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The apartheid in South Africa was a policy of separation and segregation. It meant that black South Africans weren’t afforded the same benefits or place in society as the white Afrikaners were, including basics like the ability to vote. Many people fought against this racist and unjust policy for many years. One of the most famous of these people was Nelson Mandela.
Mandela fought hard just to be able to be a part of South African society. He fought hard to even be able to vote. For his efforts, he was imprisoned for decades as the government killed his fellow protestors around him.
Yet in the 90s, something miraculous happened. Mandela was finally freed from prison and apartheid came to an end. Now all people were able to vote. This meant Mandela’s party was elected into power, and Mandela was chosen by his party to serve as president.
Now Mandela could have used his new role to get revenge on the Afrikaners who had imprisoned him and harmed and killed so many others. At the very least, he could have ignored them and merely focused on creating a better life for black South Africans. Mandela instead chose to work towards forgiveness and reconciliation. He still spoke out against injustice, though he also reached out to try and bring the races together, even when members of his own party disagreed with him. Mandela didn’t seek the way of vengeance. Instead, he sought mercy.
Mercy is the theme that we hear throughout our readings today. Paul in Galatians speaks of bearing “one another’s burdens.” He speaks of restoring others “in a spirit of gentleness.” This was so vital for a group like the Galatians who had been divided into two theological camps, as we continue to see in this week’s reading. It’s not that there aren’t responsibilities for good behavior. What we saw last week with rejecting the works of the flesh and taking on the fruits of the Spirit still stands. Even as we are called to bear one another’s burdens, we are also called to remember that we are each responsible for carrying our loads, as Paul tells us. We see this in the Gospel too when Jesus tells the Disciples to bring peace on those they visit while also instructing them on how to respond to those who fail to show them hospitality and those who fail to listen to their Word.
We are responsible for our own actions, though we are still called to help support each other as we are reminded in our in the Baptismal Service. We are each called to behave well. We are also called to merciful and help those who struggle, never taking away the responsibility they have for their actions, but instead helping to lead them towards the better path God has set out for them.
In having mercy, we emulate God. In our Psalm, we hear that God has restored us to life. We hear that God’s “wrath endures but the twinkling of an eye.”
Having mercy follows in the ways of the prophets we are listening to this Season after Pentecost. Elisha didn’t have to help Naaman in our reading from 2 Kings this morning. He didn’t even have to provide an easy task for Naaman’s healing. Yet he chose to show mercy to help Naaman come to know the Lord, and so that world might know there is a prophet in Israel, a mouthpiece for the one true and living God.
It is not that we are not responsible for our actions. We very much are as Jesus and Paul remind us this morning. Yet we are called to still show others mercy. In doing so, our hope is that they will listen and in doing so be transformed by drawing closer to God. If not, we simply wipe the dust off our feet and move on to the next person in need of mercy, as Jesus teaches us.
There’s an important Biblical question that we all need to ask: are we merciful? It is important for us to ask yourselves this as individuals and, as we approach Independence Day, to ask as a nation. If the answer to this question is yes, then we need to figure out what we are doing well and right and continue down that path. If the answer is no, then we, as Christians, must do everything in our power to correct that. In instituting justice, we as followers of Christ Jesus are called to do so with mercy. We are called to do so with a spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness. This doesn’t remove the wrong, but it does allow it to be mended, and it allows us all to move forward together to come closer in relationship to God.
As a final note, when the Disciples return, amazed at their ability to deal with demons, Jesus tells them this isn’t the thing to rejoice in. Instead, Jesus tells them to rejoice that “your names are written in heaven.” In 2 Corinthians 12:9, Paul tells us that the power of God is “made perfect in weakness.” That is what Jesus is trying to express to the Disciples. We would do well to listen too. In the Kingdom of God, might does not make right. Right, in the Kingdom of God, comes from the places we often do not want to go: Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Mercy. The fullness of God’s power doesn’t come from armies and palaces, but from His death on the Cross. It comes from God’s sacrifice in place of all of us. This is where true power comes from, and we should never forget that.