Today, in Mercy, Matthew begins to wrap up the long series of instructions related to the Sermon on the Mount. Three familiar, and very direct, closing points punctuate today’s reading:
Pearls before swine
Do unto others
Enter by the narrow gate
They sound a bit like what a wise parent might say to a child as he or she goes off to the wide worlds of college, business or marriage. But the core of their message works for us at any age:
Today, in Mercy, Paul continues to instruct Timothy on how to deepen his life in Christ.He says,
“If we die with Christ,we shall also live with Him.”
Some of us, when we pray that verse, will picture ourselves on Calvary, literally dying beside Christ. But I think that our actual path to new life in Christ comes to us in much less dramatic ways. It comes to us in opportunities for selflessness, no matter how small.
I was at the supermarket one day, submerged in the ice cream freezer, looking for Turkey Hill Pineapple Sherbet. It is a rare find.
An elegant, older gentleman joined me, looking for the same thing.I told him the sherbet had been recommended to me and that I would like to try it.He confirmed the recommendation, saying it was his favorite.
We found only one carton. He turned to me and said, “You take it, because you’ve never had it before.I have.” It may have seemed a small kindness, but it was much more.
That man’s selflessness has stayed with me many long years after the ice cream. Whether or not he was a Christian, he had died to himself.The practice of openness to others’ needs – even a stranger’s – had become customary for him.
Our death to self and new life in Christ will be evident to others in our ordinary acts of selflessness and service.It will become the customary way we find joy in life, and the way we give witness to a redeemed heart.
Lavish Mercy 