Mercy and Justice

I am posting portions of a paper I just finished for one of my classes at Fuller Seminary. It was a process paper on signature themes in my learning so far (nine courses) This first section is on mercy and justice.

Section One: Mercy and Justice
“I will sow her for Myself in the land. I will also have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion...” (Hosea 2:3a)

God created me for Himself, to know Him, love Him, worship Him and experience eternity in joyful communion with Him. He created me to become a wife and mother, to be a missional leader, a lifelong learner and to finish well. Before the foundations of the earth, He knew my name and knew when and where He would place me along the continuum of His story of the redemption of His creation. He created me with a purpose and a great plan, for good works in Christ Jesus. He created me in love.

My earliest memories are of fear, chaos, anger and trauma. I do not remember being held or feeling safe. I do not remember being told about God. I do not remember peace. I have a copy of a home movie taken when I was six weeks old, lying on my mother’s lap. As I look at that video now, I know what is to come. I know that little baby will be abused as a little girl, and later will become the object of her father’s drunken chaos; she will, as a young teenager, become the dumping ground for her alcoholic father's emotional emptiness. I know that precious little infant girl will be robbed of her dignity, her sense of value, her innocence and her ability to trust.

Perhaps it was in those early teenage years - after I had begun to develop and my father would come into my room late in the evening, his breath bitter with the stink of hard liquor and life’s disappointments, when he would lay next to me on my bed and fear would ooze out of my every pore - perhaps it was then that I began to seek an understanding of mercy and justice. I met the Lord when I was barely fourteen and begged Him to stop my dad from coming into my room. It would be six more years before the last time my father sought me out to touch me and breathe his bitter breath on me. I did not understand why God did not answer that prayer, or why bad things kept on happening, or why I was trapped in such a hell. All I knew was that somewhere deep in me I wanted to be loved, and maybe, if I just kept quiet and was a good girl, God would love me. Maybe someday I would be free.

What I endured is common for young girls around the world, in the United States, in my little town, and most likely, in my neighborhood. I know that all that God creates is good and that Satan seeks to tear it apart. Satan did not want me to have a successful marriage, or children who would come to know the Lord, nor did he want me to be a missional leader, a life-long learner and finish well. Satan wanted my spirit and all the goodness that God had created me in to die in the bitter breath of an abusing father.

Mercy is defined as “clemency; leniency and compassion shown toward offenders by a person charged with administering justice.” Justice is defined as “the assignment of merited punishments.” In my heart, I was conflicted over both: I secretly wanted justice for myself and yet was dysfunctional enough to desire mercy for my father. The issue of mercy and justice would become a signature theme in my life, personally and in ministry. They would become critical issues for me in redeeming the past as I hoped to finish well as a leader and believer in Christ. Until I could understand them both, and God’s plan in mercy and justice, the past would retain power in the present and impact my future.

In Genesis 16, Sarai’s Egyptian maid, Hagar, call God, “the God who sees” (v. 16). In the theme of mercy and justice, this is a critical concept to grasp. First, I must accept that God saw me being abused in my home as a little girl and a teenager. Then, I must come to terms with whether or not I can trust a God who did not rescue me out of my situation, but allowed it to continue. Can I love and serve this God, who saw the wrong done to me and asks me to give my life to Him? My idea of mercy would have been to never allow me to be born into that home; my idea of justice would have been to punish my father severely for the wrongs committed against me. The tension lies in the place that comprehends that God saw that infant girl, loved her beyond measure, and yet allowed her to be abused; this God remains trustworthy, a God of mercy and justice.

In ministry, I meet with young women every week who have lived a similar story, grown-up little girls who have been abused much more than I. We carry the same question in our hearts: is God really a God who sees? If He does see, then why did He not exact justice against our abuser and grant us mercy by rescuing us? This is a primary question that each will ask in their journey to faith in Christ. I have had many years to come to terms with God’s mercy and justice; most of the time I can articulate what mercy and justice are in God’s economy. Sometimes, in the face of horrific stories of abuse and abandonment, my own spirit slips back into my teenage bedroom where fear overrode all reason, and my heart breaks from the weight of it all.

Lesslie Newbigin wrote, “Missions have never been able to separate the preaching of the gospel from action for God’s justice” (1983:102). As a missional leader, mercy and justice have been two sides of the same coin. I bring God’s mercy to women who have been abused through being transparent about my own faith journey, questions, doubts and discoveries and by listening with a heart open to their stories. At the same time, I advocate for women in my community who have been treated unjustly, whether that be in a medical setting, a domestic violence issue, or for resources to assist in moving out of poverty, including education and employment.

Richard de Ridder says “Her (Israel’s) treatment of strangers in her midst...must always be a conscious attempt to practice God’s concern for the stranger....This significant relationship of God’s people to the world is not the passive kind of relationship....it is rather the active participation of God’s people in the affairs of the world. They must maintain...right relationship to God by pursuing righteousness and showing justice to others. Both together complete the covenant obedience of the law revealed at Sinai.” (1983:156)

As I have pondered the theme of mercy and justice, I am continually reminded that my role as a missional leader has not been one of passive relationship with those around me who have been abused. It has always been one of passion, seeking to right wrongs, seeking to give voice to those who have not previously been granted the space to tell the story of what has happened to them. Van Engen writes, “What is the Good News for the women around the world who make up fifty percent of the world population and who are caught in disempowering value systems” (1994:213)? As a woman still recovering from abuse, and as a leader working to bring the healing presence of Christ into the lives of women who have been abused, I believe a primary role in my life centers around mercy and justice for women.