mercy – By Another Road

Empathy: A Sermon

I preached this sermon on Sunday, December 21, 2025 at St. Anne Episcopal Church, West Chester, OH. The lectionary text cited is Matthew 1:18-25.

Most of us, while growing up, have certain moments when we realize something difficult about the way the world works. Perhaps that things are not as safe or pleasant as we had thought them to be; that people are often lonelier and more lost than we had imagined, and that we ourselves might someday feel that way, too. These are not happy discoveries, but they are important ones.

When I was in the fifth grade, I had a group of friends, and every day at recess we played foursquare. If you’re not familiar with that game, it’s essentially a group of four people bouncing a large rubber ball back and forth among, you guessed it, four squares, and trying to get each other out. We loved it.

But one of my friends at the time had a little bit of a schoolyard bully streak in him, and one day at recess he started taunting another boy who was not in our group. The particulars of his taunt don’t really matter—they were made up and casually cruel. But they stuck, and soon some of the other kids joined in. I did not, but I also didn’t say or do anything about it.

This went on for a few days, and I just remember that it started to bother me more and more. Until one day, I told my friend in the middle of the foursquare game that he should stop saying those things, that he was being mean, and that I was not going to be “one of his followers” who went along with this. Oh, this enraged him. He turned on me in a fury and starting aiming that rubber foursquare ball at my face. The other kids didn’t join in, per se, but they didn’t say or do anything, and I soon found myself exiled from that particular group. This is how the world works sometimes.

Now this is not an after-school special on tv—there was no happy ending where I befriended the bullied boy and started a new group of misfit friends. I wish I had. I did realize though, that there are choices to be made, and a price bound up in them, when we encounter those ways the world works which we simply cannot abide.

But I think the most important thing that I learned in that situation was the power of empathy—of placing yourself in the shoes of someone else and letting your own heart break for them a bit. It is a wondrous thing, empathy—a small, simple choice made in a million different instances that can transform everything within us and among us.

Now there are some in popular culture and other circles these days who are claiming that empathy is toxic. That it’s dangerous to morality and social order to care too much about others’ feelings or experiences. And for such people….I try to have empathy. We are all afraid or resentful of what we don’t understand, sometimes. But we must decide what to do in response to that fear.

Which brings us to our gospel today. Another fearful, confused person who has to make a decision about circumstances he does not understand is Joseph. At least that is how I imagine him when I try to empathize with his situation: shocked, bewildered, conditioned by the strict codes of honor and shame within his own culture.

Before any divine dreams or angelic messages come to explain the circumstances to Joseph, there is simply a regular man, alone, with more questions than answers. Presumably through family or friends, Joseph has been given the news of Mary’s mysterious pregnancy. And, according to the standards of his time, no one would have questioned it if he reacted with rage or rejection. The taunts of schoolyard bullies would pale in comparison to what Mary was up against.

But instead, we have the first Christmas miracle before Christmas even arrives, and it is simply this: the choice of empathy. So quick you might overlook it: Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose [Mary] to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.

It is good to dwell on this sentence. We may not fully understand the patriarchal culture of 1st century Galilee, but we can understand this much: Joseph, in this moment, is not going along with the way that his world works. He is choosing, as best he knows how, to be empathetic with whatever Mary’s situation is.

This is a risky choice for him. Some people already knew that Mary was with child, so Joseph’s decision to protect her practically ensures the whispers of his neighbors or even their outright derision of him. He is refusing, after all, to punish her and to thereby protect his own honor, as his culture would expect.

But he is a righteous man, as Mathew tells us, righteous in the ways of God, not of culture wars, and somehow that means he is willing to pay the price of empathy.

Imagine that—empathy as the hallmark of righteousness. A concept that I wish the whole of the Christian church would embrace.

Because we should not overlook this in the narrative: Joseph’s empathy comes BEFORE his angelic dream, which then reveals God’s plan. Joseph’s empathy is the precondition of his participation in the Kingdom of Heaven.

I am going to say that one more time for the ones who need to hear it: his empathy is the precondition of his participation in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Not his knowledge or his power or his strength. Not his social standing or his wealth. Not his capacity for censure or his commitment to cultural purity.

His empathy is the precondition of his participation in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Miracle of miracles! At the end of Advent we finally see it clearly: Empathy is “the way of the Lord” we have been commanded to prepare. Empathy is the means of fulfillment of the ancient promises of God. Empathy is the nature of the One who is coming. Who knew?

Well, actually, all of the prophets knew this; all of the patriarchs and matriarchs; all of the saints of every age knew this and continue to say it. But somehow, in 2025, we need to keep saying it, and so we will:

Empathy is the precondition of our participation in the Kingdom of Heaven. We let our hearts break a little bit for someone else, and God rushes in.

This will come as less than good news to some—the schoolyard bullies we encounter at any age and in every age. The self-righteous and the judgmental. The condemnatory and the incurious. The ones who have confused discipleship with the hard, glossy veneer of social acceptability. They are not yet on board with empathy, but just you wait.

Because Jesus is coming and has already come to assemble his own group of misfit friends, and nobody is excluded from this group except the ones who lack empathy. They’ll be welcome too, once the veneer cracks. It usually does. Eventually we all discover that things are not as safe or pleasant as we hoped them to be. That we are all a bit lonelier or more lost that we thought we’d end up.

And that is when empathy is born in us, and when God’s advent can truly begin.

So here is my invitation to you, friends, in the spirit of St. Joseph: between now and Christmas Eve, think of one person you don’t understand, or whom you resent. It could be anyone, but ideally someone close to your daily life. And as challenging as it might be, I want you to take just five minutes alone and do your prayerful best to empathize with them. Imagine what struggles or fears might be shaping their decisions. Consider what hidden wounds might still plague them. Try to remember even one thing that you probably both share in common.

And that’s it. You don’t have to write a letter or tell anyone at all. Just give your own heart the brief gift of empathy—the tiniest crack of compassion—so that God can achieve his advent into you. Who knows what dreams or visions might follow.

I have no idea whatever happened to the boy I defended or the bully I enraged. All I do know is that the empathy I chose that day is something I would never take back. And if I accomplish nothing else in life, I hope that by the end my heart is broken all the way open by love, I hope it is broken into a thousand glimmering pieces of grace given and received, and that God alone will know what do with all of it.

I know that this is not always how the world works, but how beautiful it will be when it does.

When at last, in perfect empathy, He comes.

Mercy: A Sermon

I preached this sermon on Sunday, August 4, 2024 at St. Anne Episcopal Church, West Chester, OH. The lectionary text cited is 2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a.

People sometimes ask the question, if you could have dinner with any one person, living or dead, who would it be, and why? And usually the answer we give is a celebrity or some other interesting figure from history—somebody fun or fascinating. Mine would probably be either Rowan Williams, the theologian and former Archbishop of Canterbury…or Dolly Parton. And that probably tells you all you need to know about me!

But this morning I have a different question for you…and it’s maybe a little bit of a harder one: If you could make amends with any one person in your life, living or dead, who would it be? If you could sit down across from just one person and know that somehow, the breach between you could be repaired, the fence mended, the hostility put to rest…who would you pick? Imagine, for just a moment, what that would feel like.

Imagining such a thing can be a tender, even painful sort of moment…especially if we feel that this is not a realistic possibility. I can think of a few people who were once in my life that I wish, somehow, I could get another chance to say the thing I never said, or to take back the thing I did say.

But that pang in the stomach, that sense of longing for reconnection…it’s good to be reminded of it from time to time. I would say it’s necessary, even, in our life as Christian disciples. Because that pang, that longing, is indicative of a fundamental part of our faith. It’s a part that we don’t talk about a lot, because it can get overlooked in our conversations about love or justice or wisdom or truth. And that fundamental thing is mercy.

Mercy is an somewhat misunderstood concept. It is not just what a judge offers to a criminal, or some sort of favor bestowed the unworthy. It is far humbler, and gentler and more mutual than that. Mercy is the softening of the heart that takes place when we truly, fully see each other. It is the thing that makes reconciliation possible.

For me, mercy is like that feeling when your aching bones and tired mind sink into a warm bath at the end of the day, when there is nothing left to give or to prove or to hide. Mercy is like slipping under cool sheets and falling asleep beneath the untroubled, drifting stars. It is the remembrance of the fundamental kindness that holds all things and all people together.

And the desire to take part in mercy is what prompted you to think of that one, seemingly inaccessible person. It’s that part of ourselves that longs to say to the ones we’ve lost and the ones who’ve hurt us, I see now, I see YOU now, and I feel seen by you now, and so now let us rest in the silence of what we have seen, of the price that was paid, of what is forgiven, and of whatever it is that waits for us on the other side of regret.

This sort of mercy is important. And it’s essential, actually, if we hope to begin to understand the Gospels and the many complicated stories that are given to us in Scripture. Without mercy, they can seem more like a series of vivid, sometimes frightening dreams. But with mercy—it all begins to make a bit more sense.

For example, consider the reading from 2 Samuel. I promised you last week that we would get the rest of the story—David’s comeuppance after his seduction of Bathsheba and his plot to kill her husband. And today we see it. The Lord sends a prophet to David and, by way of a parable that contrasts mercy and hard-heartedness, he gets David to unwittingly pronounce judgment on himself.

You are the man, the prophet Nathan says—you are the man without mercy. You are the one who has tramped on the vulnerable! You are the one who has forgotten who you are! Where is the old David, the one with the gentle light in his eyes? Where is the young shepherd who would not hurt even the smallest lamb? Where is the brave young man who stood up to terrible giants? When did you, David, decide that you were now a terrible giant yourself?

And, even though he has done horrific things, and even though he will eventually pay a dear price for them, David understands. He sees his failure. And he seeks God’s mercy. “I have sinned against the Lord,” he says, and this one sentence is the key to the story—the softening of his heart, the crack in his defensiveness, the one thing that makes healing and reconciliation possible again.

Without mercy, this would just be a story of a violent king and an angry God. But with mercy, it is a reminder that even in our worst moments, God refuses to forsake us. God will always call us back to the most innocent and compassionate and tender version of ourselves.

Because sometimes that one person we wish we could sit across from and make amends with is simply an earlier version of ourselves. And in such moments, mercy begins with recognizing how far we have strayed from the person we thought we were, or the person we once hoped to be.

Mercy, for David, is being able to look at himself and to say, I see now, God. I see YOU, now, God, and am seen by you, God. Every part of me: the terrible king I’ve become and the gentle child I once was. Come what may, let me not forget this seeing, God. Let me sing Psalms about this seeing. Let me not forget how you called me back to myself, how you reminded me that the best parts of myself are not lost entirely.

My friends, if we hope to make any sense of the Bible, and of what it means to follow Jesus, and what it must look like to navigate the troubled times in which we live, I will tell you this: mercy is the key. Not being right all the time. Not being the strongest or the most impressive. Not winning the game or the prize, whatever that is. It’s just mercy.

Mercy is the only thing that will lead not just to change in our world, but transformation of our world. And it begins, as most things do, within each of us.

If you are wondering how on earth to begin, or how to engage in the practice of mercy, here and now, I have a very practical exercise for you—one I read about in a book many years ago. It’s simple but powerful, and it goes like this:

This afternoon, or this evening, or whenever you have a few quiet minutes to yourself, I want you to call to mind that person you thought of a few minutes ago. The one that is distant from you. Imagine them, as vividly as you can, at their happiest or healthiest. Imagine them as God might see them, before the hurt, beneath the pain and fear. Imagine yourself the same, the two of you sitting across the table, both of you at your best.

And then, just for a few minutes, imagine what you would say to them.

Maybe it’s, I forgive you.

Maybe it’s, please forgive me.

Maybe it’s, I don’t know how to forgive you just yet, but I’d like to someday.

Maybe it’s, I know you tried your best.

Maybe it’s just, I don’t understand why it turned out the way it did between us but I wish it were different.

And I see you, now.

And I wish you peace.

Maybe you can imagine them saying something back. Or maybe not. It’s ok either way.

And then rest in the silence. And know that, somewhere, somehow, in this imagined conversation which is a sort of prayer, that a small seed of mercy has taken root in your heart and has been released into the world.

Try it sometime. I’d love to hear how it goes if you do. And with practice, maybe it will even empower you to have a real-life conversation like that with someone when the time comes. And God will be glad.

Because what I believe, fundamentally, is that if you asked God who he’d like to sit across the table from and make amends, it’s you, and me, and all of us. God is hoping for some version of this conversation each week at this Eucharistic table, so that he can say to us, yes, I see now, I see you, now, I long to be seen BY you, that you might slip into my love like a warm bath and slide under the cool sheets to sleep an untroubled sleep.

And then you will understand that this was always the key to every story, this was always the dream written in those silent, drifting stars, this was alway the word written upon your soul to call you back to yourself and to one another:

Mercy.

Speak it, and practice it, and it will tell you all you need to know.

“And”: A Sermon

I preached this sermon on Sunday, October 18, 2020 at Trinity Episcopal Church, Fort Wayne, IN. The lectionary text cited is Matthew 22:15-22:

The Pharisees went and plotted to entrap Jesus in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

…

“Tell us whose side you’re on,” the Pharisees and the Herodians are asking Jesus today. “Tell us who has the ultimate power: the God of Israel, or this Emperor to whom we owe our taxes?”

They are trying to trip Jesus up with this question, of course, because taking a side in this particular dispute will either undermine the Roman authorities (bad idea) or disappoint Jesus’ Judean followers. A perfect conundrum, his inquisitors assume.

But do you remember that moment, early in his ministry, when the people of Nazareth get really angry at Jesus’s preaching and try to drive him off of a cliff, and then somehow, inexplicably, he simply “passed through the midst of them and went on his way”?

Yeah, he pretty much does the same thing here. Jesus is really good at transcending these no-win situations. His answer, as simple as it is, stuns the questioners—“Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the Emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” It’s the first century equivalent of a mic drop–and so they just sort of shut up and go away.

But I don’t think our takeway is simply that Jesus is really good at giving clever answers or getting himself out of a bind. No, what we see here is that Jesus brings an entirely different mindset to the world than that of his challengers. Unlike them, he does not see things as a choice between binaries—this world OR the next one, insiders OR outsiders, attentiveness to the realm of God OR Caesar.

Instead, Jesus is someone who almost always operates in terms of “both/and.” He demonstrates, time and again, that a meaningful response to the complexities of the human condition require us to live in the tension of opposites, making space for both THIS thing and THAT thing, THIS person, and THAT person. We don’t get to opt out of loving God or our neighbor just because things are complicated and nuanced.

I had a professor in seminary, Caroline McCall, who taught us to drop the word “but” from our vocabulary when we were engaging in dialogue with one another—ie. I like what you said, BUT, I think my idea is better. That is important, BUT this is more important.

Instead, she encouraged us to say “AND.” That is important. AND, this is also important.

I came to understand from Caroline’s teaching that this wasn’t just a strategy for civil discussion; it was a social and theological lens that allows for the coexistence of diverse values and perspectives. It is a way of communicating that invites more ideas into the circle, even paradoxical ideas, even ideas we might not agree with, and in doing so our hearts and our minds become just a bit more open, charitable, Christlike. I might disagree with you AND I am still committed to loving you.

And this is, in effect, what Jesus does to answer the Pharisees and the Herodians today. He is saying: take seriously the demands of the present social order AND love God and your neighbor with all your heart and soul and mind. Engage as a participant in this world, as imperfect and broken as it might be, AND never forget that God is breaking in, forging a new world all around you. Do both. Be both.

Those who are committed to binaries, to zero-sum games, to seeing the world as winners and losers, are likely to be challenged by this. Still, as followers of the way of Jesus, we need to embody non-binary thinking now more than ever.

When we are confronted in our own lives by people who always try to force us into picking sides, into seeing the world as nothing more than a never ending power struggle in which we must vanquish our perceived enemies, we need to pause, and take a breath, and pass through their midst. Not out of fear or apathy, but because the answer to every question lies on the other side of our enmity.

And I know how tempting it is in these polarized times to pick a team, to pick a side, to think of everyone as either an ally or an enemy, but I am telling you this: if the church doesn’t lead the way in opting out of this binary way of thinking and categorizing the world, if people of faith and good conscience don’t do it, then it will not happen, and we will continue to grow more suspicious of one another and farther and farther apart, long past any particular election season or pandemic. And if we are suspicious and apart, we will never flourish, not one of us.

The change has to begin here, now, among us and within us, because first and foremost we are citizens of God’s Kingdom, and that is a place fundamentally shaped by the word “AND”: a place that is just AND compassionate, free AND interdependent, abundant AND equitable. Rooted in history AND looking towards the future.

And you know what is so fantastic, so beautiful? It is that we are already doing this; we are already living in this spirit right here at Trinity. We demonstrate this every week by coming together with people—people similar to us and people very different from us—to turn our hearts towards God and one another and by saying YES: yes, life is hard, yes, the world can be angry and cruel, yes, I am exhausted and scared and money is tight and my relationship is on the rocks and my dog is sick and I am so tired of political ads on TV–

AND…

AND life is a gift, and God’s blessings are everywhere, and Christ is in the face of the person next to me, and how amazing it is to be alive today, to breathe the crisp fall air, and how good it is to strive for justice and mercy in this land, and how perfectly imperfect is this very moment, here in the presence of Jesus who is passing, lovingly passing through our midst, passing through our fears, passing through our binaries, guiding us out into the True Answer to every question.

How gut-wrenching it is to love him, to follow him where he goes AND how necessary, how grace-filled, how complete.

We will only glimpse God’s fullness, brothers and sisters and sibilings, when “AND” becomes the vocabulary of our hearts. When we live as though there is space enough for everyone, and mercy enough for everyone, and peace enough for everyone, and food and shelter and justice enough for everyone. There can be. There will be. Because no matter how many blustering emperors come and go from this earth, we worship a God who is ultimately on everyone’s side–a God who will not rest until the day we are all resting together.

That day feels a long way off sometimes. A long way off.

And:

We will get there.