On Mercy in Merciless Times
- Br. Lee Hughes, OP (Anglican)
- Feb 16
- 7 min read
[Sermon delivered for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany (Septuagesima), February 16, 2025, at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Phoenix, Arizona]
✠ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one in Essence and Undivided. Amen.
Today we read from what has been called, “The Sermon on the Plain,”[1] which appears to be a highly abridged version of St. Matthew’s much longer, “The Sermon on the Mount,” but whether the one is derived from the other or not, they are also a topical land-mine for the modern preacher. Imagine if you will instead of making her now world-famous sermon, Bishop Mariann Budde had read this sermon. In its entirety. Complete with the catalogue of woes. Even without commentary I would dare say this would have incited a howl of outrage from certain quarters and landed Bishop Budde in even more hot water than she did with her actual sermon (which was completely based in Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, by the way).
We are not a people to shy away from hard truths, however, no matter how mercifully delivered. The hardness of the truth of this particular sermon of Our Lord’s becomes more apparent by contrasting each blessing with its countering woe:
Regardless of political party, any gathering of the elite will feel either uncomfortable, or targeted, or enraged at hearing this. Frankly, many of us who are not elite, or particularly rich, or even somewhat respectable feel a general unease at hearing this passage, and well we should! When we have enough, when we eat enough (and maybe carry a little baggage), when we are relatively well-adjusted, when we still enjoy some privilege, we get the feeling that perhaps this is as much for the “just enoughs” as well as the one percent.
That said, looking around us, do we not feel overwhelmed? The need is so great, both here and elsewhere. Many cannot afford healthcare even with insurance or discount plans. Many cannot acquire adequate shelter or sustenance. Many are despised for their class and educational level or the colour of their skin or their cultural backgrounds or their sexual orientations and gender identities, and this is just here in the United States. Many nations are themselves poor and look to nations like ours for help. We see the need is great, and it seems overnight that even what has been there for them has dried up and withered away.
This is not a new situation. When Holy Mother Church was still young enough to have among her flock witnesses to the miracle at Pentecost, the care of the poor was central to her mission. St. Paul in his missionary travels often took up collections for the relief of conditions in the Holy Land.[10] The Council at Jerusalem when decreeing how the Gentiles could practice the Way without adhering to Levitical practice stressed that even with that freedom Gentile Christians should still be mindful of the poor.[11] Likely the admonition given to the Church in Ephesus in the Apocalypse that they had “lost their first love” had perhaps lost sight of their mission of mercy to the poor.[12] St. Lawrence of Rome when confronted during Diocletian’s persecution to hand over the Church’s treasures gathered as many of Rome’s poor about himself and proclaimed to the officials that these were the treasures of the Church.[13] Tertullian goes on at length how Christian assemblies drew voluntary contributions from among their members not for parties but for performing acts of mercy: relief of the poor, burial of the dead, care for the sick, support for prisoners and exiles, sustaining orphans and widows.[14] It should be noted that this happened within the context of a society that while rife with poverty and illness and severe social stratification where there were absolutely no safety nets, or institutions, or programmes for their relief.
It may well be that the Church will need to step in the gap once more as it has in ages past.
Based on the responses of our ancestors in the faith, on the responses of those in power in the past, perhaps this is how we should look at the Sermon on the Plain’s blessings and woes today:
Any who despise the poor and make no substantial effort at their relief waste what God has given them.
Any who ignore the hungry around them lose the opportunity to connect with and show love to those who do not have enough to feed themselves.
Any who are in stable, even happy, situations and yet unmindful of the suffering of others and ignore their pain to preserve their own sensibilities lose the joy of bringing joy to those for whom joy is fleeting or non-existent.
Any that are respected and even influential who disdain others and even actively work to further enforce and increase that exclusion and separation rather than show love for their fellow humans and break down the barriers lose that view of God in the eyes of the other…to their eternal and everlasting peril.
How do we respond? Do we run out of Church after hearing these words to completely divest all they have to share completely everything they have with the poor, the destitute, and the unloved? They tried that in the days immediately following Pentecost,[15] but the practice soon changed after that. St. Paul noted that God prefers cheerful giving in proportion to one’s ability, not out of a sense of compulsion but out of honest love for one’s neighbour.[16] That is what it boils down to, my dear friends in Christ. Not a celestial balance sheet, not a sliding scale, but a response of love. The Gospels and the Epistles that bear his name make a very big deal of what love is. They hold up the example of Our Lord, one who brought plenty out of nothing, but not for Himself but for the crowds on which He had compassion.[17] Our Lord, who emptied Himself so fully that He gave His very life upon the Cross for our redemption from Death.[18] Our Lord, who loved even the rich who could not break away from His belongings to follow Him.[19] St. John stressed that God is Love, and that anyone who does not love does not have God.[20] What we should do is cultivate love for the beggar on the corner, the immigrants in the neighbourhood, the sick avoiding our hospitals, and let that love you have drive how you respond to this Gospel passage.
A certain high official recently trotted out an old Mediaeval ordo amoris espoused by various Christian divines including St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas as the levels of care one should bestow on others. Another certain prominent bishop of a very ancient diocese correctly called him out for his sinful misapplication of the concept. These were not levels of care but signs of the growth of love in the individual. Love for your family is one thing, and Our Lord does not give it any credence, saying that even sinners hold true to this. The one who has truly mastered love is the one who can love the “outer ring” with their whole heart and soul, having proceeded to tear down the barriers between themselves and each ordo in the model. It is no scale of your charity dollar: fifty cents to the family, twenty-five cents to the local food bank, twenty cents to national relief agencies, four cents to international aid, and one cent for the beggar on the corner. No, it is a measure that a person has come to love not only close family, but near neighbours, strangers across their land, and strangers beyond their nation’s borders. [21]
Our Lord was even more clear another group of woes He proclaimed: “Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the Law: justice, and mercy, and faith. It is these you should have practiced without neglecting the others.”[22] I bring this particular woe forward since the Christian Nationalist heresy is very keen on “personal sanctimoniousness” while very much neglecting justice, and mercy, and faith. Make no mistake, we all will appear before the Throne to account for what we have done, and when we do will we be able to show whether we had enough love in our hearts to show mercy and to follow His way of peace? We have often heard the protest cry, “NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE!” We should hear as often, “NO MERCY, NO PEACE!” or “NO FAITH, NO PEACE!” These are all traits in our relationship with each other. To deal justly with each other, to deal mercifully with each other, to deal trustworthily with each other. “What does the Lord require of you?” the Prophet Micah wrote, “but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”[23]
So many now ignore that. They scream judgement is coming, but in their blindness, they forget that the judgement is coming also for them. Let us strive to avoid that hammer ourselves by remembering justice, and mercy, and faith, and walking humbly with our God.
✠ Through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, Holy Dominic, and all the saints, Saviour save us. Amen.
[1] Lk. 6.17-26, The Sermon on the Plain properly spanning from 6.20-49.
[2] Lk. 6.20
[3] Lk. 6.24
[4] Lk. 6.21
[5] Lk. 6.25
[6] Lk. 6.21
[7] Lk. 6.25
[8] Lk. 6.22
[9] Lk. 6.26
[10] Cf. Rom. 15.25-28, 1 Cor 16.1-4
[11] Gal. 2.10
[12] Rev. 2.4
[13] Prudentius, Peristephanon 2
[14] Tertullian, Apologeticus, 39
[15] Acts 2.43-47
[16] 2 Cor. 9.7, cf. Rom. 12.8
[17] Cf. Mt. 9.36, Mk. 6.34
[18] Jn. 3.11-17
[19] Mk. 10.21
[20] 1 Jn. 4.8
[21] Cf. Pope, Stephen J., “The problem with J.D. Vance’s theology of ‘ordo amoris’—and its impact on policy”, America: The Jesuit Review, February 13, 2025, https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2025/02/13/ordo-amoris-stephen-pope-vance-249926?cx_testId=1&cx_testVariant=cx_1&cx_artPos=1&cx_experienceId=EXY1WS38N2HL&cx_experienceActionId=showRecommendationsLTMD8T8AD1L892#cxrecs_s
[22] Mt. 23.23
[23] Mic. 6.8
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