Mercy is a weird thing because if you really think about what the word truly means, there isn't a lot of mercy going on in the world. Now, I think we're very good at showing care toward people in our tribes and people like us. I think we're good at showing care as humans in this society when we get something back, but I think it's pretty mind-boggling when we see people who do good to people who cannot help them at all. Or when people do merciful, caring things toward people in a way where they get no credit and nobody will ever know, and it doesn't help their tribe, and it's simply an act of unmerited kindness for someone who is in a desperate situation and desperately needs it. That is such a strange outlier, and how much more so when that goes across tribal lines between people you wouldn't expect. Did you guys see? Oh, what's the name of the movie? It's got the guy's name's Walt, but it's not Breaking Bad. Uh, Gran Torino. Did you see Gran Torino with Clint Eastwood? This is one of those situations where it is shocking that the characters who show mercy to each other show mercy to each other because they're not getting anything out of the deal. Mercy is one of the most counterintuitive, counter-cultural, counter-human nature things that you see. And look, I ain't gonna lie, Christians don't have the market cornered on this. We see mercy from all kinds of unexpected corners of society all the time, but Christians should do it all the time because in Matthew chapter 5, the king of Christianity, the king of the great kingdom that Christianity is, says that the merciful are blessed, for they're going to receive mercy. Jesus lists the merciful or the concept of mercy in his opening batch of kingdom values. I'm going to read this from the beginning. Remember, these are Jesus' first public teachings that we have recorded in the Gospels. He says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they'll inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they'll be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. So there's two things that kind of jump off the page here in terms of where mercy sits on this list, and I guess more so why mercy would be on this list. And one is for all the reasons we just talked about, because it's shocking, it's countercultural. The person who is truly merciful is making their decisions in a way that is contrary to the default setting of human nature in this world, which is I am born, then I will get old, and then I will die, I will turn to dust, so I'm gonna get mine while I can right now. And yeah, I think most sociologists would agree that even the virtuous things that one might do are often motivated by acceptance or a desire to be a part of a family group or uh you know some kind of urge to belong. And so even the notion of all truism is something that a lot of people are kind of skeptical of. But again, when we see real, genuine, true mercy, or we hear stories about it, it messes with us because we want to know what the angle is. Hey, why you why you acting like this? Why are you being all friendly all of a sudden? It's like the kid that calls home from college. Hey mom, hey dad, I just wanted to call and say hi and I miss you. And deep down, mom and dad are like, you want money, right? You do miss us, but also you want money. We understand that ulterior motives shape the way we communicate and the way we behave an awful lot. But what about the times that somebody just does something good to somebody who really needed good in that moment and you can't come up with any reason that it would benefit that person? And the person who did the good thing refuses recognition for it and ducks out. If we really think about it, that isn't just a gesture of niceness, that's a gesture of rejectionism toward a certain set of assumptions about the nature of human beings, the nature of life and death, the purpose of life, and what we're going for here in general. Mercy in its truest form is rare, and mercy in its truest form is among the most beautiful things that we see in this difficult existence. I think it's on the list because of that. It's reflective of values that are a rejectionist toward world values and it's kingdom value stuff. But the other reason that I think the merciful thing has to be on the list as a value of the king and a value of the kingdom is the nature of the relationship between an infinite deity and finite people. Look, here's the thing. Yeah, a lot of you know that my faith got weird. No, it didn't get weird, it just fell apart, it went away for a while. And this is after seminary. I'm the skeptical person is just how I'm wired, and sometimes stuff just doesn't add up as well as I would like it to. I try to be honest about where I'm at in the faith thing. This is something I really don't want to lie to myself about just to make me feel better. If I do that deep down, I feel like I'll I'll never actually know if I believe anything for real if I start lying to myself. So I try not to do that. I'm not perfect at it, but I try. The result is sometimes faith gets weird and it gets difficult. And one of the things that was part of the rational process of deciding, even if I don't always feel it at every point in my life, I can't really walk away from faith or belief in something much bigger than me, because I simply cannot explain why there's existence instead of non-existence. There should be nothing, and instead there's something. And the best explanation for that is that there is something beyond what we consider the boundaries of normal and natural that decided that existence was going to be a thing, so we get this instead of just nothing. Well, that only takes you so far in the equation of faith, though. And the reason, or no, one of many reasons that I ended up back not just at general generic theism, but at Christian theism, is the nature of the God character in Christianity. What reason abstractly would there be for an entity that operates outside of nature, who is unbound by anything, who decided to call existence out of non-existence, what reason would there be for such an entity to show care toward that which is less than it? It's character. Whatever that prime mover, that first force is, must have a character of mercy, because in that equation, the prime mover, the god character, the creator, is holding all the cards, holding all the chips. They don't need anyone, they don't need anything, but I can only attribute it to characteristics of mercy and love and care that such a being would show any interest in putting order and attentiveness into that existence once it got rolling. And that, to me, is what I see happening in the world. So, for me, the question of mercy isn't just one that is anthropological in nature. Man, this is a crazy weird thing that flies in the face of world values. I mean, it's that, but also I think it's hard baked into the values of the kingdom because of the relationship between an infinite God who is unbound by anything and needs nothing because of the relationship between that kind of God and finite people who are incredibly needy. We need everything. We need all provision. We need all care. That's why the words in the Lord's Prayer are what they are. You provide for everything. I don't know what I'm doing here. Long story short, I think we can reason abstractly to a list of kingdom values that would include mercy because of the nature of God and because of the nature of humanity. The deity that made all this must be merciful in nature. I know that people could look at tornadoes and hurricanes and bad stuff and say, then, you know, why is there tragedy and war? And that is a super fair question that I don't have time to game out all the way in this conversation, but I am up for it another time. But to that, at the most basic level, I would just say I think it's an act of mercy that we have order and not chaos. I think it's an act of mercy that all of our molecules and atoms don't just collide into a billion pieces, that the rules of physics don't constantly change, that there's enough order to this world that we're even capable of having brains and five senses and enough stability to look around and even conceive of things that we think are problematic or that maybe are unmerciful. So the problem of pain, the problem of suffering, big conversation, we'll save that for another time. Bottom line is this blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy is a centerpiece in this equation of the Beatitudes that I think flows out of the character of the deity who purports to be behind it. And it indicates the beginning of this reciprocal principle that we're gonna talk about a lot more, whereby all the teachings of Jesus seem like they're supposed to be given away. You've been given forgiveness, you gotta give forgiveness away. You've been shown mercy, you gotta show mercy to other people. And there's a lot to break down there as well, and we're always limited to this like 10-ish minute thing. So we're gonna have to leave some loose ends and come back to that later on. Hey, I'm glad we get to do this podcast thing. And the reason we get to is because uh a handful of you decided that you wanted to support this, even though it's completely free and you don't have to. Thank you for making a weird decision to support my podcast. I've also noticed and have meant to say something about it over the past couple of months. I know that some of you sign up and it's not like you can do this forever. It's something you can do for a little bit, and then you have to tap out. And I've got a couple notes from people who, you know, could only support for a little while or they needed to put their money into something else for a while. And I've seen all those notes and they're apologetic, and you don't have to apologize at all. I am so grateful that you were here for whatever amount of time that you were in that way, and I hope you still listen to the thing and enjoy it because you don't have to pay for this. It's free. You're totally welcome to be here. If you want to support the program, you can at patreon.com/slash the tmbh podcast. You can also not. I'm thrilled that we get to have the conversation, and I'm honored by anybody who would want to take that extra step. There's no expectation at all. All right, I'm Matt. This is a 10 minute Bible hour podcast. We'll catch you soon.