Her forms of brokenness don't take very long to discover when you talk to her. I could give you the labels, but I think it's enough to tell you she has some long standing problems that have caused some destruction in her life and others.
So very often the compassion we feel toward her makes it easy to extend mercy, even when she destroyed some of property of ours. Other neighbours have been equally or even more kind toward her, being generous toward her and expecting nothing in return.
But I find mercy a much bigger struggle when I see this neighbour who has received mercy from lots of us on the street, turn around and fail to be merciful, fail to even be kind to the rest of the neighbourhood. She's the very first to call the police when someone does something she doesn't like. She picks fights. She goes looking for trouble with the very people who have been kind to her.
She's the kind of person that makes Calvinism start to have a kind of resonance with me. Jonathan Edwards' "sinners in the hand of an angry God" has some appeal to me when I'm trying to wrap my head around people's failure to respond to grace and mercy. At some point I want mercy to stop and people to get what I think they deserve. At some point I think people have had their share of mercy and don't seem to be getting it, so maybe a little hellfire and brimstone will get the message through their thick skulls.
It makes me think of that story in Matthew 18, sometimes titled "the unmerciful servant":
23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold[h] was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.[i] He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
I kind of like this little story - I bristle at the unmerciful servant - I have the same feeling of anger for my unmerciful neighbour...and I take a little hope in the idea that God will stop being mister nice guy and bring out the hammer on people like this.
But there's just one little problem.
My neighbour isn't the only one who fails to show mercy even after being shown mercy herself. Sometimes even people who blog and write many words about mercy end up being shamefully unmerciful in their daily life! I've been given all this inspiration about mercy, and have come to appreciate the experience of it in my own life...but just like her, I so often fail to extend it to others.
It turns out that the major difference between my neighbour and I, is that her unmerciful behaviour is more visible. That is, because she's openly causing problems in the neighbourhood, her lack of mercy is on display for us all to see. I, on the other hand, am a much more subtle and diplomatic fellow. I keep my failed mercy well covered under the veneer of civility. Sometimes my lack of mercy is only in my heart, hidden from the world.
Which is why the last bit of this Matthew passage stings me a little. Jesus says I have to forgive from my heart - he knows me well enough to apprehend my polished outward appearances and remind me that I'm not off the hook because I'm covert about my lack of mercy. My heart must actually forgive and be merciful - not because she deserves it, but because I've been given it.
Her offences against the neighborhood are so small compared to depth and breadth of forgiveness and mercy that God has shown me. So when I think about it, I don't actually want God to get frustrated and implement a statute of limitations on mercy...because I will no doubt run out chances, if I haven't already.
I don't know exactly how to reconcile Jesus' words at the end of the passage with the rest of his words about the endless and boundless quality of his love. I know that literal interpretation of parables is a little problematic.
But what I learn about myself is that my attraction to the God of judgement, anger, punishment, and people getting what they deserve is always at its highest when I'm feeling self righteous. And my attraction to this kind of iron-fisted deity seems to evaporate pretty quickly when I'm seeing myself more humbly (realistically).
Maybe there is a point at which God can no longer tolerate people being unmerciful because they are too destructive, too harmful to others. But I pray that I am not there yet. I hope that my heart never becomes so hardened that I fail to recognize the much bigger mercies I've received. I sense the need to constantly fight my self-righteous tendencies. I sense that I am swimming against the tide of culture telling me that I get what I deserve. Because I don't deserve any of the really important things in life - they are all gifts. And so I'm beginning to see how mercy and gratitude are interrelated. Perhaps to be a people of mercy, we must also cultivate gratitude, and allow ourselves to be reminded of our own cancelled debts, and the mysterious depth of mercy we have been given.
