Jesus said nothing about gay marriage or transgender children or abortion. Nothing.

But Jesus had quite a lot to say about mercy.

In his Sermon on the Mount - his treatise on the way life is to be lived in the Kingdom of God - Jesus says, right out of the blocks:

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." (Matthew 5:7)

There is much to be said about the word mercy in the Scriptures. More than I want to say here.

I want to keep things very simple.

One of the core attributes of God is that God is merciful. Over and over and over in the Hebrew Scriptures, we read that God is "merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love" (Psalm 103:8).

God is merciful - meaning God shows pity, compassion and kindness toward human beings. God knows we are dust. God recognizes our inability to fix ourselves, to rescue or save ourselves from our own destructive behavior. So, God shows mercy in the way God treats us. God shows mercy by becoming flesh in Jesus the Christ and paying the cost for our misdeeds and transgressions in our stead. God took the burden of sin upon Godself rather than leaving us to bear the dreadful weight.

God is merciful.

And when we recognize this truth, when we are humble and gracious and self-aware enough to know that we live and breathe and move and exist through an act of sheer, undeserved mercy, we then are compelled to become merciful people. Meaning, we show pity, compassion and kindness toward our fellow human beings.

We are merciful because a merciful God has shown us mercy.

We are merciful because the merciful One commands us to be merciful.

We are merciful because we are undone by gratitude for the mercy shown to us.

We are merciful because we understand what mercy has done for us.

We are merciful because if we refuse to be merciful, especially to those who are most vulnerable. it might just mean we have no idea what mercy means at all.

And if that is true, well then, God have mercy on us.

Amen.