Blessed are the Merciful Peter Fitch, St. Croix Vineyard Sunday, December 3, 2017

Matthew 5 (The Beatitudes) 7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. 8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Ideas about mercy Matthew 6:22 “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! What if this was written in Hebrew? It would be very close to an ancient Hebrew idea . . . If the light in your eye is good

Ideas about mercy Mercy triumphs over judgment Mercy flows to where it’s needed God is rich in mercy . . . He flows to all that ask for help from a place of honesty and humility Artificial standards, even moral standards, can be the opposite of mercy You can feel it and it often comes out best when someone says, “what can I do to help?”

Ideas about Purity of Heart Things children see Story about Bernard Soren Kierkegaard’s book: Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing Similar to Jeremiah 29:13 . . . “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”

Martin Buber (1878-1965)

Ideas from I and Thou The world is twofold for man in accordance with his twofold attitude. The attitude of man is twofold in accordance with the two basic words he can speak. The basic words are not single words but word pairs. One basic word is the word pair I- You. The other basic word is the word pair I-It; but this basic word is not changed when He or She takes the place of It. Thus the I of man is also twofold. For the I of the basic word I- You is different from that in the basic word I-It.

Basic words are spoken with one’s being Basic words are spoken with one’s being. When one says You the I of the word pair I-You is said, too. When one says It, the I of the word pair I-It is said, too. The basic word I-You can only be spoken with one’s whole being. The basic word I-It can never be spoken with one’s whole being. The world as experience belongs to the basic word I-It. The basic word I-You establishes the world of relation.

The You encounters me by grace—it cannot be found by seeking The You encounters me by grace—it cannot be found by seeking. But that I speak the basic word to it is a deed of my whole being, is my essential deed. The concentration and fusion into a whole being can never be accomplished by me, can never be accomplished without me. I require a You to become; becoming I, I say You. The It is the chrysalis, the You the butterfly.

And in all the seriousness of truth, listen: without It a human being cannot live. But whoever lives only with that is not human. Spirit is not in the I but between I and You. It is not like the blood that circulates in you but like the air in which you breathe. Man lives in the spirit when he is able to respond to his You. He is able to do that when he enters into this relation with his whole being. It is solely by virtue of his power to relate that man is able to live in the spirit.

All response binds the You into the It world All response binds the You into the It world. That is the melancholy of man, and that is his greatness. Egos appear by setting themselves apart from other egos. Persons appear by entering into relations with other persons.

There are not two kinds of human beings but there are two poles of humanity. No human being is pure person, and none is pure ego; none is entirely actual, none entirely lacking in actuality. Each lives in a twofold I. But some men are so person-oriented that one may call them persons, while others are so ego-oriented that one may call them egos. Opinion: this is the explanation of how mercy and purity of heart work together