If I’m honest, summer 2020 lockdown included too much scrolling. Too often I reached for my phone and scrolled and scrolled and scrolled, past pandemic statistics, protests, half-true statements, videos without context, videos with too much context, riots, memes, and flash sales. Like a leashed dog wheezing next to her master on a motorbike, my mind scrambled to keep up with my ever-swiping thumb:

I don’t trust this article.

This one I believe.

This one is insanity… or maybe it’s satire?

Oh, Jesus would wear a mask.

Oh wait, I guess he wouldn’t.

Woah, great price for a blouse!

But I read something about about child labor…

How many kids were found?

How many deaths were counted?

How many tests were taken?

How many votes are needed?  

The Struggle is Real.

Or is that my privilege speaking?

I’m no scientist, but this can’t be good. For a mind that can unravel and race all on its own, with no help from the internet, this ceaseless ping-ponging of one idea to the next, one video clip to the next, one scary statistic to the next, cannot be good. I feed off my news feed and, as evidenced by my tailor-made adverts, it feeds off me and the whole thing begins to feel rather cannibalistic. Frenzied. Panic-inducing. Staying informed is one thing but an endless intake of social media, news, and commentary is recipe for mental and spiritual indigestion. Our silly little man-made computers malfunction when we cram their memories to capacity. How much more do we?

So my negative takeaway from the summer? My thumb is prone to over-scroll.

But this summer my thumb also turned the pages of my Bible in a wonderfully unhurried way. I hope my sharing this is encouragement, a spurring on rather than a spiritual brag: I have enjoyed my times with the Lord, in the word and in prayer, like never before. Ever so slowly I’ve been working my way through the Bible in a self-directed three four year plan which consists of checking off the books as I go, color coded by year, and periodically turning to First 5 (a wonderful app with which I have no affiliation) for deeper reflection. This slow feasting on the word lays in stark contrast to my moments of frenzied social media consumption. During lockdown I feasted on the book of Job, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Micah, and 1 Samuel. Unrushed reading, meditating, and digesting. Unhurried journaling, sketches, ponderings, and prayers. I feel full and satisfied from this summer’s feast.

Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. – Jesus (Matt. 4:4)

Man, and woman, and teen can’t live on continuous social media, either. Not that we can blame nebulous Social Media, as if Social Media is a demanding boss and we mere subordinates with little control over how we spend our time. We are grown-ups. We are in charge of our thumbs. I decide if my thumb is going to scroll Facebook, turn the pages of the Bible, or get some work done. James admonishes believers to tame the tongue; perhaps our thumbs need a bit of taming and training as well, since they grip our phones and TV remotes and have a big say in what we’ll mentally ingest.

Oh be careful little thumb what you scroll.

As every parent knows, we gain an appetite for what we regularly ingest. We can’t make ourselves like or dislike something, as this evolution of taste is somewhat beyond our control. Yet what is in our control is what we put on our tongue and in our minds in the first place. Before moving to London, I couldn’t stand sparkling water. But after nearly two years of mistakenly ordering/buying what I presumed to be tap or ‘still’ water and ending up with sparkling water, after two years of resignedly sipping it to impartially swallowing it, I now, to my surprise, choose and enjoy it (with lime, please).

We cultivate a hunger for God by tasting his word. Even small bites – mediating on one verse throughout the day, reading two or three verses out loud at mealtime or bedtime, or writing out and displaying scripture by our mirror – all of these samplings increase our craving for more.

There’s a downside to this reality: our appetites grow for whatever we consume, even if it’s not good for us. A morsel of gossip, a taste of pornography, an indulgence of revenge, can tempt us to want more, more, more and what once was ‘just a little taste’ can become our commonplace diet, maybe even our unconscious diet thanks to dulled senses that can no longer recognize what is good, right, or true.

…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. –  The apostle Paul (Phil 4:8)

The truth is, I love my hand-held computer, my little rectangular robot that speaks directions when I’m lost, plays music when I travel, shows me where my husband and daughter are in the city, (or at least where their hand-held robots are) relays an instant message across the ocean to my son, and allows me to engage in real time conversation with family and friends around the world. Such communication is a gift and a privilege. But it can’t replace the nourishment that comes from feasting on the word of God. I have to cultivate my tastes and train my thumb to want the better, to choose the feast. Sometimes our thumbs peel an orange. Other times they tear open a candy bar. And sometimes they lift fork and knife to partake in a feast. No one rushes through a feast. A feast is to be savored and shared, because it provides more than mere sustenance; a feast provides life.

Praise be to you, Lord; teach me your decrees. With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth. I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways.  I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word. 

-David (Psalm 119: 12-16)

Last week we examined how God’s people are to act justly. Now we turn our attention to the follow-up command of Micah 6:8: Love mercy.

mercy

/ˈməːsi/ noun

1. compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm.

What’s not to love? Yet from a human perspective, mercy is hardly ‘fair’ and the Bible is full of such examples:

• It wasn’t fair when a city who burned, beheaded, and dismembered people, repented of their evil and were spared destruction. [Jonah 3]
• It wasn’t fair when David, leader of Israel, slept with a woman, had her innocent husband slayed, then utterly repented before God and was restored. [2 Sam. 12:1–15]
• It wasn’t fair when the self-centered character of Jesus’s imagination, the younger son who dishonored, demanded and dwindled his family’s money, was welcomed and celebrated upon returning home. [Luke 15: 11 – 32]
• It wasn’t fair when the life-long criminal dying on the cross next to Jesus gained paradise. [Luke 23:40-43]
• It wasn’t fair when Saul, instigator of the murder of countless first century Christians, professed Jesus as the one true God and went on to became God’s chosen writer, teacher, and pastor. [Acts 9]

Actual people were hurt, wronged, and even killed by the above perpetrators. The injustices they committed were very real. And so was their repentance.

Repentance – the common thread in the above list. When a humble human heart turns from sin and turns to God, ushering in mercy and grace. What a beautiful thing.

Unless, of course, we’re the one who’s been wronged. We’ll stick with justice thank you very much. It’s easy to distance ourselves from the plight of Bathsheba, or the mothers of fathers who lost loved ones by the murderous hand of Saul.

‘Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful’, Jesus tells us in Luke 6:36.

But how? He tells us that too, rather directly, in the preceding verse: ‘Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.’ [Luke 6:35]

Identify your enemy. Do him or her good. That’s how we show mercy. God’s great mercy, extended to us, enable us to do just that because God extends his mercy, his salvation, to our ‘enemies’.  Sounds lovely, embraceable, until we truly think about it:

• What if that person, the one in real life who hurt me or my child, repents and receives God’s mercy?
• What If that group of people that I fervently oppose humbles themselves and turns to God?
• What if that criminal who committed that atrocity came to know God’s freely given grace?
• What if that political leader, the one who makes your blood boil, repents and turns to Christ?

Loving mercy may seem impossible now. We need God’s mercy to show mercy.

Church, would we rejoice if our enemy repented? Would we even believe them? A tree is known by its fruit, but have we grown so jaded we can’t even imagine the possibility of the gospel seed taking root and sprouting there? In him? In her? Would we grumble like sulky Jonah did while the city of Nineveh sat in sackcloth and fasted and ‘called urgently on God’ and ‘gave up their evil ways’?

Our God-given sense of justice flares when wrong goes unpunished, and rightly so. God’s mercy doesn’t negate his justice. God asserts ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay.’ Neither does biblical mercy preclude natural consequences and/or punishment. The same God who instructed his people to leave the harvest at the edge of their fields for the poor and the foreigner [Lev. 23:22] also knows our penchant for laziness and said, ‘If anyone doesn’t want to work, he shouldn’t eat.’ [2 Thes.3:10] and ‘If you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.’ [Romans 13:4]

Mercy cannot be demanded; it can only be given.

And when God gifts someone with a contrite and broken spirit that leads to true repentance, made possible by the cross of Jesus Christ, we enter a new story. In fact Jesus told stories to show us how to love mercy and rejoice when others repent:

There was a man who had two sons. One demanded and squandered his inheritance, until he realized his sin and returned home and his father rejoiced… [and others in Luke 15]

The father rejoiced over his rebel son because the rebel son repented. God withdrew his vengeance on the brutal Ninevites because they turned from evil and turned to God. Repentance ushers in mercy; pride and stubbornness prevent it. Two criminals died on crosses alongside Jesus: one who acknowledged his sin and one who didn’t. One who reached out for Jesus, and one who mocked him. One who received mercy and grace and paradise, and one who was sentenced to hell. Which is what we all deserve. That’s how short we fall next to a holy God.

We’re only able to recognize mercy when we recognize what is just, what we rightly deserve. Jesus himself says he didn’t come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. He didn’t become one of us to do nice things and give inspiring speeches, he became one of us to take our place. He didn’t eat with tax collectors and prostitutes to assure them they were alright with God, to not worry about God’s standards because at least they tried hard, as he spent time with them he called them to repentance. A sinful person can’t come close to a holy and just God. So God in his love for us sent Jesus. In the ultimate swap, Jesus took our rightful punishment, God’s just demands were met, blood and mercy flowed from the cross.

Perfectly demonstrated, once and for all, enabling us to simultaneously act justly and love mercy. As Tim Keller puts it, “If a person has grasped the meaning of God’s grace in his heart, he will do justice.”

With God’s help, we can train ourselves to love mercy. We can…

• hug the child who broke the dish
• speak kindness while tempers flare
• pray for those who oppose us
• give and expect nothing in return
• bite our tongue from having the final word
• offer our spouse the bigger piece of cake
• yield the parking spot
• forgive our brother again, and one more time, and yet again
• give her the benefit of the doubt
• fill a need without any fanfare
• have compassion on our enemies

We can love mercy because we are lost without God’s.

‘Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.’   – Ephesians 2:4-5

The Bible is clear; as Christians we are to ‘defend the cause of the oppressed’. What seems less clear is how? And which injustices? How do we live out Micah 6:8?

And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Tragically, dauntingly, many are oppressed, many have been wronged, many are without a voice. Some injustices are public, splashed across the media. Others remain private, hidden from all but a handful of people. Injustice is not bound by race, country, or generation. Sin is an equalizer. We are all selfish, we are all prone to let our selfishness play out in ways, big or small, that help us and hurt others. From the time human beings first told God to shove off, it only took one generation for pride and selfishness to degenerate to murder.

God warned Cain: Sin is crouching at your door. You must rule over your anger.

Cain ignored. Anger boiled to rage that culminated in murder.

And so rolls in generation after generation of injustice, violence, slavery, and murder. Such profusion of evil can keep you awake at night.

As the world grapples with the murder of George Floyd and, subsequently, the murder of many others, as violence, racism, and lawlessness continues and will continue, we are weary. Not only from these public injustices but from many others that go unrecognized. A selection from my week include:

• understanding that children (as well as spouses) who suffer domestic abuse have been particularly vulnerable during COVID lockdown
• Listening to my West African friend describe life under ‘real lockdown’, when leaving your house meant bullets graze your head, when violence forced her to flee her homeland
• Receiving prayer updates from a London group who seeks to help those trapped in the sex trade
• Hearing South Africans describe the brutality, including murder, committed against them and their family, a brand of racism that’s often swept under the rug
• Hearing about the brutal slaughter of 81 innocent people (plus more women and children abducted) by a militant Islamic extremist group in Nigeria.

The list is endless. Many don’t garner a single protest. Some victims never receive acknowledgement, let alone justice. So should we simply give up? Say nothing at all? Speak up for nothing because we can’t protest everything?

By no means! But how? I offer no new knowledge, only reminders, primarily to myself.

Start with compassion. We mourn with those who mourn. We weep. We comfort. We open our homes. We listen to their stories. We extend dignity and friendship and grace.

We pray and read. We ask God to open our eyes to the things that blind us. We allow the Spirit to intercede when we don’t know what or how to pray, and to show us ways we can and should step up, to specific people we can support. When opportunities arise to act or speak or support, we do our homework. We ‘test’ organizations and movements (as well as our actions and thoughts and tone) against God’s Word. We pursue counsel from other believers. We take all we’ve heard and seen and think and align ourselves with the Bible. We ask God to help us sort it all, to give us wisdom beyond ourselves.

We strive for humility. We recognize that we might not have the full story. We haven’t walked in her shoes or his shoes. We remember that we are all in danger of being right in our own eyes. We listen and learn. We admit that we get it wrong sometimes. We challenge with gentleness. We disagree while keeping dignity intact. We allow the Holy Spirit, and the body of Christ, the church, to refine and mature us.

We practice intentional hospitality. More understanding and healing may come from a shared meal than a march. Greater good may come from investing in our neighborhoods than movements. We intentionally go out of our way to take a walk or share meal with people who were not born in our birth country, whose lifestyle differs from our own, who are of a different race, who are liberal, or conservative, or a police officer, or poor, or rich. We learn to be okay with awkwardness because we understand that uncomfortable conversations often lead to new understanding, transformation, and mutual respect. Our homes offer the ideal space to engage, listen, learn, and share. So we open ours, even if, for now,  it’s only our back gardens.

We live peacefully. We defend the defenseless in ways that uphold the law. We bear in mind that God himself established governing authorities, (Daniel 2:21, Romans 13:1) and that we, the church, are to pray for our leaders (1 Tim. 2:1-4). We recognize that biblical instruction to submit to authority given in Romans – “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God … Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor” (Romans 13: 1 and 7) was given to an oppressed society. To people who did not get to vote. To people who were jailed and killed for their faith in Christ. We pray for grace to accept this not easy to accept instruction, and to do good works under the God-given umbrella of authority.

We give grace to the body of Christ. We recognize that you and I have walked different paths and that God calls us to different pursuits. If you are actively standing against domestic child abuse, if your heart and time and resources are being poured into fighting that injustice (perhaps unbeknownst to me), I won’t demand that you take up the task God has given to me. We spur one another on to good works, realizing that the body of Christ comes with various parts, abilities, skills, and passions.

Church, we unify ourselves with foundational truths: all people are made in God’s image, all sin, and forgiveness is found in Christ alone. We start there and, as we inevitably branch off into various social, political, experiential lanes, we proceed with grace. When we hit a juncture of ‘agree to disagree’ we return our gaze to Christ. We repent of our own sins and failings. We forgive one another. We rejoice in God’s utter justice and unfair grace, a paradox I hope you’ll join me in exploring next week.

Until then, keep walking humbly with God. Keep holding ‘unswervingly to the hope we profess’ keep ‘spurring one another on toward love and good deeds.’ For ‘He who promised is faithful.’ [Hebrews 10:23-24]

If I could take on a superpower it would be not to need sleep. I like sleep, yet it doesn’t seem to fancy me, especially this past week as jet leg kicks our butts something fierce. Insomnia, no matter the reason, forces us to face the reality of our human weakness. Even when we desperately desire and need sleep, when we’ve tried all the tricks in the book minus hard narcotics, we lack the power to make ourselves fall asleep. (Blessed are those who are the exception.) What’s more, try as we might with coffee in hand, we can’t decide we don’t need sleep.

Our reliance on sleep is one small reminder that God is not like us. God does not sleep. (Psalm 121:4) Which is why I find it so comforting, especially in those near-to-tears bleary moments in the day after a sleepless night, to read that Jesus did sleep. Jesus did get tired (John 4:6). Jesus slept in the back of the boat as the wind, and disciples, howled. (Mark 4:37-39) Self-sufficient God took on human flesh in Jesus and experienced needing sleep and can empathize with our human weaknesses. (Hebrews 4:15) That is a high priest who cares, who understands, who gets it, who gets us.

As an American living in London, one of the cultural differences I’m gradually realizing is this: Generally speaking, Americans talk about their weaknesses more readily than, well, maybe the rest of the world. Both sides of the spectrum – talking too much about your weakness and never talking about your weaknesses – are dangerous. It’d be exhausting to hang out with someone who is a hot mess (a phrase I haven’t heard since moving here) all of the time. But on the flip side, you can’t have a real friendship with someone who never shares their weaknesses and struggles. One side can lead to self-absorption and habitual complaining, the other denial and isolation.

When I was asked yesterday at church how I was doing I answered like the American Gen X-er that I am: “Jet lagged and sleep-deprived!” And I was glad for the ‘I’m sorry’s’ and ‘I’ve been there too.’ I’m glad no one spouted off a Bible verse. Empathy is what we’re really after, to cash in on the common bond of humanity we share, no matter what (or if) we profess about God.

Paul takes it a step further. Paul boasts in his weaknesses so that God’s strength can shine through. I am glad to boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ can work through me. (2 Cor. 12:9)

Do I tether my weaknesses to God’s strength, or do I merely whine?

Both. And I’d like to decrease the latter.

Here’s what I’m thinking. We are called to bear with one another and help the weak, to be patient and forgiving. And that’s what we’re hoping for when we share a weakness: understanding and acceptance, not a sermon. But if we’re the weakness sharer we can link it to God’s power at work in our lives. That’s where the boasting comes in, showcasing what God is doing through our weaknesses. It’s admitting that we struggle with anxiety and rejoicing in the ways he empowers us to socially connect with others anyway. It’s sharing our struggle with anger and sharing how meditating on God’s word has taught us to give pause. It’s recognizing our tiredness and sleep deprivation while giving God credit and praise for giving us the strength to work and parent and live. It’s accepting we are children of weakness, empowered by a righteous and loving Father.

Superheroes we’re not, nor are we meant to be. And yet, through Christ, his power is at work in us.

For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. (Phil 2:13 NLT)