the tension between justice and mercy

A missionary, home on furlough, came to speak to the congregation. Among other things he told how a young man, newly converted to Christianity had taken literally Matthew 5:29. He had looked longingly at the wife of one of his friends and he knew this was wrong according to the Bible. The Good Book says, “It is better for you to lose one member than for your whole body to be thrown into hell” so he tore his eye out. He died painfully a couple of weeks later from the infection created by the damage he had done to himself. Is this what Jesus meant? Is it what Jesus wants from us?

In Deuteronomy 30, and many other places, the Bible urges us to choose life.  Maybe the young man had not chosen death, but it was the consequence of his action. Jesus also said he had come that they might have abundant life [John 10:10].

...As we understand more about the Jewish faith of which Jesus was part, and the Hebrew people, we see that they didn’t see the commandments as absolutes for perfect obedience. They saw them as guidelines for living that gave people the option of considering for themselves the right way to behave in any given situation.

Recently one of the lectionary readings was Micah 6:1-8. Verse 8 reminds us that what God requires of us is to act justly and love mercy. Throughout Scripture there is a tension between justice and mercy. We know they are probably the most important components of God’s love and living God’s Way. But we can never be completely just and completely merciful at the same time. When we are being just to one person we tip the scales away from being merciful and when we are being merciful we are often being less than just to someone else. We are called to hold the two in tension.

...When we look at the Gospels as a whole, we see that Jesus practiced what is called situation ethics where he decided in each situation how to respond to the needs of people to be fed and healed. His words in Matthew 5 seem unnecessarily harsh and incompatible with the compassionate nature of God. We can only guess at the reason for this teaching.

We can respect our maturity and chew things over before deciding in any situation if the commandment about this is one to honour.  We can seek to balance justice and mercy in decisions. In my ministry I have met a number of older women whose lives have been hell in abusive marriages and I am pleased that we now encourage people to escape abusive relationships.

In the reading from Deuteronomy 30, Moses was pleading to the people to choose life. Immediately before the part we heard is the verse, “The word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.” These words are encouraging the people to trust that they can tell and will know what to obey and when not to.

When we look at Jesus’ actions as well as listening to his words we are guided in how to behave. It is good if we can put more emphasis on the trust part of trust and obey; trust Jesus’ leading, trust others and trust yourself as Moses urged and you will find there are many ways to be happy in Jesus as well as trusting and obeying.

(excerpts from Rev Julianne Parker's sermon for the week, see here for complete sermon)