In Luke 10:36, at the end of the parable about the Good Samaritan, Jesus asked, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” In verse 37 we find the reply: “‘The one who had mercy on him.’ Jesus told him, ‘Go and do likewise.'”
Why do we find mercy easy to accept but difficult to apply? How can we be grateful for God’s application of mercy to us but find it so difficult to show mercy to others? Even when we find opportunities to show mercy to another person, like when we distribute food each month or send a team on a mission trip, we often think of it as a tool to make the church grow in numbers, expecting those we help to respond by becoming Christians or at least by checking out our Sunday services. When we do that, we risk turning simple acts of mercy into down-payments on someone else’s salvation, and that cheapens Jesus’ sacrifice.
Remember, in this parable, Jesus was responding to the question “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” not “how do we grow the church?” We have to keep in mind that what we do as the body of Christ should not become mere tools for adding to the church membership but be our own natural responses to God’s mercy in our own lives. If we were to consider what God has forgiven in our own lives and to what lengths he went in order to forgive us, we would surely consider God’s mercy to be far from simple. However, because of that great mercy, we are compelled to praise God and respond by sharing that mercy with others.
Paul tells us in Romans 15:7-9 that the world will respond to God’s mercy in praise. In 1 Corinthians 3:7 Paul also reminds us that our task may be simply to plant seeds and that it is God who makes things grow. Our job, then, is simply to share God’s mercy and let God be praised.