The Rev. Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

In Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice, we read:

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes

The dictionary definition of mercy is “compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one’s power; compassion, pity, or benevolence.”  This is what God shows all of creation.  As Jesus said, God “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45).

Mercy is the granting of absolution, clemency, and pardon for someone who does not deserve it.  Someone commits a crime.  Not a horrific crime, like murder, rape, or kidnapping.  Maybe he steals something out of need.  He should be punished, according to the ways of humankind.  After all, he broke the law.  He stands before the judge and pleads his case.

“I was starving and could not afford food.  That’s why I took that loaf of bread.”

The judge has every right to throw him in jail.  But he doesn’t.  He pardons him.  Something like this actually occurred.  In his book The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning tells the following story about Fiorello LaGuardia.

LaGuardia, who, when he was mayor of New York City during the worst days of the Great Depression and all of WWII, was called by adoring New Yorkers ‘the Little Flower’ because he was only five foot four and always wore a carnation in his lapel.  He was a colorful character who used to ride the New York City fire trucks, raid speakeasies with the police department, take entire orphanages to baseball games, and whenever the New York newspapers were on strike, he would go on the radio and read the Sunday funnies to the kids.  One bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the mayor turned up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city.  LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench himself.  Within a few minutes, a tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread.  She told LaGuardia that her daughter’s husband had deserted her, her daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving.  But the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the charges.  “It’s a real bad neighborhood, your Honor,” the man told the mayor.  “She’s got to be punished to teach other people around here a lesson.”  LaGuardia sighed.  He turned to the woman and said “I’ve got to punish you.  The law makes no exceptions — ten dollars or ten days in jail.”  But even as he pronounced sentence, the mayor was already reaching into his pocket.  He extracted a bill and tossed it into his famous sombrero saying: “Here is the ten-dollar fine which I now remit; and furthermore, I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Baliff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.”

Thankfully for us, we worship a merciful God.  Reading the story of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac doesn’t quite sound like mercy, though, does it?  In fact, some people have referred to this as divinely sanctioned child abuse!

We know, as strange and as difficult as it is to reconcile this passage with the belief that God is love, this passage details a test.  In order to ensure that Abraham will be faithful to God — especially since he is going to be the father of a nation as numerous as the grains of sand on the beach and the stars in the sky — since that is Abraham’s calling, God has to make sure he is “fit” for the task.  He, therefore, asks Abraham to do the unimaginable.  Four chapters later, the Lord will say, “I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because Abraham obeyed me and did everything I required of him, keeping my commands, my decrees and my instructions” (Genesis 26:4-5).

There are other interpretations of this passage.  Millard J. Erickson suggests that Abraham knew that Isaac would be spared.  He writes, “In the knowledge that God is good and had promised that Isaac would be his heir, Abraham was confident that he and Isaac would somehow return again from the mountain.”[1]  I disagree.  Abraham did not know what was going to happen, but he did trust that whatever occurred must be part of God’s larger purposes.  If that wasn’t the case, then this wouldn’t be a test.

Regardless, the point is that God halts the knife at the last moment and provides a ram instead.  He shows mercy on the innocent Isaac and spares his father from this horrific task.  Granted, God is the cause of the situation, but that isn’t the point here.  From a Christian perspective, this story is highly symbolic, quite illustrative.

We all deserve death.  Christ takes the sting of death for us.  The One who spared Abraham’s son does not spare his own.  Jesus receives our punishment in our place.  James S. Hewett gives us a great analogy for this:

A little boy and his father were driving down a country road on a beautiful spring afternoon.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, a bumblebee flew through the car window.  Since the little boy was deathly allergic to bee stings, he became petrified.  His father quickly reached out, grabbed the bee, squeezed it in his hand, and then released it.  But as soon as he let it go, the young son became frantic once again as it buzzed by him.  The father sensed his son’s terror.  Once again, he reached out his hand, but this time he pointed to this palm.  There, stuck in his skin, was the stinger of the bee.  “You see this?” he asked.  “You don’t need to be afraid anymore.  I’ve taken the sting for you.”

Jesus Christ took the sting for us, which was the ultimate act of mercy on God’s part.  But the mercy Christ shows us was evident throughout his life, not just when he suffered and died on the cross.  Take his teaching found in today’s brief Gospel Lesson.  Verse 42 reads, “whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple — truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”  Whether this is a literal cup of cold water given to a child who thirsts, or food for the day given to the hungry, a shoulder for the forlorn on which to cry, or an invitation for sojourners to hang their hat here to become part of this family.  The mercy of Christ is like none other, and it rains down upon us to cleanse our bitter spirits — to give us a future and a hope.  That mercy is given to us in spite of ourselves, and it offers us salvation in this life and in the life to come.

I opened with a quote from the bard, William Shakespeare.  I close with one by the Early Church Father, John Chrysostom: “Even if we stand at the very summit of virtue, it is by mercy that we shall be saved.”  Amen.

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© 2026, John Tamilio III, Ph.D.

[1] Milliard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 3d ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic Publishing Group, 2013), 375-376.