RULES FOR HOLY LIVING AND THE CLASS AND band meetings are two of the major examples of the prudential means of grace. Yet there is another example which was central to Wesley’s own sense of vital disciple-ship. Works of mercy, as he called them, are those means of grace that direct Christians outward to people in the world who suffer from spiritual or bodily needs. In a sermon on the importance of visiting the sick, Wesley writes, “Surely there are works of mercy . . . which are real means of grace.” And he takes as his foundation for this view the teaching of the apostle Paul in his Letter to the Ephesians: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).1 As we are drawn close to Christ in faith, we are called to do the work of Christ in ministering to the poor, the downtrodden, and the outcast. This is God’s desire for all those who have been born again through grace. Such a gospel form of living is part of what it means to “walk in newness of life,” so how could it be anything other than a powerful means of grace?
What are these works of mercy, specifically? And how exactly do they become means of grace for us in our daily living? These are important questions. Answering them will help us to see even more clearly how the prudential means of grace are central to our spiritual formation as mature disciples of Jesus Christ. Hopefully, we can also see how the means of grace push us to be more outwardly focused and missional in the way we think about the church on the whole.
At times the Methodist movement would experience growing pains as it adapted to changing circumstances in its early years. People at the time didn’t like change any more than people do now! So it wasn’t uncommon for John Wesley and other Methodist leaders to get pushback whenever new activities and practices were being tried out. For things considered to be among the prudential means of grace, there was less direct scriptural support—and this could lead to objections. Wesley was no shrinking violet, though, and he also tended to think things through in a thorough way. When it came to encouraging new practices that Wesley believed could be effective means of grace, he was ready to answer the inevitable questions that arose.
One of Wesley’s responses to some objections that came up in the late 1740s tells us a lot about his flexibility when it came to considering new discipleship practices. It also gives us some insight into the prudential means of grace themselves. It’s true, Wesley admits, that there are “these little prudential helps we are continually changing, one thing after another.” The experimental element of that approach is not a weakness though, Wesley says. It’s rather “a peculiar advantage which we enjoy.” True, such practices are “merely prudential, not essential, not of divine institution.” But that doesn’t mean they aren’t spiritually beneficial. It just means that Methodist discipleship has the ability to flex and pivot as needed when new opportunities arise. Wesley says, “We’re always open to instruction, willing to be wiser every day than we were before, and to change whatever we can change for the better.”2 If we hear a lot of language today about the need to search out “best practices” in business or education or the church, then it’s pretty interesting to find John Wesley himself using that same idea more than 250 years ago.
“[Prudential means of grace] are methods which men have found, by reason and common sense, for the more effectually applying several scriptural rules, couched in general terms, to particular occasions.”
—John Wesley3
But wait—it’s possible to be so flexible that everything ends up falling apart. We need a solid foundation for our discipleship that we can count on. Talk of finding new “little prudential helps” is good as far as it goes, but how do we ensure that such helps are recognizably Christian? It’s here that you realize how much Wesley is trying to strike a balance between biblical orthodoxy and missional flexibility. He isn’t actually open to every possibility that pops up. The key is in how we go about reading the Bible. Is it the case that the only acceptable Christian practices are those that are specifically laid out in detail somewhere in the biblical text? Or is it rather that Scripture can also point to more general areas of concern for Christian discipleship and then leave it up to us to figure out how those apply in our own day and age?
Wesley’s approach to this issue is very much along the lines of the second option. His reasoning is that “the Scripture, in most points, gives only general rules, and leaves the particular circumstances to be adjusted by the common sense of mankind.” How we go about determining the best way to apply the general teachings of Scripture is through the minds and hearts that God has given us. Or, as Wesley puts it, biblical application can be “determined by reason and experience.”4
I think there is a freeing quality to this sort of practical thinking. It means that we can take general biblical commands—loving our neighbor, making disciples, and doing good to all people—and apply them to our own contexts, all while being assured that such creative ministry can serve as a true means of grace when it is undertaken with a faithful attitude.
So how do the works of mercy fit into this prudential approach to discipleship? It turns out that the works of mercy present us with a great example of the Bible giving us general rules and leaving the particular circumstances up to us. It comes from Matthew 25:31–40, which is a passage that Wesley cites almost every time he talks about works of mercy. The heart of the passage goes like this:
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory . . . he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ ”
Have you ever thought about how radical that Scripture passage appears when you just read it in a straightforward way? Jesus is telling us that he will meet us in the hungry, the sick, the imprisoned, and the stranger. He calls us to treat such people as if they were the Son of God himself.
If works of piety like prayer, searching the Scriptures, and the Lord’s Supper teach us how to love God better, then these works of mercy teach us how to love our neighbor.5 They also show us how to love as Christ loved. We get the Wesleyan view on that in a wonderful letter that John Wesley sent to Miss J. C. March in the year 1775. He encourages Miss March to press on in her faith until she knows by her own experience “all that love of God which passeth all (speculative) knowledge.” He then asks her bluntly if she is willing to know how to dedicate her life more and more fully to God. He says,
And are you willing to know? Then I will tell you how. Go and see the poor and sick in their own poor little hovels. Take up your cross, woman! Remember the faith! Jesus went before you, and will go with you. Put off the gentlewoman; you bear a higher character. You are an heir of God and joint-heir with Christ!6
Notice in that little passage how Wesley is offering his pastoral counsel in a way that tracks very closely with Matthew 25. For if we really do meet Jesus in the poor and the sick, then Miss March had every reason to believe that Jesus went before her and would be with her every step of the way.
One of the places where Wesley lays out his view of the works of mercy the best is his sermon, “On Visiting the Sick.” Wesley explains in that sermon that the work of visitation is a “plain duty” for Christian believers. He also says that the sick are not just those who have a conventional illness and are lying in a hospital bed. Such people are part of who we mean by “the sick,” but the sick also consist of anyone in a state of suffering. “I would include all such as are in a state of affliction, whether of mind or body,” Wesley says, “whether they are good or bad, whether they fear God or not.”7 That means that he’s including pretty much all those categories of people Jesus names in Matthew’s Gospel—the hungry, the poor, the ill, the imprisoned, and the stranger. And since Jesus’ command is given to all his followers, this means that the works of mercy are meant for all Christians. In other words, it is not just pastors who are called to offer pastoral care!
It’s fairly obvious to see how the poor widow or the imprisoned felon would experience a personal visit as a means of grace. I can tell you from my own experience in ministry that most people who find themselves in hospitals, homeless shelters, and prisons welcome visits from others. They need companionship, encouragement, and prayer just as much as anyone else, but they are often in situations where those important parts of human relationships are hard to come by. Where Wesley’s teaching on the works of mercy gets really interesting is when he makes the case that the works of mercy are not only means of grace for those being visited, but also for those doing the visiting. When we visit the sick and the needy, we are moved to thank God for all the blessings that we ourselves enjoy. At the same time, our sense of compassion and our desire to help others are both increased.8 In that way, the love we share with others is returned to us and works to transform our hearts. In giving, we find that we receive as well.
We don’t use the language of “works of mercy” much today. In fact, you may have never heard that term before you read this book. We do use some words that relate, though: missions, outreach ministries, hospital and shut-in visitation, and the like. One way I think a term like works of mercy is helpful to us is that it helps us see how a whole host of different discipleship practices are related to one another. What makes them all similar is that they are all ways we go about loving our neighbor. Given that loving our neighbor is the second of the two great commandments Jesus gives us, understanding how we can do that in concrete ways is important!
There are a couple of things I think we should focus upon when we reflect on how to incorporate the works of mercy into our daily discipleship. One is that the works of mercy are not just good deeds that we perform out of a sense of duty or to feel good about a job well done. They are meant to be true means of grace, but for them to be that we have to realize that they call for us to enter into relationships with others.
I have been involved in mission work with the Methodist Church in Peru over several years. In that time, I’ve taken several dozen people from the United States on trips lasting anywhere from ten days to two weeks. We go to help the church there with a variety of projects—most of them involving building or renovating church buildings and community centers. One of the things I’ve noticed about some of the folks who go on these mission trips is that they seem to want to do the work of mission without ever actually interacting with any of their Peruvian brothers and sisters while they are there. Sometimes this is because of a sense of intimidation about the English/Spanish language barrier. But sometimes it is also because they have interpreted mission work as simply doing good deeds.
The good deeds are important of course, but much more so is the work of building relationships and learning how to love Christians who are different from yourself. The only way for missions or any other work of mercy to act as a means of grace is for love to be shared. For indeed, the love that Christians share with one another is nothing less than a love shared with them first by Jesus Christ: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples,” Jesus said, “if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
The second thing we should focus upon with the works of mercy is that they are not an optional part of what it means to follow Jesus. A Christian who sits in her home all day reading her Bible and praying but failing to put her faith into action has missed something very important about living as a disciple. On the other hand, once she does begin to love God by loving others through the works of mercy, she will find that her whole vision of discipleship starts to change. Rebekah Miles puts it in a way that I find very helpful when she writes, “Just as physical exercise promotes the growth of our bodies, works of mercy can promote the growth of our souls. . . . They are, ultimately, both an expression of, and tinder for, the love of God that centers our life.”10 In the Gospels, we find Jesus constantly sending out those who gather around him so that his message will reach others through word and deed. For those of us who want to follow Jesus today, we should understand ourselves as sent out as well.
“[A]s the love of God naturally leads to works of piety, so the love of our neighbour naturally leads . . . to works of mercy. It inclines us to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit them that are sick or in prison; to be as eyes to the blind and feet to the lame; a husband to the widow, a father to the fatherless.”
—John Wesley9
When we recognize that the works of mercy are really about taking the general rule to feed the hungry, visit the sick, and welcome the stranger, and applying it to the specific contexts of our own lives, we will all of a sudden realize that the list of what makes up a work of mercy is potentially endless. A soup kitchen or food pantry, a Habitat for Humanity home build, a prison ministry, a program of homebound and nursing home visitation, teaching English as a second language, or a mission trip—these are all works of mercy that invite us to share the love of Jesus with our neighbor. The more we share that love, the more we will find the same love returned to us so that it transforms our very lives.