Nothing Jesus ever said sounds more comforting than the Beatitude, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. At the same time they may strike a chord of fear in the hearts of the insecure. If only the merciful obtain mercy, what shall be the end of the insensitive, pitiless, and callous?

 

If we isolate this saying from the other Beatitudes, we’re likely to read applications into it that Jesus never intended. That’s especially true with this Beatitude. By taking it out of its textual setting, we could see it as Jesus’ comment on the eternal fate of dead souls.

 

Separating it from its place in the book of Matthew can cause us to overlook its connection to Jesus’ kingdom message. As we noted in part one of this series, the entirety of Matthew’s Gospel deals with the arrival of the kingdom of God. The Beatitudes are no exception. As a collective unit, the Beatitudes announce Jesus’ belief that the kingdom was in the process of arriving in the lifetime of his contemporaries. Also, each Beatitude describes the arrival of the kingdom in a unique way. The blessing of mercy is no exception.

 

With these inspiring words, Jesus issues a kingdom proclamation and not a statement related anyone’s post-mortem destiny. Here he announces the arrival of God’s kingdom in his generation. What greater mercy could a Second Temple Jewish audience have imagined than entrance into God’s kingdom? In making this proclamation, Jesus grounds his message in Hebrew Scriptures, and this allows him to offer a fundamental alternative to popular visions of the kingdom of God while remaining true to the tradition of the Psalms and prophets.

 

Jesus developed a reputation for critiquing the social-religious elites of his society—especially the Pharisees. He upbraided their propensity for using the Law as a means to condemn people—especially the common folk—thereby turning the poor, handicapped, diseased, widows, and orphans into outcasts.

 

The Pharisees (in their various factions) were not rogue bands of moral police attempting to coerce people into Puritanical behavior because they were repressed prudes. They were a conscientiously pious group dedicated to bringing about the end of Israel’s exile and the establishing God’s kingdom through strict adherence to the Torah as they understood it. The apostle Paul described himself as a Pharisee of Pharisees, very zealous after the traditions of his fathers, following Moses and the prophets, hoping for the resurrection, and living in good conscience toward God.

 

Not unlike today’s zealous religious enthusiasts, Paul attempted to coerce his apparently apostate countrymen into conformity with his understanding of the Law. In good conscience, he sought to bring back the wayward. Only those who refused to repent of their heresy—like Stephen in Acts 7—would be eliminated.

 

The Pharisees had a penchant for isolating people they considered to be unclean. Their strict viewpoint led them to make stringent judgments about people, and they developed their beliefs and actions by their reading of the Law and Israel’s traditional stories—including the Exodus and the Exile.

 

Beginning at Sinai, Israel was called out from among the nations to be a kingdom of priests. The Law established guidelines to maintain the purity of the nation. The Deuteronomic code delineated proper and improper food, clothing, sexual activity, and personal hygiene. Violating the Law threatened social cohesion and apparently instigated God’s wrath,

 

Historian Norman Cohn notes that “the commandment to learn and teach the Law became all-important for the preservation both of the religion and of the community” (Cohn, 145). Failure to maintain strict adherence to the Law was understood to bring about “punishment inflicted by Yahweh on his chosen people for transgressing the covenant, [and] each recovery as a reward for renewed fidelity” (Cohn, 144).

 

Israel suffered a miserable fate at the hands of Assyrian and Babylonian armies. The prophets such as Isaiah looked at these catastrophes and interpreted them as God’s punishment for Israel’s unfaithfulness. “Ah, sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, offspring who do evil, children who deal corruptly, who have forsaken the Lord, who have despised the Holy One of Israel, who are utterly estranged!” (Isaiah 1:4).

 

The Pharisee party developed during the Maccabean period as a response to corruption, perceived collaboration with the gentile overlords, and threatened cultural extinction. The Pharisees wished to retain traditional Judaism and to purify it thereby ending any further disasters and putting a final end to the exile.

 

Their desire for covenant faithfulness propelled the Pharisees to zealously observe the Law and to encourage and compel others to do the same. Through social pressure and acts of violence, the Pharisees sought to preserve the nation and welcome the arrival of the kingdom. While this approach to bringing about the kingdom of God may have had roots (real or perceived) in the Law, it wasn’t especially merciful.

 

This stands in contrast to Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of God. Like the Pharisees, Jesus had a keen interest in seeing the arrival of God’s kingdom. Unlike them, he pictured the kingdom as one that included outcasts and even Gentiles. For Jesus, Israel would be delivered not through violence or strict Law observance. He believed that the kingdom would not come through warfare or piety, but through mercy.

 

In the book of Matthew, the Pharisees (along with the scribes) appear as Jesus’ primary adversaries. Matthew contrasts the Pharisees’ view of how the kingdom would arrive to Jesus’ approach. Early on, John the Baptist scolds the Pharisees for coming to the Jordan to undergo the ritual cleansing without the accompanying heart-felt acts of kindness and grace.

 

Then in Matthew 12, Jesus’ hungry disciples plucked grain on the Sabbath. The Pharisees saw this as a violation of the Law and a potential setback for the arrival of the kingdom. Jesus answers their charge by reminding them of Micah 6:6-8. “But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,” you would not have condemned the guiltless.”

 

By echoing Micah’s oracle, Jesus conjures up the entire context of Micah thereby linking the kingdom of God and mercy. In Micah 4, the prophet speaks of the establishment of the mountain of the Lord’s house (Zion) in the latter days. In that time, God would show mercy to the afflicted. In chapter 5, Micah envisions the end of Israel’s exile with the emerging of the ruler emerging from Bethlehem, the city of David. This culminates in chapter 6 where the seer reminds the nation that God did not take particular pleasure in their animal sacrifices. Instead, God called them to justice, mercy, and humility.

 

For Jesus, Micah’s vision of a merciful kingdom shaped his view of eschatological events. (Incidentally, Micah’s prophecies play a key role in throughout the book of Matthew.)

 

Jesus not only spoke about mercy, he embodied it. He associated personally with society’s underclass: the diseased, poor, tax collectors, prostitutes, and even the dead. His actions demonstrated an alternative view of the nature of God’s kingdom. Instead of separation, the kingdom was one of association.

 

For Jesus, those showing mercy would find themselves sharing an exalted place in the kingdom. On this count, his teachings differ from the approach taken by the Pharisees. This becomes evident in the judgment scene of Matthew 25. In this narrative, the king identifies with the underclass—something that the Pharisees could not have imagined. Additionally in Jesus’ story, the king actually rewards those who selflessly showered mercy on the hungry, naked, sick, and imprisoned. Mercy shown to society’s lowest classes amounted to mercy shown to the king. Subsequently, the king would return this mercy by elevating the generous to special status in the kingdom. In this way, the merciful would be blessed by receiving mercy.

 

By extending mercy to society’s least desirable people, Jesus offers a vision of God’s kingdom that differed markedly from the prevailing schools of thought and practice offered by the Pharisees.

 

Even though he deviated from the mainstream, Jesus’ vision of a merciful kingdom had deep roots in the Hebrew Scriptures. One passage that Jesus echoed in this Beatitude is Psalm 41. Presumed to be a Psalm of David, it evokes several possible events in David’s life including King Saul’s jealous and murderous pursuit of the young shepherd (1 Samuel 18-31). Throughout the Psalm, we find an emphasis on David’s trust in the mercies of Yahweh.

 

Saul’s pursuit of David is well known. He sought to eliminate David as a perceived rival. To escape the enraged king who had mobilized entire armies to hunt him, David wandered in the wilderness hiding in caves and amongst Gentile populations. On multiple occasions, David had opportunity to avenge himself and strike out against Saul. Nevertheless, David refused. He vowed that he would not raise his hand against the Lord’s anointed. Instead, David placed himself at God’s mercy, hoping for God’s deliverance, and trusting that God would raise him to the throne at the proper time.

 

Psalm 41 begins with a blessing upon the one who shows mercy to the poor. “Blessed is he who considers the poor. The Lord will deliver him in the time of trouble.” The poor is not limited to people with limited financial means. Poor refers to the helpless, weak, and lowly. Likely, the Psalm’s author understood David to be the poor. David had been reduced to helplessness and looked to God’s mercy to deliver him from the hand of his oppressor.

 

The blessing of Psalm 41:1 has a triple ring. One possible reading blesses people who show mercy to the helpless. At first glance, we might take that to be a general principle—a generalized Beatitude of David. This approach would fit into the broader context of Hebrew prophecy. The Israelite prophets regularly denounced oppression of the powerless, especially widows and orphans. A just society, they believed, must be founded upon the principles of equity. Those who fail to show mercy to the poor will receive God’s reproval while the poor receive the blessing of God’s deliverance.  “With righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.” (Isaiah 11:4).

 

A second possible reading sees Psalm 41:1 as a specific blessing upon those who helped David during his period of helplessness. While fleeing from Saul, David relied upon the mercy of countless people including Jonathan, Ahimelech the priest, Abigail, and Achish. This blessing might be heard as David’s announcement of good will in return for the kindness he was shown.

 

Third, the opening statement might be a cry of praise from David to God. ““Blessed is he who considers the poor. The Lord will deliver him in the time of trouble” can be read as: “Blessed is the One (God) who looks upon poor, helpless David. God will deliver David in his time of trouble.” This approach becomes more visible when Psalm 41 is read in conjunction with Psalm 40. David sees himself as “poor and needy” (Psalm 40:16) and David patiently for Yahweh. He trusts that God will “make haste to help me” (Psalm 40:13-17). Eventually, God delivers David by bringing him out of the pit and the clay. God’s mercy results in David’s deliverance, and this amounts to resurrection.

 

Like Psalm 40, David is portrayed extraordinary weak in Psalm 41. He is marked by disease and is as good as dead. “A deadly thing has fastened on me, that I will not rise again from where I lie” (Ps. 41:8). In his misery, his close friend has turned away from him. However, this death is not the final word. “But you, O Lord, be gracious to me, and raise me up” (Ps 41:10). David believes he will be vindicated and established “in your presence forever” (Ps. 41:12). His deliverance amounts to resurrection—not from physical demise, but from powerlessness.

 

Rather than opting for just one approach, it’s possible to hear all three rings at the same time. This integrated a key principle of Hebrew prophetic literature, the specific context of David’s life events, and the tendency in the Psalms to elevate God as the one who provides ultimate deliverance. All three of these facets would pay a part in Jesus’ Beatitude of mercy.

 

First, as a tenet of Israel’s prophetic tradition, the kingdom of God would be established with mercy and the merciful would play a special part in that kingdom.

 

Second, in the likeness of his ancestor, the Son of David places his trust in God’s mercy. He trusted on God and believed God would deliver him. Additionally, he showed mercy to his enemies by not calling legions of angelic armies to destroy his oppressors. In an unexpected move he prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

 

Subsequently, he invited his followers to share in this trust by extending mercy. Despite appearances and their possible inclinations, they should extend mercy to their persecutors, opponents, and society’s outcasts—just as David showed mercy to Saul. In so doing, the merciful would share in the reign of the Son of David. We find one striking example of this in the execution of Stephen who—while being executed—offered the same prayer as Jesus. “Father, forgive them.”

 

Third, like Psalm 41 Jesus assumes that God is the ultimate source of mercy. He understood his vocation as leading to death. Yet, he believed that death would not have the final say. He would experience resurrection, similar to David. However, as the resurrected Son of David, Jesus anticipated receiving the kingdom promised by God to David in 2 Samuel 7:12-14. “I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.”

 

His resurrection would be the means of obtaining mercy.

 

It might be customary to read the blessing in a way that limits the obtaining of mercy to those who extended it. “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy for themselves.”

 

Yet a closer reading may suggest a broader application. The phrase “shall obtain mercy” raise a question: Who shall they obtain mercy for?

 

Living in a world governed by Newtonian spiritual laws, we might assume that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The merciful obtain mercy for themselves. However, we might be justified in making a broader application. Instead of seeing this as a justification for selfishness (I’ll be merciful so God will be merciful to me), we can see this statement as Jesus’ assertion that the firstfruits body of Christ would obtain mercy to all Israel.

 

As a community united with Christ, the firstfruits church did not live and die for their own benefit. They united with Christ on behalf of all Israel. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul explains to the church that their baptism (dying and rising with Christ, Romans 6) worked to benefit “the dead.” Not simply those who had biologically deceased, the dead included all Israel under the Law (Romans 7:4, Galatians 2:19, Colossians 2:20, Hebrews 6:1) They were baptized on behalf of the dead so they might be the vehicle through whom God would be merciful to the weak.

 

In Romans 11, Paul shows the extent of God’s mercy and the means through which God would extend mercy. In explaining to the primarily Gentile church that their deliverance depends on the deliverance of unbelieving Israel, Paul asserts, “Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now^* receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all” (Romans 11:30-32). All were confined to disobedience so that God would show mercy to all.

 

God bestowed mercy to the believing community in their belief through Christ. But this didn’t leave everyone else without mercy. In Romans 11:26, Paul affirms his foundational belief that “all Israel will be saved. In 11:28 he clearly includes “enemies of the gospel” as participants in all Israel’s salvation.

 

So by the time he writes 11:31, Paul emphasizes that the enemies of the gospel would receive God’s mercy through the believing body of Christ. “So they [the enemies of the gospel] have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now^* receive mercy.” In a paradoxical move, the body of Christ received mercy and they would extend mercy. Paul echoes Jesus by affirming that the merciful would obtain mercy not simply for themselves but so “that God may be merciful to all.”

 

By drawing on this theme in his Beatitude of mercy, Jesus invites his hillside audience to participate in the Davidic blessing as bearers of the divine gift of mercy. They would share with him in receiving the messianic kingdom and bearing it to humanity. They would be recipients of mercy as they became bearers of God’s eschatological mercy to the world.

 

Jesus understood God’s kingdom in terms of mercy—the merciful blessing of God in bringing the kingdom in power to the powerless and also as a merciful act brought by God through the powerless.

 

Paul noted the blessing of weakness when describing his vision of God in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. “‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”

 

As a kingdom predicated on mercy, the most authentic expression of the kingdom is through the expression of mercy. As a kingdom brought about through God’s mercy shown to and through the Son of David, the truest demonstration of the kingdom’s presence is through empowering the powerless. As a kingdom shared with the downtrodden, the most accurate representation of the kingdom comes in solidarity with the weak. And as a kingdom generated through the merciful acts of resurrection, the kingdom’s purest experience comes into being through breathing life into the souls of the hopeless.

 

God’s kingdom came into being through God’s merciful eschatological work, and it continues to find expression in acts of mercy today.

 

 

 

Reference:

Cohn, Norman. 1993. Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come. New Haven: Yale University Press.

 

URL: http://www.presence.tv/cms/cov-beatitudes-part6.php

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