Stewards of Mercy

A Sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on September 13, 2026 by Revd Andrew Woodward Reading for address: Matthew 18: 21–35 Some words from Peter from our Gospel reading – ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ Peter thinks he is being generous. Seven times. Surely that is enough. Surely there comes a point when mercy has reached its limit. And Jesus says: ‘Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times.’ And then Jesus tells a story. A servant owes his master an extraordinary sum of money-far more than he could possibly repay. The master looks upon him with compassion. He forgives the debt. He releases him. The servant walks out into the street, encounters someone who owes him a much smaller amount, and demands payment. When the other servant cannot pay, he has him thrown into prison. The contrast is almost absurd. A man who has received mercy without limit refuses to extend even a fraction of that mercy to someone else. And perhaps that is why this Gospel has something profound to say about stewardship. Because stewardship is not ultimately about what we possess. It is about what we do with what we have received. The first servant’s great mistake is that he forgets that he is a recipient. He behaves as though everything is his. His money is his. His rights are his. His debts are his. His power is his. His security is his. But Jesus tells the story in such a way that we are forced to see the truth: the servant is alive because mercy has been shown to him. His life has been given back to him. And that is where Christian stewardship begins. We are not the owners of life. We are its recipients. Stewardship begins with the simple recognition: Everything is gift. The question is not therefore, ‘How much of my money should I give to God?’ A deeper question is: How might everything God has entrusted to me become a gift for others? My money. My home. My professional skills. Even my failures and my wounds. All of them can become material for grace. The tragedy of the servant is not merely that he refuses to forgive. It is that the mercy he receives never becomes mercy in him. He has experienced grace as a transaction, but not as a transformation. The Gospel asks a difficult question: What happens to God’s generosity after it reaches us? Does it stop with us? Or does it flow through us? The language of stewardship is so important. A steward is not an owner. A steward receives something and is entrusted to use it well. And so, the Christian life becomes a movement: God’s mercy is received by us. It transforms us. And then it is shared through us. That is stewardship. Having just returned from a few days in Amsterdam and remembering Neil Macgregor speaking on this, there is a remarkable painting in the Rijksmuseum in called The Seven Works of Mercy , painted by the Master of Alkmaar in 1504. I spent a long time in front of this painting. It is a large polyptych made up of seven scenes. Feeding the hungry. Giving drink to the thirsty. Clothing the naked. Sheltering the stranger. Visiting the sick. Comforting prisoners. And burying the dead. The painting is almost a visual commentary on what happens when mercy becomes stewardship. Mercy becomes bread. Mercy becomes water. Mercy becomes clothing. Mercy becomes a room in which the stranger can sleep. Mercy becomes a visit to someone who is ill. Mercy becomes companionship for someone who is imprisoned. Mercy becomes dignity offered to the dead. And there is something particularly striking about the painting. Christ is there. Not merely above the needy. Not merely watching from heaven. Christ appears among the people in the scenes, sometimes almost hidden in the crowd. The Rijksmuseum notes that the painting deliberately places Christ among those receiving mercy, echoing Matthew 25: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” It is as we tentatively take risks and embody these actions that we discover that Christ is already there. And suddenly stewardship becomes something much more than fundraising. It becomes a whole new way of acting and of encountering Christ. We are privileged to be in the middle of London, in Trafalgar Square, where different worlds meet. I encounter those worlds daily, both day and night. The wealthy and the destitute. Tourists and people without homes. Culture and commerce. The hurried and the contemplative. The person who has everything and the person who has almost nothing. This is a place of encounter between God and humanity. Our life of worship, hospitality and social action is a collection of related activities. They belong together. Stewardship is not about choosing between prayer and practical action. It is about discovering that prayer sends us towards action, and action sends us back towards prayer. We come to be blessed in order that we may become a blessing to others. The unforgiving servant thinks like an owner. We are called to think like a steward. The owner says: “What is mine?” The steward asks: “What has been entrusted to me?” The owner says: “How much can I keep?” The steward asks: “How can this become a blessing?” The owner sees the stranger as a threat. The steward sees the stranger as someone to welcome. The Master of Alkmaar puts Christ in the crowd because Christ is often found precisely where we have trained ourselves not to look. In our Gospel reading, Jesus begins with forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean pretending that harm does not matter. It does not mean ignoring injustice. It isn’t about refusing appropriate boundaries or accountability. And it doesn’t mean that apology after apology allows someone to carry on doing harm regardless, without any form of reparation. But it does mean refusing to allow the debts and wounds of the past to become the currency by which we measure every human relationship. The servant in Jesus’ story has received an immeasurable gift, but he refuses to let that gift change him. Our vocation should be different. We receive mercy so that mercy may become part of the way we live. We receive reconciliation so that we can become agents of reconciliation. We receive hospitality so that we can become hospitable. We receive God’s abundance so that we can become generous. We receive forgiveness so that we can become forgiving. We receive Christ so that we can become Christ’s presence in the world. So perhaps today it might we worth asking three questions. First: What have I received? Not only materially. What gifts? What relationships? What opportunities? What resources? What second chances? What forgiveness? What love? Gratitude is the beginning of stewardship. Second: What am I holding on to too tightly? Where have I slipped from stewardship into ownership? And thirdly: Where is Christ asking me to give? The seven works of mercy are not simply a list from a medieval painting. They are a spiritual examination of our lives. They ask us: What does mercy look like when it passes through our hands? God does not ask us to create abundance from nothing. The servant in the parable was not asked to pay back what he could never pay. He was asked to live differently because he had received mercy. God does not begin by saying: “Give me everything you have.” God begins by saying: “Look at everything I have already given you.” Now let my gifts become gifts through you. Stewardship really means allowing God to take what is ordinary in our hands and make it an instrument of extraordinary love. Think again about the painting. Seven acts. Seven ordinary things. Feeding the hungry Providing Drink to the thirsty, Sheltering the homeless or tending to the stranger Clothing the naked Visiting the sick Visiting the imprisoned and burying the dead. Nothing spectacular. No grand strategy. Just human beings responding to human need. And in almost every scene, Christ is there. Hidden in plain sight. Which means that the question before us is not simply: “How much should I give?” The deeper question is: “Where is Christ asking me to give myself?” Because we have received mercy. We have received forgiveness. We have received grace. We have received more than we could ever repay. And now Christ sends us into the world—not as owners protecting what is ours, but as stewards of what we have received. So may we be generous with our money. our time. our attention. our buildings. our hospitality. our forgiveness and with our lives. And may this place, continue to be what it is called to be: a place where God and humanity meet, where the stranger finds welcome, where the poor are seen, the wounded find companionship, Where culture and commerce are placed at the service of the common good, and where those who have received God’s blessing discover the joy of becoming a blessing to others. For the mercy we receive is never meant to stop with us. It is meant to pass through us. And perhaps that is the final lesson of the unforgiving servant: We are not blessed merely to possess God’s mercy. We are blessed to steward it. We are blessed to share it. And little by little we are blessed to become it in the world. Amen.