Loving Mercy: Practical Reflection on the Ministry of Mercy

by John A. Bouwers from Called to Serve: Essays for Elders and Deacons

So I’m back with a look this time at chapter 16. After a hectic couple of months I want to start looking at published literature again. Most likely my focus will shift to another deacon handbook and this will be the final response to Called to Serve for a while. As we get ready to delve into a different book within the deaconate, the posts will begin to reflect the group’s book of study.

Matthew 9:13 says,

13 Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Bouwers opens up with describing four main parts that surround this verse in Matthew 9: its context, setting, issue, and point.

• Context: In Matthew 9, Matthew writes of his own calling, a tax collector.
• Setting: Jesus is eating with all of Matthew’s colleagues…a group of repulsive outcasts.
• Issue: The Pharisees were wondering why Jesus would associate himself with these unworthy swindlers.
• Point: “Jesus came to save sinners!”

Bouwers is quick to note that the office of deacon is often associated and synonymous with the ministry of mercy, hence the title for this essay, as he will flesh this out in three parts. The office of deacon as a ministry of mercy is a:

• Holy, covenantal calling: It is thoroughly rooted in God’s covenantal out-workings as it becomes an extension of God’s mercy. It is not a secular calling, rather done in the context of those under the fellowship of God’s covenant.
• High calling: historically in the Reformed churches it has been an ordained office “based on the interest and love of Christ in behalf of his own.”
• Calling that requires mercy: The deacon is himself thrilled by mercy and so his service is an overflow of this joy in God’s mercy. As the above states he is more than willing to “go and learn” these things.

All are very lofty characteristics.

So what is mercy?

He shows the close relationship of mercy to grace using the glory passage in Exodus 34:6-7 where Moses is hidden in the cleft of the rock. Mercy and grace are written alongside each other against iniquity and sin. Both refer to undeserved favor. So what’s the difference.

This might be helpful to those who have a hard time deciphering between the two:

• Grace can be understood as God’s favor in response to the reality of sin.
• Mercy can be understood as God’s favor in relief from the effects of sin.

So mercy is in many ways is a ministry of action, a response to the problems sins cause.

Do I “have to” show mercy?

So the potential problem is addressed next. If mercy is undeserved favor, is there a place for required mercy. Isn’t this contorting something which is graced-based into something works-based? Obviously not. Couwers uses an analogy based on a typical courtroom scenario where someone finds himself at the “mercy of the court”. That person has no say in his or her verdict. He is ultimately at the judges mercy.

The same is true for us as recipients of God’s grace. That grace isn’t dependent upon our works and here’s where he makes the connection to those who are called to be agents of that same mercy which they have received. They are expressing what has already been given to them. Yet with an official call to mercy ministry, we are not left to our whims—just as our grace as recipients is ongoing, so too must our service in that grace.

So yeah, we gotta show mercy. It’s a necessary outworking of the office. Four angles are described to convey this. These necessities are:

• Theological
• Experiential
• Existential
• Missiological

I’ll continue on with these four necessities next time.