down to ground floor. The elevator was almost full when I got on. When we reached the next floor, the elevator stopped to let someone off. Unfortunately, a young couple violated elevator etiquette by pushing inside before the exiting persons had made their way out. They stopped at the front of the elevator, thereby blocking anyone from exiting.

A young woman whom they had shoved aside looked at them with disgust and seemed to consider her response: retaliate or move on, push back or let it go. Her response ended up being let it go. Let's just get to the ground floor and get on home.

In small acts of mercy like this one, daily life continues with reasonable serenity. If we retaliated every time someone shoved, we'd be bristling and battling all the time. Mercy means more than magnanimous kindness. Mercy also means letting small breaches go, even larger breaches, not because one is passive or weak, but because life has other priorities than getting one's way and protecting one's turf. The point is to get to the ground floor and get home, not to have a perfect elevator trip.

Mercy, in other words, can mean absorbing some of life's blows and resisting the natural impulse to push back. In this way, we set the stage for our own moment of being the aggressor and needing forgiveness. To receive mercy, I must give mercy myself.

Some people call this the "doctrine of things indifferent." This view asserts that some things matter more than others. Getting home safely and calmly matters more than satisfying the momentary urge to strike back. Seeing one's ideas bear fruit matters more than getting credit for them. Being forgiven matters more than being right.

Mercy is more than a sweet disposition. It is an act of the will, made in maturity and in recognition of one's own faults. "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." Praise God.

Rev. Charlotte Austin McCary's Chapel United Methodist Church