The Heart's Cry: Psalm 123

Psalm 123

For the past several months every time I look at the word mercy the word karma rattles around in my brain. This happens because the words, in my opinion, are close to direct opposites, and while Jesus followers should be about mercy too often we hope for karma instead. Karma is the idea that what you do will come back to you, good for good, bad for bad. Often I see people invoke the concept of karma when someone has wronged them. Mercy is the idea that while you may do bad you may instead receive good. Often I see people invoke the concept of mercy when they have wronged someone else, particularly God.

Without the explicit use of the word, karma is invoked many times throughout the Psalms. Every time that the Psalmists say that they want God to punish someone for what that person has done to the Psalmist they invoke karma. On the other hand the Psalmists often invoke mercy explicitly, like they do in Psalm 123, but they also put it in terms of how they feel about the people around them, "Our soul has had more than its fill of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud." They invoke personal mercy, instead of communal mercy.

Paul states that we have all fallen short of the glory of God, yet we often only think of that in personal terms and think of the need for mercy in personal terms. We forget that those around us are also in need of the same mercy we claim for ourselves. Jesus states that we will be forgiven if we forgive, that we will be judged by the standard we use to judge others, and I wonder if he would continue and say that we will be shown the amount of mercy that we show to others. Karma is a popular idea in our world, oftentimes entering into the consciousness of Jesus followers, let's expunge it from our lexicon and instead show ridiculous amounts of mercy so that our cries of mercy will not be overlooked.

+ Who have you failed to show mercy to recently? How can you turn from your need of vengeance/justice and instead show mercy?