I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
– Hosea 6:6
Ms. Ford ran her index finger across the passenger door’s exterior.
Odd.
Leaning over, she examined the surface. Small chunks of paint were missing. Tiny. Almost imperceptible. Like a bird had spent the afternoon pecking off the smooth enamel.
Something else caught her eye. Strange. Where the curb met the street’s asphalt, just under the car chassis, lay a pile of small stones. She was perplexed.
“Wait a minute…” Ms. Ford mumbled, channeling her inner Sherlock Holmes. Over the past few years, the concrete steps in front of her row home had been decaying. Now and then, a group of neighborhood boys convened on her crumbling steps. She didn’t mind. Never really paid much attention. But today, Ms. Ford put two and two together.
Evidently, the boys were making a sport of picking the stones from the dissolving cement, pitching them across the sidewalk and landing them on her car door. Hence the small dents. Mystery solved. Now what?
The next day, returning home from a long day of teaching at our school, Ms. Ford spotted the boys down the street. After parking the car in the usual spot, she got out, placed her briefcase on stoop and started walking in their direction. The boys pivoted to walk away.
“Hey guys,” she called. “Wait!” The group stopped.
“What do you guys like?” Ms. Ford asked.
“Huh?” answered the confused, self appointed leader. “What do you mean?”
“What kind of food you like?”
“Cookies,” chimed one. “I like cake,” echoed another.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Ms. Ford began. “You guys stop picking the rocks out of my front steps and tossing them at my car, I’ll bake you some really delicious chocolate chip cookies. Deal?” With a look of disbelief, the boys nodded.
Now every Friday, a group of hungry adolescents arrive at Ms. Ford’s front door to receive a treat. Some weeks it’s cookies. Sometimes banana loaf. Occasionally, a piece of pie. She now knows the boys by name. Their parents have become friends. “There’s a greater sense of community now,” she reflected. “I like what’s happening in the neighborhood.”
I’m not sure about you, but I find Ms. Ford’s initial reaction to the situation fascinating. Almost unbelievable. How would you have responded? Some of us might have called the police. Others might demand a more punitive solution—after all “those kids should pay the price” for their mischief. Maybe a threatening confrontation with parents, requesting financial compensation for damages. Or a big, bold sign placed on the front steps: “Trespassers will be prosecuted!”
But fresh baked cookies? Her response seems so soft. So charitable. So gracious. I might even use the word…..merciful. And yet this merciful response yields an outcome far better than any retributive reaction. Beyond curtailing the destructive behavior, something beautiful was ushered into her neighborhood. Friendship. Community. Connection.
Recently, the word mercy is on my mind. It keeps popping up. In church, in liturgy. Even in a Bishop’s sermon directed towards the president on national television. But I’m curious how mercy fits into our current culture—or if it fits at all. Is mercy just a lofty, sentimental relic of the religious realm, totally detached from day to day life? Mercy, it seems, has vanished in our competitive, winner take all society.
And yet Jesus makes the bold statement, “Be merciful as God is merciful”, seemingly articulating a more imaginative vision of how humans can live together. Why would Jesus waste time saying, “Blessed are the merciful,” if he didn’t believe something good and wonderful returns to those who give mercy? Jesus didn’t lie.
But Jesus was known for challenging limited, ego-driven impulses—calling ordinary people to more redemptive levels of human interaction.
Writer Anne Lamott captures mercy’s complexity this way: “I’m not sure I even recognize the ever-presence of mercy anymore, the divine and the human: the messy, crippled, transforming, heartbreaking, lovely, devastating presence of mercy. But I have come to believe that I am starving to death for it, and my world, too.”
She continues, “Mercy is radical kindness. Mercy means offering or being offered aid in desperate straits. Mercy is not deserved. It involves absolving the unabsolvable, forgiving the unforgivable.”
Ms. Ford gives me a glimpse of mercy in action and its potential power. Sure, it’s a small act, in a small neighborhood, in a small city. But it gives me hope. Hope that if enough of us try practicing mercy, others might follow. Witnessing that reality will be a gift to our world—especially if it comes in the form of a plate of delicious, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.