Chapter 7: Stretching Out the Hand
The Merciful
The metaphor of the outstretched hand for mercy. This is the only balanced beatitude. Show mercy; receive mercy.
The meanings of mercy through history can be grouped into 3 categories:
- Almsgiving: material assistance to the needy. This interpretation has Jewish roots.
- Every misery: a broad understanding of almsgiving. “ the merciful 'favor the removal of everything that prevents life from being as God intends: poverty, ostracism, hunger, disease, demons, debt’.”
- Justice and mercy. Justice has been expanded to include many issues.
Woe to the rich.
What if I’m too poor to give alms.
Compassion: is mercy feeling or doing? Throughout history, the answer has been both.
Forgiveness
Mercy has been associated with forgiveness from the OT today.
Welcome of sinners and outsiders
This is a 20th and 21st century interpretation.
Extending God’s offer of salvation to outsiders (gentiles, etc.) and sinners
“Christ isn’t merciful, hi is mercy.” “… the compassionate desire to share one’s riches with others extends especially to the riches of the kingdom of God.”
Imitation of God
most common thread in this beatitude is the imitation of God.
Restoration of God’s image
“Seeing mercy as the imitation of God helps us to see the wide understanding of mercy with which I began this chapter. God’s mercy means forgiveness of sins; it means welcome of those estranged from God (which means all humanity) and the embrace of the gentiles who were once outside God’s promises. Divine mercy means compassion for the poor and outrage at their mistreatment.”
The will receive mercy
Mercy: what kind, when, and from whom?
Problem of “merit”: do the merciful earn salvation? A thorny question. If the unmerciful do not receive mercy, that limits God’s mercy.
Grace and mercy. “Perhaps the way out of the quandary is to play out the equation of mercy to its logical end—God shows mercy to the undeserving. In other words, even when we fail to show mercy to one another, we can hope that God’s mercy exceeds our mercilessness, and pardons even that.”
Quotes from: Rebekah Eklund. “The Beatitudes through the Ages.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-beatitudes-through-the-ages/id1551836162