George Herbert, a poet-priest in seventeenth-century England, walked two miles every evening to the large cathedral in Salisbury. As a rural pastor serving in the small hamlet of Bemerton, this nightly ritual had a specific purpose: to join the cathedral’s evensong service and make music in its high-vaulted sanctuary.
One day, Herbert arrived at the cathedral covered head-to-toe in mud. When his friends asked what had happened, Herbert said that he’d come upon a “poor man with a poorer horse.” The horse was sunk deep into the mud. Herbert “took off his canonical coat,” helped rescue both horse and man, and sent the man off with a bit of money.
One of his friends implied that for Herbert, a well-known intellectual from an aristocratic family, such a task was beneath him. Herbert responded that “the thought of what he had done would prove music to him at midnight.”
“I would not,” he added, “willingly pass one day of my life without comforting a sad soul, or shewing mercy.”
Love is Our Business
George Herbert has been a guide and comfort to me as a pastor. He served in rural Wiltshire; I serve in rural Illinois. His love for God flowed into poetry and preaching; so does mine.
For the last three years of his short life (he died at 39), Herbert served at Bemerton and wrote most of the poetry for which he is remembered today. He also wrote a small guide for pastors called The Priest to the Temple: The Country Parson. For the pastor, he writes, “Love is his business.” Even in times of conflict, the pastor should dive “unto the boundlesse Ocean of God’s Love, and the unspeakable riches of his loving kindness.” He knew well the frustrations and pressures pastors face, yet his vision of the pastor is one “whom others faults do not defeat; / But though men fail him, yet his part doth play.”
Herbert saw God’s work as a great symphony and each of us with a part to play. Pastors play the chord of love. To play that chord, one needs to have an ear for mercy. For Herbert, God’s love was all mercy, seen in his most famous poem “Love (III)” (read it aloud, and read it slowly):
Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing.
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
Love Despite
I’ve come back many times to Herbert’s call for pastors to play the chord of mercy. Often pastoral ministry sounds more like the fury and whir of a subway station than a symphony of love and grace. Every pastor, at some point, encounters the work of the flesh, translated in the NIV as “discord” (Gal 5:20). “Discord” can mean disagreement, strife, or ill will. But it can also describe two musical notes that clash. Both references stem from the Latin dis (“apart”) and cor (“heart”).
The good news: Discord can be turned into harmony, both in music and in hearts. Just as adding the right note can turn a discordant sound beautiful, so too mercy, played on repeat, can make a sour heart sweet. Mercy, at its core, is love despite—despite others’ actions and reactions.
At the core of the gospel’s song is the chord of mercy. Only our deepest comprehension of this—the gospel-as-mercy—can give us the strength to endure as shepherds. For we are the “unkind, ungrateful” ones who are called to sit and eat at Jesus’ table. This mercy of God motivates us: “Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart” (2 Cor. 4:1). God’s mercy in Christ gives us patience with ourselves and others: “For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13). Mercy flows to us ever-new from the throne of grace, lavished by the mercy-master himself (Heb. 4:16).
Make Mercy Daily
Herbert said that showing mercy would prove to him “music at midnight.” When his own soul condemned him, when he felt that all he was doing was for nothing, in the small anxious hours of the night, he would remember that he had shown mercy. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
In the midnight of discouragement and sin, we can play the music of mercy. The lives of our flocks sound like the scratch of the gramophone nib. And the tunes we play in our heads, more often than not, sound the same. Sin and chaos have a sound. But so does mercy.
Not long ago, someone hurt me deeply with rumors and lies about me and my family. I felt heat behind my ears, a surge of anger, a lust for vengeance. I was restless in the watches of the night. Then I remembered James’s words: “Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13). The soundtrack shifted in my mind. To show mercy to this person was nothing compared to the mercy God had shown me. I heard the right note in my heart. It turned discord into harmony. I resolved to show mercy as I had received mercy.
I have decided to not let a single day pass without showing someone mercy. To learn to play this tune well will take a lifetime. I will forget the sound mercy makes and need to learn it again. But I know: What I need most from God is not success, not packed programs, not ease and comfort.
I need mercy. Kyrie Eleison.
Casey Dwyer is Senior Pastor of Lena Evangelical Free Church, Lena, Illinois.
