Weekly Pastoral Message prepared by Rev. Murray Adamthwaite
for Sunday 8th November 1998

From the Pastor: Beatitudes and PC VI

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Matthew 5:7 "You don't kick a man when he's down" used to be the unwritten rule among people with any degree of compassion. There are still some who observe the rule but their number seems to be diminishing. Meanwhile, the opposite mindset is taking hold, whereby when someone is down because of some difficulty in the workplace, or in personal relationships, it is an opportunity "to bury the boots in" even more than ever. It is a sad spectacle, and regrettably, not even professing Christians are exempt: the greatest killers of church life are backbiting and refusal to forgive. Mercy in the nature of the case is kindness to the miserable and wretched. It is said that the one who hates other sinners most is the one who refuses to face up to his own shortcomings. There will be little compassion from that quarter, just as there was none from the Pharisee toward the tax-collector hiding in the corner (Luke 18:10ff). Similarly, there is little enough of the tender heart from the preachers of PC: constantly grandstanding about women's rights but consenting to, even advocating, the slaughter of thousands of their unborn; ever agitating for racial equality but showing no interest at all in the sufferings of multitudes of Christian believers in countries like Sudan and Communist China. Contrary to all this, the merciful person is the one who first of all recognizes his own spiritual bankruptcy (Matthew 5:3), who will say from the heart when he sees the corrupt and vile, "There I go too, but for the grace of God". He forgives because God in Christ has already forgiven him (Ephesians 4:32), and will love much because he has been forgiven much (Luke 7:47). Christ bids us to ask some questions about ourselves: "When I see the downtrodden, the fallen and the tempted am I hard-nosed and callous, or helpful and kind-hearted?" Lord, give us grace to love the loveless as you have loved us!