“Justice, Mercy and Faithfulness”

Justice, mercy and faithfulness – where have we heard that before?  Let’s look at the context and think more.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

Jesus is crushing the teachers of the law and the Pharisees for focusing on the seen and measurable while virtually ignoring the more important matters. He chooses 3 words, and I am sure he could have chosen more, but he had made his point.

Just the same, given Jesus choice, I think we need to stop here for a better look.

Justice

Justice is related to fairness. It is also related to seeing the bad guy punished. Now, the Pharisees were all about judging and punishing .   I think they may have been confused by Jesus saying they had forgotten.  To those open, Jesus is calling people to see if their judgement is fair.  They have exacted justice without considering is they are just at a deep enough level.  I think the people instantly knew the Pharisees were unjust.

Have we looked enough to see how we may judge our spouses, children, parents and friends? Is it fair? Or are we judging people where we are strong and they are weak? It is not just, but we tend to lean this way.  Some people are already seeing this well, but we do well to ask those around us on how we are doing in the area of justice.

Mercy

This is letting people who we could judge off the hook. Justice and Mercy need to be wed together often and Jesus does here. Sometimes mercy is not right. We need to look at it more closely if we tend to bring too much or too little mercy.  Again, ask those around how they see us doing.  I sense some emphasize mercy while others emphasize justice. We clearly need all three.

Faithfulness

I would not have used this in the top three , but Jesus did. This is related to loyalty. The Pharisees felt they were faithful to God and the law. Yet, Jesus saw them lacking. Are we too? How did they lack faithfulness? They were loyal to those who obeyed, honored and followed them. They kicked out and condemned those who did not. Are we guilty?   “Lord, I think we need to know more about faithfulness. Help us see more.”

Justice, Mercy, and Faithfulness Are Worth Our Time

As I write, I often would like to see what you would say.   Do it in messenger if want to be more private.

I do not have all knowledge and in fact felt led here today as am prone to do the former which is the measurable while not even being to able to name these three. Let’s keep in mind that Jesus said measurable is valuable too but not as valuable as the unmeasurable.