Mercy | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Happy Are the Merciful for They Shall Be Shown Mercy

By Anita Mathias

Blessed are the merciful for they shall be shown mercy,

Jesus says, articulating a law which underlies the physical universe

—and human life. What you sow you reap.

I know some gentle merciful ones, and indeed, they are blessed,

beloved, in demand. The kindness they sow, the thoughtfulness

comes back to them with compound interest.

Their lives are relatively free from the interpersonal conflicts

and enmities which mar so many lives.

The natural law of sowing and reaping: What you plant in

the soil of your life, after a brief or lengthy period of dormancy,

inevitably flows back to you, thorns and nettles, or apples

and cherries. Life returns sunshine for goodness sown

and darkness and trouble for darkness and trouble sown.

(Of course, the merciful are not immune from suffering,

in this fallen, cracked world–human greed polluting our

environment, and our very cells, and greedy people swindling us.

Besides, there are demonic “principalities and powers,

spiritual forces of evil” contending for the soul and shalom

of good people such as Job, or many faithful Christians today.)

But, in the main, those who go through life lightly,

making allowances for human weakness, being kind

in reviews, in tipping, in how they secretly judge others,

and what they say to or about them, meet with somewhat

the same gentleness as they go through life. And mercy

is what we need, we frazzled, frail, forgetful creatures,

whose spirit is willing, but whose flesh is weak, who

can so easily give way to unkindness and impulsively say

and do things we regret. We need mercy as we pilgrim

through life, and so we must rigorously train ourselves

to dish it out: Mercy, mercy, mercy.

Blessed are the merciful, Jesus says, using the word makarios,

Or happy. What is the opposite of being happy or blessed?

It is to be unhappy, to live with the hatred or curses of others

because of one’s dishonest or cruel actions. Being unmerciful, and

misusing power is an addictive dark pleasure which corrupts

the heart, soul, mind, and body, creating molecules of cortisol

and adrenaline in our brains and body, changing their very chemistry.

Those who step out of God’s protection with cruelty

and unmercifulness inevitably find thorns, thistles

and stumbling blocks on their path through life.

However, sowing and reaping, the merciful finding mercy,

while the unmerciful find misery is a terrifying message

for us who have not always been merciful, I among them.

So we, who have been unmerciful in speech, in writing,

in our actions, must repent and ask God for forgiveness.

And He will forgive. For in the Supreme Court of God,

who is the righteous judge of all the world, Jesus Christ,

who is love, voluntarily bore the punishment, the sentence,

that the just laws of the universe, of sowing and reaping,

demand that we suffer. He bore the penalty for our

eviscerating words, our meanness, our stinginess.

And in what theologians call the divine exchange, because

he bore the punishment, streams of mercy can flow to us,

streams of good ideas, comfort, the certainty of God’s love,

the certainty of being his beloved child. And the more we cling

to Jesus by faith, reading, meditating on, and almost eating

his life-changing words, the more we experience change

in the deep structure of our characters, not just in what we do,

but in who we are, in the secret places of the heart.

So go through life with as much kindness as you can

while being as wise as a serpent and as blameless as a dove.

Repent of past unmercifulness, and decide once again to follow

Jesus, to dwell in Jesus, hide yourself in Jesus, and to be merciful.

And the love of God, and the abundance of his household

Will flow into you and through you to the world that God so loves.

Becoming merciful will mean a massive change in the deep structure

Of our hearts and our characters. It is partly a decision.

However, changing who we are needs the Spirit of Jesus in us,

changing us. It needs Jesus himself within us, changing us. So come,

Lord Jesus. We welcome you in. Change us.

Holy Spirit, please come. Change us.

Veni Sancte Spiritus.

Amen.

This is a meditation on Matthew, Chapter 5

I would love you to read my memoir, fruit of much “blood, sweat, toil and tears.”

Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India in the UK, and in the US, here, well, and widely available, online, worldwide 🙂

If you’d like to follow these meditations the moment they appear, please subscribe to Christian Meditation with Anita Mathias at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or

Amazon Music

or Audible.

And I would be grateful for reviews and ratings!!

If you’d like to read my previous recorded meditations,

7 The Power of Christ’s Resurrection. For Us. Today

6 Each Individual’s Unique and Transforming Call and Vocation

5 Change Your Life by Changing Your Thoughts

4 Do not be Afraid–But be as Wise as a Serpent

3 Our Failures are the Cracks Through Which God’s Power Enters our Lives

2 The World is full of the Glory of God

1 Mindfulness is Remembering the Presence of Christ with us.

Thank you 🙂

How to Enjoy a Big, Spacious, Open-hearted Life

By Anita Mathias

Image: UNHCR

“The ability to enjoy a big, spacious, abundant, open-hearted life is directly proportional to your ability to love everyone, especially those who are different from you,” Brian Houston, founder of Hillsong wrote. “We cannot reduce people’s whole lives into one sweeping, judgmental statement.”

I love that sentence… I want that, a big, spacious, open-hearted life. And for that, I have to learn to obey the two commandments that Jesus said were the greatest, and to, somehow or the other, learn to think and act with kindness, not only towards those whom it’s easy to love… but towards those whom it is difficult to love because they are too like me!! and those who are different from me.

And agape love starts with looking, with seeing.

Like everything else in the Christian life, it works by contraries and paradoxes. We become bigger, better, people by really looking at others, really seeing them, really listening, emptying ourselves of ourselves.

* * *

My life and heart have begun to be enlarged and enriched as I talk, whenever possible, to the people of the many races and nationalities and cultures and customs whom I encounter here in Oxford, and when I travel in England and Europe.

When I listen to and meditate on big chunks of Scripture on my headphones as I go on a walk (in The Message, or in German, which I am learning), I can feel myself changing ever so slightly, slowly but surely, becoming a bigger, better, and wiser person. And similarly, I feel my heart and my world-view slowly expanding, sometimes splitting open, as I observe without judgement, and talk to as many different people as I can whose race, culture, stage of life, and backgrounds are different from my own.

Making a conscious effort to have meaningful conversations with people whose life-experience is very different to my own is an enriching, interesting, and heart-expanding experience. At a recent Christian social event, I decided not to chiefly talk to my friends who were there, but to those who were at a different age/stage than I was, or who, like me, stood out in the lily-white crowd. I had interesting conversations with a doctoral student from Singapore, a postdoc from Malaysia, a black South African, and the nicest Iranian couple who became Christians after the wife saw Jesus in a dream (and who loved my daughter, Irene, because, apparently, she looked like their sweet daughter). I spoke to a mum who had recently lost her young child, to a church member with mental health problems, to my daughters’ friends. It was the most fascinating three hours, and I was so glad I had decided not to just catch up with my friends but to seek out those who were different to me.

* * *

And to live with openness, without judgement or fear, is essential in this world which, inevitably, will be increasingly multi-cultural, increasingly shaped by migration. Migration is a potent political issue… one which lay behind Angela Merkel’s plummeting approval ratings after her generosity to migrants in 2015.

I have spent roughly a third of my life in each of three countries: India, England, and the US. And all my friends have wanted roughly the same things: interesting work; a spacious, light-filled house in a safe, quiet location; a good education and opportunities for their children; physical safety, good health and health care, leisure for exercise, to read, watch movies, travel, go to the theatre, whatever; friendship, love. Basically, the stuff on Maslow’s hierarchy of basic needs.

And the migrants among us want, need and seek the same things.

Migration is built into the DNA of all living being. Birds, butterflies, fish, mammals, migrate according to the seasons and the availability of food. At a time when climate change, and the actions of aggressive nations, like China are emptying the seas of sand and fish, and stripping the land of animals and green things, causing increasing desertification and water shortages, and the rising violence which leads to poverty, it is quite natural to want to move to where one can breathe freely, eat healthily, drink clean water, live in safety, and give your children the chance in life that other people’s children have.

I have been surprised by how vehemently some Christians in the US support Trump’s cruel treatment of migrants. And of course, uneasiness about migration was a major element of Brexit, and is shaping European politics.

But migration is and will probably become an increasing fact of life. As Christ-followers living in affluent countries, with everything we need, we must resist fear that migration will lead to scarcity. Cultural shifts, yes, and perhaps exciting ones. Scarcity no; most economists concur in this.

For our own mental, emotional and spiritual health, we must live with open, non-judgmental eyes, open-hearted interest, and a lack of condemnation and prejudice towards other people. And that openheartedness and generous-spiritedness will immeasurably enrich our lives, giving us a big, spacious, abundant, open-hearted life.

Animosity towards others, whether in the sanctuary of our hearts, or expressed verbally, online, or in our facial expressions or actions towards others, is like a tiny toxin which will slowly but inevitably affect our own mental and emotional health and happiness. We are what we think. Our negative thoughts change our body chemistry on the molecular level as stress hormones like adrenaline build up. Unkind judgements of others, and racial or religious prejudice, are like disease-causing carcinogens affecting our soul and spirit, which, if not checked, will eventually affect our mental, emotional, spiritual and physical health. And will spill over into a less happy family and society.

Conversely, open-heartedness offers a happier, more peaceful life-experience, and is a pathway to a rich, “big, spacious, abundant life.”

* * *

As with any change, it comes through two factors, our own decision and actions, and the grace of God.

“The Baptism in the Holy Spirit is a baptism of love,” Andrew Murray wrote; another favourite sentence. Sometimes, we just need to ask for God’s wise, kind, egalitarian eyes to see the world and people as he sees them, and to change our hearts and make them a bit more like his.

Books referred to which you might enjoy

1 Brian Houston: Live, Love, Lead: Your Best is Yet to Come on Amazon.comand on Amazon.co.uk

2 Andrew Murray: Absolute Surrender on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

3 Gary Haugen: The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence on Amazon.comand on Amazon.co.uk

4 Eugene Peterson: The Message on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

A God’s Eye View of the Migrant Crisis

By Anita Mathias

Migrants outside Keleti Station, Budapest

Over the last month, Europe has been convulsed by a dramatic migration crisis. Thousands of thousands of predominantly Muslim refugees and economic migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iraq, Pakistan, Nigeria and Somalia, often armed with Iphone 6+s, marched or were smuggled through Turkey, Greece, Macedonia and Serbia to Hungary, and then on to Austria, Germany, Sweden and other Scandinavian countries.

“This is an invasion,” said Hungarian Catholic Archbishop Laszlo Kiss-Rigo. “They come here with cries of ‘Allahu Akbar. They want to take over. They behave in a way that is very arrogant.”

In Britain, Rev. Ian Paul quotes MEP Daniel Hannan: Should we contract out our immigration policy to people smugglers? Instead of those in the camps who have been classified by the UN as refugees, should we allow a lucky few to jump the queue by breaking the law?

The conservative blogger, Adrian Hilton, Archbishop Cranmer, pointing out that, for the last six years, Mohammed has been the most common name given to British babies, cites Oxford demographer David Coleman: Through immigration and procreation, Britain will be a majority Muslim country by 2050, Which may be precisely what every citizen wants. Or may not.

I then read Rev. Giles Fraser, the Loose Canon, whose hyperbole seems to me to resonate with the heartbeat of God. “Take all of them? Surely that’s the biblical answer to the “how many can we take?” question. Take every single last one. Let’s dig up the greenbelt, turn our Downton Abbeys into flats and churches into temporary dormitories. Yes, it may change the character of this country. But let’s do whatever it takes to open the door of welcome.”

I read Left, Right and Centre, and then, confused, I pray. I ask God “So! What do you want me to think? What is your heartbeat? What do you think about this?

* * *

1 When you fly high, you cannot see borders between nations. Mountain, valley, forest all merge. It’s all one.

God sees a borderless world. His world.

The Biblical writers reiterate that God has compassion on all that he has made, all human beings. He is even concerned about the animals that might perish were he to judge Nineveh.

He loves the Syrians fleeing violence, and the Eritreans fleeing indefinite conscription for both men and women, virtual slavery, with sexual and physical violence, while the family at home struggle. And he loves the coiffed, diamonded European matron who wears the net worth of the Eritean’s entire village on her person. He loves refugees, and he loves economic migrants who subject themselves to danger, hunger and thirst to gain a fulfilling life for themselves and their children.

When he sees his children safe, out of danger, well-fed, well-educated and happy, He is happy.

2 What is the Spirit saying to the church? To Christians?

The great words spoken by angels whenever they encounter mortals, often repeated by Christ: Do not be afraid.

Do not let your hearts be troubled; neither let them be afraid.

Let nothing disturb thee; let nothing affright thee. All things are passing, God never changes.

Whether or not it is clear to you, the universe is unfolding as it should.

As the BBC economics editor Robert Peston wrote recently, “immigration promotes growth.” Economist Michael Clemens for the Centre for Global Development writes A world without borders makes economic sense. The world impoverishes itself much more through blocking international migration than any other single class of international policy. 40% of adults in the poorest quarter of nations wish to move permanently to another country. Preventing them from doing so causes more than just human harm: it hobbles the global economy, costing the world roughly half its potential economic product.

The Atlantic: Economists agree immigration is good for a nation. They term it “Immigration surplus:” the positive effect immigration has by creating new demand for goods and services, which encourages employers to hire more people. And if migrants replace incumbent workers, even though wages are lowered, goods and services are produced more cheaply. The winners are broadly distributed and the primary losers are incumbent workers, whose wages fall until the resulting economic growth boosts their wages.

The Economist: Migrants are net contributors to the public purse. They inject economic dynamism. They are, almost by definition, self-starters.

In the United States, the world’s largest economy and richest country, 12.9% of the population are foreign-born according to the latest census, and 11 million, 3.5% of the population are illegal immigrants. For generations, the US has led the world in the arts, sciences, technology, business, you name it…

2B. I am an immigrant myself, twice over, actually. I became a US citizen while I lived in the US for 17 years, and then a UK citizen when we moved back here 11 years ago. (My husband, Roy, is also a New Zealand citizen!)

Admittedly, we did not enter illegally. I don’t have the stomach for that–though faced with being aerially bombed as the Syrians are, who knows, who knows? My husband who has a BA from Cambridge University, a Ph.D from Johns Hopkins University, and post-docs from Stanford and Cornell entered on a Highly Skilled Workers Visa to a Professorship at the University of Birmingham (though we are now trying our hand at entrepreneurship!!)

Those striving to enter by sea and land, through mountains and rivers, within unventilated vans, on the tops of moving trains and beneath lorries and planes may not bring a fistful of advanced degrees with them, but they bring other things. Gumption, determination, physical strength, endurance, resilience, courage, optimism, hardiness, ambition, wild dreaming, a fierce love for their children. Thinking outside the box! How can these not benefit a society?

3 There is always enough

Be generous and willing to share.

As a road trip through Europe or North America shows, there is enough, there is room, there is room. Whereas people leave places like Gambia for lack of opportunity, the economy of Oxford where I live, and London even more so, is powered by immigrants—the cleaners, builders, house painters, gardeners, nurses, doctors, scientists and academics.

Jesus tells us secrets in the Sermon on the Mount: “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.” It is a little acknowledged secret about how the world works.

What is true for individuals is true for nations. Germany and Sweden have been particularly generous to migrants. Hungary, Estonia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland Bulgaria and Romania are unwilling to accept non-Christian migrants. Guess which countries will have an increased GDP and increased prosperity ten years from now? Increased international goodwill? Blessing, if a spiritual term can be quantified, as it often can.

4 God works through migration. Judaeo-Christian history commences with Abraham being commanded to leave his country and his people and migrate to the promised land. The Jews migrate to Egypt during famine, return; are forcibly relocated to Babylon, mostly return; are forcibly dispersed during the Diaspora following the destruction of the Temple in 70AD, and go out into all the world, the converted Jews taking the Gospel with them.

Christians are commanded to be a migrant people, to go into all the world, and tell the good news to all people.

Wherever true Christianity spreads, it must cause diligence and frugality, which, in the natural course of things, must beget riches! (John Wesley). Now the Muslim nations– are coming to Europe, a land of milk and honey in every supermarket

It is the greatest missionary opportunity ever. The nations come to the Christians.

Should they hear the startlingly good news of Jesus , the secrets of the Universe he shares, hear of the love of God, the power of prayer, the power of grace to change us, amazing grace, on the airwaves, in their new neighbourhoods, in the schools and in refugee centres, and should some of them return with it to their native lands: Wow. It may change the world as dramatically as when the Gospel first went forth to Europe.

6 Mercy and generosity–particularly to the stranger and the alien– are Christian imperatives

If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? asks the Apostle John.

The Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban says: “Europe needs to protect its Christian identity against a Muslim invasion, it’s millions, then tens of millions, because the supply of immigrants is endless.”

In fact, the supply of immigrants is not endless. 60% of adults in the world’s poorest countries have no wish to leave.

What is endless is the capacity of the mind of man to create wealth.

Wealth is infinitely expandable. Some of America’s most valuable companies—Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google are based on ideas incarnated by technology. Amazon now sells more ethereal books on Kindle than real books. Wealth is created from the mind of humankind (especially so, perhaps, when hooked to the mind of God). There is no ceiling. There is always enough.

We already grow enough food to feed everyone. The feeding of the five thousand? I believe it happened; it’s a miracle that has been repeated again and again.

There is enough wealth in this world to share with those fleeing bombs, those fleeing conscription, those fleeing starvation, and those fleeing boredom. Those who have come for safety, for food, for a Ph.D for themselves or their children.

There is enough goodness in the world for the Syrians and the Swiss, for the Afghanistanis and the Austrians, for the Indians and the English

Few brave oceans, mountains, barbed wire, tear gas, police dogs and stun grenades to be on welfare forever. The stranger and alien Judaeo-Christians are commanded to have compassion on will eventually be a dynamic blessing to the societies that offer sanctuary. So it has always been.

There are no borders in heaven. Living like that on earth will be out of everyone’s comfort zone. And in that zone, we change, we grow as we learn to really look, to see people with Jesus’s eyes, giving up prejudice, giving up pre-judging by skin colour, presumed intelligence, culture and education, or the lack of them. Being open-hearted. Obeying Jesus’ command not to judge.

By having mercy on the one in need, we live, as Jesus said in the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

7 When I lived in America, and attended a church which occasionally conflated patriotism with Christianity, we’d sing in church:

This land is your land; this land is my land,

From California, to the Yukon highway.

I imagine that’s what God sings over the world today

This land is your land,

But this land is NOT really your land,

This land is MY land.

From Syria to Sweden

From Eritrea to Germany.

Do not be afraid.

The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.

Be open-hearted and willing to share.

Tweetables

It is the greatest missionary opportunity ever. NEW from @anitamathias1 on the migrant crisis

The whole earth belongs to the lord. Be generous and willing to share NEW from @anitamathias1 on the migrant crisis

There are no borders in heaven. Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. NEW! @anitamathias1 on the migrant crisis

There is always enough. NEW from @anitamathias1 on the migrant crisis

When Waves of Mercy Crash Over My “If Onlys”

By Anita Mathias

Motherhood.

The land of If Onlys.

* * *

If only I’d been calmer when I was pregnant with her.

If only she’d had a higher birth weight.

If only I had breast-fed longer,

If only I had used better childcare,

Or no child-care.

If only I could have home-schooled,

Or read to the girls for longer,

Or helped them with homework,

Or spoken more positive words.

If only their parents had fought less.

If only, if only, if only, I wish….

* * *

And then, I feel them, from nowhere,

Waves of mercy, waves of grace.

They flood over me,

they pulse through me.

They pour, pour, pour.

And I see.

* * *

It’s clay. It’s all clay.

The deep blue clay of the bitter years,

The black clay of one’s failures,

Clay with streaks of silver tears,

Clay red with one’s heart’s blood.

And the best thing I can do

With my if onlys and I wishs

Is place them

In the potter’s magnificent hands

And watch

As he kneads,

Shapes, forms, moulds.

And I see, amazed,

A glorious vase emerge,

Perfect for its purpose,

In my daughter’s life,

As in my own.

Not what we had asked for,

Not what we had dreamed of,

Not what we had expected.

Something different is being fashioned

With the azure of failure,

The silver streaks of tears,

The red of one’s heart’s blood,

And the black of sadness.

And it is beautiful.

* * *

And so, I will no longer look back,

In regret

At foolish, messy yesterdays.

I will entrust yesterday to your magic

hands, O Potter, and tomorrow!

I will sit today,

Where waves of love

Crash over me,

I will sit

Where waves of mercy pour over my life.

In which there is Poetic Justice, for God is a Poet, but there is also Mercy

By Anita Mathias

Even while Esau was out hunting his father’s favourite wild game, Jacob and Rebecca slaughtered and cooked two choice young goats. Jacob served these to Isaac, pretending to be Esau, stealing Esau’s blessing.

A cruel deception.

And, uncannily, years later, in his own old age, Jacob’s sons sold his favourite son into slavery, dipping Joseph’s precious robe in the blood of a slaughtered goat, claiming he had been killed by a wild beast.

Tricked with a goat, just as he had tricked his own father with a goat.

* * *

The seeds we sow, we reap, measure for measure. They lie dormant in the earth, sometimes for years, then yield their harvest.

The good we have done yields blessing, and the evil we’ve done conjures shadowy forces against us.

And that’s scary if we have sown bad seeds, have said and done less than luminous things, things we are now ashamed of.

* * *

But we do not live in a mechanical universe. We live in a just universe, shot through by mercy like a golden cord.

The law of sowing and reaping is the deep magic from the dawn of time, in C. S. Lewis’s phrase. However there is a more powerful force still: the force of mercy, unleashed by the willing victim who bore in his body the punishment for all the bad seeds we have ever sown.

And so mercy triumphs over justice. The deep magic from before the dawn of time.

Jacob recovers Joseph; Esau was, in fact, blessed.

* * *

For myself, I want to sow good seed for the rest of my life.

But the bad seed I have sown? The things I am ashamed of? The things I did because of my small, bewildered, wounded heart?

I confess them.

I ask God’s forgiveness. I ask Christ’s blood to cover them.

And I step into the waterfall of mercy, the mercy that triumphs over justice because the One who loves the world is good.

I ask him to let all the bad seeds I’ve sown, which are still dormant, die.

And I ask him for grace to overplant much good seed to crowd out the bad seed.

And I ask him, the ultimate genetic engineer, to somehow, even now, change the DNA of the bad seed I’ve planted, and bring good from them.

And I place my life and future in His hands.

Holly Grantham kindly hosted this. Thanks Holly.

In Which There’s Justice and There’s Mercy, and Mercy Triumphs

By Anita Mathias

Sometimes The Book of Genesis sounds both disturbing, and quite contemporary.

In Genesis 34, Jacob’s only daughter Dinah is raped. In revenge, her brothers Simeon and Levi slaughter every male in Shechem, and loot it “seizing their flocks and herds and donkeys, and carrying off all their wealth and all their women and children, taking as plunder everything in the houses.”

And what happens to them? What consequences do they suffer? Apparently none at all.

Jacob scolds them, “You have brought trouble on me by making me a stench to the Canaanites,” and moves from Shechem to Bethel.

When the powerful misbehave, they often get away with it, in the short run.

God’s justice sometimes operates at the pace of trilogies or epics, not in sentences or chapters.

* * *

So, in the short run: no consequences for Simeon or Levi. Jacob is probably a little afraid of his powerful older sons who, from this chapter onwards, increasingly take control of the family.

However, when Jacob blesses his sons on his deathbed, he essentially curses his first-born Reuben, (who raped his father’s concubine) and Simeon and Levi, his second and third-born (while passing on the Abrahamic blessing and rights of the first born to Judah, whom he lavishly blesses.)

“Simeon and Levi are brothers—

their swords are weapons of violence.
⁶Let me not enter their council,
let me not join their assembly,
for they have killed men in their anger
and hamstrung oxen as they pleased.
⁷Cursed be their anger, so fierce,
and their fury, so cruel!
I will scatter them in Jacob
and disperse them in Israel. (Gen 49)

And so, Simeon’s descendants were absorbed into the territory of Judah (Jos 19:1, 9) and Levi’s descendants were dispersed throughout the land, living in 48 towns (Nu 35:2). They did not get their own land, as the other ten tribes do.

* * *

That’s how our lives go, isn’t it? Simeon and Levi were deceitful, angry, violent, and vengeful. So, to some extent, have we all been.

And their children suffered: they were scattered, losing the tribal satisfactions of living among those who have the same background, culture, history, traditions and quirks. Both forfeited the blessings of the first-born, which would have come to them after Reuben forfeited his.

But they lived long in the land, had children, grew old, unlike those they slaughtered. And these violent men still got to be Patriarchs, fathers of two of the twelve tribes of Israel. And the priests who ministered at the temple were from the tribe of Levi!!

* * *

It is an orderly, organised universe of sowing and reaping. The evil we do has consequences, if only through the corruption of our characters which are our destiny. Through the scarring and maiming of our souls. Sooner or later, we reap what we sow.

But we do not reap exactly what we have sown. For most of us, as for Simeon and Levi, mercy triumphs.

“If you, Lord, should count our guilt, Lord, who would survive?” the Psalmist David writes plaintively.

If God were to punish us for every untrue or mean word, every act of anger or malice or jealousy, who should stand?

But mercy triumphs, and so weeds do not choke all food plants. Neglected orchards still bear fruit, and human life continues despite our environmental outrages.

And in our lives, mercy triumphs over justice, and so, having asked God’s forgiveness, we can continue to walk under the sun of his goodness.

Paradoxes, paradoxes. We must try to avoid all sin, for what we sow we reap. But never in full measure, never as much as we deserve, for mercy runs like a gold thread through our universe and through our lives, and it always triumphs over the strictest justice!

In which Christ Desires Mercy, not Sacrifice

By Anita Mathias

Jesus was always getting himself into trouble with the Pharisees, the stern keepers of the law, for his common sense and practicality.

When his disciples were hungry on the Sabbath, he let them glean. (Matthew 12 :1). When he saw a man with a shrivelled hand in the synagogue on Sunday, he healed him.

Furiously accused for doing what was unlawful on the Sabbath, he answers simply, “If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

“I desire mercy not sacrifice,” God says. He would, wouldn’t he? He does not need our sacrifices, for the cattle on a thousand hills are his.

What he does covet is our hearts, because he loves us.

He wants our hearts to be soft and gentle, because that is what his heart is like.

I desire mercy, God says.

* * *

I am becoming increasingly aware that the real battleground is within. Follow Christ becomes a joy as we increasingly win interior battles against grumpiness, against meanness, against unforgiveness, against revenge.

On the days when I have woken up too early and am tired, I am astonished at how swiftly my inner stream of thoughts can turn to negativity. I tell Roy, “I need to be alone a bit. I am feeling negative,” to ensure I do not sin, and do harm with my words.

And then, I have to consciously turn that stream of thoughts to praise and thanksgiving.

* * *

It’s October now, autumn in England, and the leaves are falling. But we have clematis still in bloom in our garden, three rose bushes, one yellow buddleia, butterfly bush, a lone cyclamen, and a stray hellebore.

Always beauty, always something to thank God for, though the days grow shorter, and the nights longer.

And if my negative stream of thoughts turn towards other people rather than towards my own failures and struggles, then, Holy Spirit within me, remind me that God desires mercy, not sacrifice. Help me think of other people mercifully, with the same mercy the Lord God Almighty shows me, his child.

The Beatitudes, mostly, are things we do, rather than things we are. There’s hope in that!

By Anita Mathias

The Beatitudes are the blazing heart of everything Jesus taught. Once you’ve got them, once you’re living them, then you’ve begun to “get” Jesus and the way he thinks.

And I am only beginning to!

For the Beatitudes to travel the longest journey in the world, from the head to the heart, is a life-long endeavour, a matter of stumbling, and getting up again, and I am just learning. I am a disciple, learning cognitively, emotionally, and experientially.

* * *

Mercifully, however, the Beatitudes are not ontological statements of reality. It’s not blessed are the beautiful; blessed are the brilliant; blessed are the bronze-skinned, which you either are, or are not.

Instead, it is blessed are the meek; blessed are the merciful; blessed are the pure-hearted, and these are things we choose to be and become through a series of noble choices.

We become gentle by choosing gentleness, again and again.

We become merciful by choosing to be merciful, again and again.

We develop the purity of heart which helps us see God by repenting of our sin, again and again.

Tiny step by step, we inch towards promised land where the meek inherit the earth, and we are shown mercy, and we see God.

* * *

How practically do we enter the blessedness promised in the Beatitudes? I guess it’s behavioural modification. If we are not merciful, we behave as if we are merciful. If we are not meek, we behave as if we are meek.

Blessed are the merciful for they shall be shown mercy, Jesus says. Tempted not to leave the tip after harried service? Leave it anyway. Tempted to let rip on anonymous feedback. Be merciful. Store up credit, and God, the great mathematician, will ensure that you will have mercy in your time of need.

I shopped at Amazon for years before I ever thought of selling there, and, often, voluntarily removed bad feedback I’d impetuously left, thinking, “Blessed are the merciful.”

When we started our publishing business, with just 1 title, then 5, then, 10, too few to outsource all customer service (as we now do, of course), I personally sold books on Amazon, and often had to email to get negatives or neutrals removed. My success rate was amazing—as if the Universe, or God remembered all the times I was merciful, realising that mom and pop in their back bedroom wouldn’t be as efficient as Amazon, so why rate them that way. The mercy came back to me.

The Beatitudes are true, objective statements of reality, whether we realise them or not.