pondering "Just Mercy"

 "Just Mercy" is a moving movie that has recently come out based on a period of history that makes us all stop and think and weep. Set in rural south Ala in the late 1980's and early 1990's, the story is an account of severe injustice propagated on the most vulnerable of our society, those who receive the the death penalty without guilt and fair representation. The movie based on a true story set in Monroeville, Ala highlights how little has changed in the 30 years after the South and indeed the nation was supposedly awaken by the impact of the  movie based on Harper Lee's book "To Kill a Mockingbird."

This was particularly salient to me since I saw the movie as a young boy in Montgomery and lived in Monroeville as a young family man in the early 1970's. You might say I lived in the epicenter of the 1960's Civil Rights movement, so the story had a deep emotional connection with me.

Those of you that know me also know I have spent a great deal of my work in recent years trying to understand the effect of the human obsession with justice compared to the transforming Gospel of Grace that underwrites the Kingdom of Heaven. Basically, justice is a reciprocity based on exchanging rewards and punishment to balance one's actions. Justice is what we deserve based on what we do. People desire fairness more than anything. The natural tendency and proclivity for justice, which is central to the human condition, actually constrains what should become natural to us in the provisions and privileges of grace as Kingdom dwellers. Jesus repeatedly describes His Kingdom as one where God provides generously not based on doing good, but to those who receive by faith what Jesus has done for them. The fallen nature of man to demand justice may be the biggest constraint on the soul in trusting grace.

So, what should the Christian's response to "Just Mercy" be? Good question. Here's where I have come down. Christian's should abhor injustices when punishment is unduly administered. This type of injustice in society is simply the outgrowth of power grab for personal gain. This type of injustice should break our heart, just as it does God's. But is hating injustice the same as being an advocate for justice? Here is where Christian's should differ from any non-believing "good person." If philosophy and psychology both find that core to the human condition is a desire for the virtue of justice, then what makes a justice centric Christian different, and why is the cross of Jesus necessary?

At the end of the movie, the main character, who has admiringly committed his life to unjust death penalties, says that justice, mercy and grace is what we should all be about. This is where he lost me. If justice is getting what we deserve, mercy is not getting what we deserve, and grace is getting what we don't deserve, how can we be about all 3 at the same time? Ever thought about that? Isn't just mercy an oxymoron?

Aren't mercy and grace just forms of injustice? Not the type the story moves us to tears over, but a different form of injustice that causes many in society great concern. Those, who believe a crime should be fairly punished, do not take mercy and grace well. They see it as weak, promiscuous, and fight it at every turn. This is the battle over the death penalty itself, and even issues like abortion. One person's mercy and grace is another's injustice.

If God's mercy and grace were similar forms of injustice, then He would not be just, and that cannot be. This is the unique role of the Cross in human history and the central theme of how we are all wrapped up in His story.

My wife use to ask me after a really good movie like Just Mercy, "what did you think of the movie?" Responses like this over time is the reason she does not ask me anymore. She rather speculates on what's going on inside my head and says, "Why can't you enjoy movies like everyone else? Just take them for what they are."

Good question and certainly worth me pondering ....