At Each Others’ Mercy

This pandemic and the world-wide demonstrations for racial justice dramatically illustrate just how we are so precariously at the mercy of each other. This mercy not only operates close to home but far and wide, like a world-wide web. What happened on a curb in Minneapolis put protestors in the streets of London. How we operate within our personal sphere will have a significant influence on what happens elsewhere beyond our imagining. Keeping our distance and wearing a mask not only protects you from the virus but protects those around you from any contagion you may have. All of this combines to keep the common curve coming down.

Having been through over three months of semi-confinement which seemed like some sort of house arrest, the natives are beginning to get restless for “freedom”, even if it might cost the lives of others. Some politicos and others pushing for reopening everything honestly believe that the Dow takes precedence over the deaths. Pro-life Christians want to resume corporate worship in their sanctuary even if might lead to the death of innocent and vulnerable people. Lord, have mercy on such a weird guise of religious freedom.

Nelson Mandella once said that “none of us are free until all of us are free.” Someone else once noted that if one person dies of hunger, it’s a tragedy. If millions die, that is only a statistic. Clearly, we are at the mercy of each other. Even beyond this particular situation, we are always at each others’ mercy. When it comes to taking care of this ever-warming planet, we are so dependent on everyone’s consideration and compassion and respect for nature. Wendell Berry says it beautifully in these words: We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us…

If you think about how greed and consumption have motivated our life styles, it’s no wonder that the complexity of reopening the economy at the expense of the death of others begs the question of how faith has gotten lost. Mercy is founded on respectful caring and consideration for others, which is founded on the Golden Rule, which is founded on what Jesus called the best commandments of all of them: love God and your neighbor. To paraphrase a previous notion: none of us are neighbors until all of us are neighbors.

What a wonderful world that would be, where goodness and mercy were not just following us all the days of our lives but leading us into the temptation to take care of each other. Luring us to love one another, for the sake of God who believes in us to do right by each other. Begging us in the prophet’s words “to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God”.

Shakespeare’s Portia speaks to Shylock, the merchant of Venice, about the easy and almost natural way mercy works within and between us if we’d let it: The quality of mercy is not strained./ It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven/ Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:/ It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.