And he is so good that his actions of mercy cut two ways like a double edged sword. While the outcaste are invited into the party, while sick are being healed, and while the dead are coming back to life, there is woe in the tents of the self- righteous, death for the one who accumulated but cannot share, and blindness coming upon those who can t see the great reversals in it all. This mercy hits like a virus. To enter mercy into a world used to making standard judgements about people, about value, and things, is a great risk. Mercy isn t quite the same thing as doing it nicely.
Mercy is a little more profound than that.
Be merciful, even as God is merciful. This gospel of Jesus s, a kind of experience of mercy, is really the preparation for seeing God s mercy in a larger way. Mercy is not just the way to live. Jesus was, after all, the prophet to end all prophets. The fate of the nation, its city, its temple and its people were each and all at stake.