Mercy dust and spoiled priests

“There was a village. Built of crumbling clay and rotting wood. And it squatted ugly under a broiling sun like a sick and mangy animal wanting to die.

“This village had a virus, shared by its people. It was the germ of squalor, of hopelessness, of a loss of faith…they (begin) to engage in one of the other pursuits of men — they begin to destroy themselves.”

So says the narrator on an old “Twilight Zone” episode about a con artist traveling salesman who sells a bag of magic “mercy dust” to a condemned man’s father, telling him that it will spread goodwill throughout the crowd of people waiting eagerly for the hanging and make them feel love and sympathy for the man about to be hanged.

Just as the gallows trap door drops, the man’s father sprinkles the dust — really just plain old dirt. The noose breaks and the son, the condemned man, doesn’t die.

Believing it to be a sign from God, the son is allowed to go home with his father, and as goodwill and mercy spread, the people of the town are transformed.

Yeah, well, life doesn’t work like that, does it?

Except, in some ways it does.

The Old Testament prophet, Micah, said God requires three things: “To do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with thy God” (Micah 6:8).

Jesus said “Blessed are the merciful,” and that God “desires mercy, not sacrifice” from his people.

But where does mercy come from? You can’t buy a bag of it, not even on Amazon or eBay.

Christian theologian John Piper says mercy comes from mercy, “from a heart that has first felt its spiritual bankruptcy and grief for one’s own sin — its need for mercy.”

Piper says, “Our mercy to each other comes from God’s mercy to us. The key to becoming a merciful person is to become a broken person.”

Truly, the most merciful people I know are the ones who have been completely broken by their own sin and who have tasted the mercy of God.

The other day I read an Instagram post from Tullian Tchividjian, Billy Graham’s grandson, who was the pastor of a South Florida church until 2015 when he resigned after admitting his marital infidelity.

His downfall was painful and public, as was his recovery.

In his Instagram post he said Irish Catholic novice priests who failed to become ordained or were dismissed for moral indiscretions were called “spoiled priests.”

Tullian wrote, “I learned that when someone’s life went off the rails, often people wouldn’t go to the ‘official’ Catholic priests for help or guidance or confession. No, they would seek out the spoiled priests, because they knew what it meant to be damaged goods.

“They were well-acquainted with the darkness, yet they still had a shred of faith. They still believed they were beloved of God,” he wrote. “It wasn’t that they were holding on to God, but that God was still holding on to them.”

Because these “spoiled priests” had received God’s mercy, they were quick to give mercy to those who desperately knew they needed it.

When life breaks you, pulverizes you into dust, and then God breathes new life into you with his forgiveness, grace and mercy, you want to spread it to others.

Once you’ve been shown mercy, you can’t help but love mercy, and you want to be merciful.

Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the broken, for they shall receive mercy.

It’s not magic. It’s miraculous.