Mercy and Truth Are Met Together

Occasionally, I regret the topical approach that the 1945 Lectionary uses. It is no doubt a masterpiece in the way Psalms and Lessons are united in common theme, but sometimes you are left wanting. It becomes apparent as a prayerbook Christian you are missing out on a lot of scripture. For instance, earlier prayerbooks chose the continuous reading mode so that Old Testament, New Testament, and Psalms were read in total. If you've ever looked at the hymnal and noticed that the Psalms have Morning and Evening indicated on the page, you are being exposed to the 30 day Psalter. Lots of reading, in fact, if you follow that model.

But I digress: what brought this to mind is a case in point this morning. We know David as the remarkable forebearer of Jesus, but he is considered largely due to his character faults: you may remember him as the man who seduced Bathsheba and arranged for her husband Uriah the Hittite to be killed in battle.

Today, however, we see a nobler side of this complicated man. There is a moment in the history of King David, appointed for this morning's first lesson, where he declines to take the vengeance that is owed him. The situation is this: Shimei the son of Gera, a man of the house of Saul, had cursed David when Absalom's rebellion had driven the king from Jerusalem in tears and ashes. Shimei had thrown stones and dust and called David a man of blood, a worthless fellow whom the Lord was justly repaying. It was, by any ordinary reckoning, treason and blasphemy in a single breath.

Now Absalom is dead, and David is coming home. And here is Shimei again, first over the Jordan to meet him, falling down before the king and saying, Let not my lord impute iniquity unto me, neither remember that which thy servant did perversely. Abishai, David's kinsman and captain, says exactly what justice would seem to require: Shall not Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed the Lord's anointed?

David's answer is the hinge of the whole passage: What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that ye should this day be adversaries unto me? Shall there any man be put to death this day in Israel? for do not I know that I am this day king over Israel? And he swore unto Shimei, Thou shalt not die.

Notice what David does say instead: the true sign of his kingship, on this day of days, is not the exaction of a debt but the refusal to collect it. Do not I know that I am this day king over Israel? A weaker man might have thought he needed Shimei's blood to prove the rebellion truly over. David, however, pardons Shimei of his sin (for condemning the Lord's anointed).

I used the word "sin" rather than "crime" here deliberately. As the chosen of God, an anointed king was close to divinity, himself. Abishai's charge lands as it does because David was anointed: oil poured at Bethlehem, the Spirit come upon him from that day forward. That is why Shimei's offense is sin, not merely crime — he cursed a man set apart by God, not just a rival. The instinct outlives the Old Testament: Charles III's 2023 anointing was hidden behind a screen, too sacred even for cameras.

In our life we may have opportunity to confront someone who treated us very poorly; in other words, where we have the power to hurt them as they hurt or mistreated us: however, this lesson is read today because we are human and face the same temptation David did.

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, that ye resist not evil. This expression is something I daresay we do not understand in the Post Modern World. It comes out of tribalism, where blood feuds still prevail. In fact, this expression was a limit on retribution from the prior practice of a life for an insult and a village for a life. Note that Jesus says our task is to avoid these conflicts altogether: If any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.

And then the verse that completes what David only began: Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. David swore that Shimei should not die. Christ commands something further of us: that our enemies should not only be spared our blind retribution but in fact be loved, blessed, and prayed for.

Christ's reason is stated in these words: that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. If we know and worship God for his perfection, and if he allows good and evil in the world, or as stated here, the just and the unjust — how can we be justified if we do not emulate his actions as the children of Our Father? To love an enemy is not to pretend the wrong was not a wrong. It is to imitate, in the small compass of one's own heart, the vast and daily patience of the God who governs the sunrise. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

This understanding gives us a deeper insight into why the psalm was chosen topically for today. Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. The Psalmist does not set mercy against truth. David's refusal to kill Shimei did not pretend the curse had not been uttered; it let mercy and truth stand in the same room together. Christ's command to love the enemy does not pretend the enmity is not real; it asks that love and truth be held at the same time, without either one crowding out the other.

Saint Paul's Epistle today says: know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? So we must follow Christ's example and sin no more: as it is written, Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Collect appointed for this Sunday asks for exactly this on our behalf: Pour into our hearts such love toward thee, that we, loving thee above all things, may obtain thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire. Love of God can fill us and affect our relations with neighbors and indeed enemies. We are told never to receive the Communion in the wrong spirit: first we must reconcile. And the Gospel for the Holy Communion drives the same point home from the other direction: if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Even our prayer book notes this human condition: if you read the Exhortations which follow the Holy Communion service starting on page 85, this will drive the point I am making home.

To conclude: the lesson this morning is this: every one of us may contend with the same human feelings that David had. Yet he surmounted the easy choice to strike down his enemy. Instead, we are asked to do the better thing, to pardon our enemies' offenses as we hope our own may be pardoned by God (after all, we pray that every day in the Lord's Prayer).

The whole of this morning's Word answers that question — Shall not Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed the Lord's anointed? — by refusing its terms. Not: is the debt real. It is real; Shimei's curse was real, and so is whatever has been done against you. But: is the debt the last word? David said, on the one day he might have made it so, that it was not. Christ says the same thing more completely, and asks us to bless as well as to spare. And Paul tells us why we might actually be able to do it — because in baptism we already died to the version of ourselves that could do nothing else but keep the count.

Mercy and truth are met together in that water, and they need never be parted again.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen ✟