One of the most surprising gifts of the Spirit in Romans 12:6-9 is the last one, how leaders should extend compassion with cheerfulness. Today’s English Version puts it a little more clearly: “whoever shows kindness to others should do it cheerfully. Love must be completely sincere.”
Actually, what is meant here is not “compassion” or “kindness,” strictly speaking, but “mercy,” that unmerited love and forgiveness of God that comes through Jesus Christ. It must be a gift of the Spirit because it is not an inherited trait, a learned skill or something we crank out on demand. It is only found in us if God gives it to us. The word translated “compassionate” in the NRSV is more accurately rendered “merciful” and comes from the same Greek root (eleos) found in the Beatitudes, “blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
Emil Brunner indicates how difficult this attitude is to achieve even with God’s help because it demands such a radical reconstruction of our normal inclinations. “The Christian … must now adopt the architectural style of God and do away with the style of the world. … We must think, learn, reflect, will and feel entirely anew. By this sign everything that follows will have to be understood.” It is like the amazing love described in 1 John 4. We have love because God is love, and those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
If this is not difficult enough, Paul writes that those who possess the gift of mercy must exhibit it “cheerfully.” The Greek word here (hilarotēs) is from the same root found in 2 Corinthians 4:9, “God loves a cheerful giver.” It must come willingly, gladly, joyfully, almost spontaneously. We forgive others because we have been forgiven.
We know how difficult it is to extend mercy cheerfully (or hilariously). It is not easy to forgive church members who hurt us, especially if they have done it deliberately and have injured the Body of Christ. Or consider how hard it must be for the innocent participants in the recent Boston Marathon bombing to put away suffering and pain and forgive those who have planned such destruction without any mercy at all.
Another example which shows how this difficulty crosses religious boundaries is seen in a current debate in Germany. Professor Mohammed Khorchide of the University of Münster published a book “Islam ist Barherzigheit” (“Islam is Merciful”) in which he argues that Allah is a merciful God and that the Koran is essentially a love letter from God. He contends that Islam is basically a compassionate religion and not a system based on rigid theology and obedience, fear and paranoia. Many conservative Muslims have reacted strenuously to his perspective because they cling to the idea that God is wrathful and punishes those who stray from truth as they perceive it.
Karl Barth in his classic “A Shorter Commentary on Romans” argues that Christians, as signposts of God’s love, must resist the temptation to diminish the cheerful extension of God’s gifts because of current circumstances. They are “not to show in their lives a repetition of the pattern and character of this world but to erect a sign of God’s will, a sign of the order of his coming new world. … The zeal … must not slacken, the fire must not die, the service must not be discontinued, hope must not become joyless, our attitude in tribulation must not become inconstant, prayers must not cease, the needs of the saints … must not be neglected.”
EARL S. JOHNSON JR. is a retired pastor living in Johnstown, N.Y., and an adjunct professor of religious studies at Siena College.
