Mercy Part 6- God uses Mercy to save the world

“For some time, I have been saying that Muslim immigration into the United States should be stopped until we can properly vet them or until the war with Islam is over. Donald J. Trump has been criticized by some for saying something similar.” 
- Franklin Graham, December 8, on his Facebook page

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/religion/article48805250.html#storylink=cpy

I think I only have one thing left to say about mercy - although I suspect I have started on a lifelong journey with coming to know and live mercy.

A rabbi I heard recently said something like this:

"If you think about life as a journey, even a small change in the direction you're headed can make an enormous difference over a great distance. Changing your heading by 2 degrees might not seem big in a day or a week, but over a lifetime, brings you to an entirely different destination."

Indeed, it is the small changes, accumulating over time that make an enormous difference in where we end up. I might be tempted to think of mercy in the big and dramatic terms like: how should we in western world respond to the recent terrorist attacks? And while these are good questions to wrestle with, those aren't things I have much control over. On the other hand the seemingly smaller day to day interactions I have with my wife, my kids, my friends, my neighbours, and the people in the community I worship in - these are all opportunities to be tapping into the flow of mercy and practicing in my own life, towards myself and others. How would life be different if I engaged in even one deliberate act of mercy every day for the rest of my life?

How might the world be different if mercy was a practice more of us engaged in on a regular basis?

So in a week when the world is trying to make sense of terrorist attacks, and Franklin Graham (yes, the son of Billy) is one-upping Donald Trump in vitriolic rhetoric about Muslims, here's my audacious suggestion to you all:

I think mercy is one of the things God is using to save the world.

Since mercy is an expression or form of love, I dare to believe that mercy is a force so revolutionary it can and will be the way God rescues and restores shalom in the world.

The violence we see in Syria, Iraq, Paris, and San Bernardino is only a mirror to the violence that lives in all of us and between all of us. Maybe I'm not the only one that cringes to hear Jesus say that if we have lusted or been angry then in our hearts we are the same as adulterers and murderers. I'll admit it, when I read Franklin Graham writing like a commentator for Fox News, anger, not mercy is my first response. But these words of Jesus about me being just like a murderer are also an opportunity for hope. For if mercy can change us, murders and adulterers that we are, it can certainly change others. We all know names like Mandela, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Ghandi, Desmond Tutu and the like because they are our most renown examples of public mercy. But there is an entire world tapping into the flow of mercy. Partners in marriage who have been wounded by each other. Parents who have lost children to senseless accidents forgiving the perpetrators.  Communities opening their doors to refugees and sharing their resources in spite of their fears.

God give us the strength to engage in the practices of mercy in small ways on a daily basis. Help us to join You in using mercy and love to change our stories, and to change the course of human history.