To Walk Justly And To Love Mercy

As I watch the news and am angered by the injustices we ignore, and the worse ones we commit as a nation, my heart burns for the justice of God’s Kingdom. The basic truth that Jesus inaugurated the coming Kingdom of God which is overthrowing the kingdom of Evil, seems to be merely in word and not in deed. Where in the church or in the world are the tangible expressions of that kingdom and its authoritative reign. I think we are often afraid of those things, I know I am, the miraculous works that come with the kingdom are scary, and things like grace and mercy can be even harder. But if we do not have regular healings, salvations, deliverance, inner healing, and other visible signs of the kingdom than the gospel we announce does not appear to be real. What I find even more difficult is the call to live in the tension of justice and mercy, which is all dictated by a divine love of which I feel I will never grasp. I was contemplating Micah 6:8, and it was just blowing my mind. The people who first heard these words had much less theology to work with, and so when they are told that being Gods people means doing justly and loving mercy I am not sure what exactly they thought. Justice is a more human response, and possibly easier to understand, not that it is actually done very often. We expect justice, especially when we are thinking of ourselves. The question is how mercy works into the high call of justice. How can I long for oppressors to find justice, and to want mercy for them at the same time? How can I long for victims to experience real justice and yet for there to be mercy? When it comes to war, how can we long for justice but act in mercy? Maybe it is in the divine grace which we find the clash of justice and mercy. Jesus on the cross is God’s justice and it is his mercy both fully revealed and fully worked out. If we are to follow this Jesus guy, it may mean that personal sacrifice is the only way we can live a just and merciful life; longing to see justice worked out in our world, but mercifully taking on the burden of guilt even when we don’t see why we should. Maybe this would help ease the pains of racism, if we longed for justice and took on the burden of guilt that we may not feel is ours. True justice is in the long run not focused on the punishment of the guilty, but on the freedom and life of the victim. On the other hand maybe true mercy is not focused on the victim but on the perpetrator, as the ultimate grace. Humans were the guilty ones and we received the mercy, Jesus was innocent and he was the one who received the justice. All I know is that this verse in Micah does not allow us to say we are Christians and then do nothing about the great injustices in our world (or the small ones), and it does not allow us to stand in judgment of our world because it is calling us to be merciful and compassionate.

May his kingdom come.