One more thought on Justice and Mercy

On Monday, I presented a scenario in which your kid has been stopped by the police for shoplifting.  I want to change that scenario a bit for today as we continue to think about justice and mercy.

Your kid was once again stopped at the door for shoplifting, and the police are involved.  Let's say that it was for a game that your kid has really wanted for his/her gaming system, but cost too much, and you as the parent thought it was too violent for them to have.  So you are once again on your way over to see what needs to be done.

When you approach your kid, he/she tells you that they really wanted the game, and that they knew there was no other way that they were ever going to get it.  There's a hint of remorse there (maybe only from getting caught, but you aren't sure), but there's also a bit of defiance involved.  He/she knew you didn't approve of this game, and not only did they seek to get the game, but to do it in an illegal way.

What is the appropriate balance of justice and mercy here?  Obviously, there needs to be some form of consequence.  This child did something knowingly that was wrong and against your wishes.  At the same time, there is also a degree of recognition that he/she was wrong, and a bit of remorse.  In this situation, what is the balance of justice and mercy?

This is where things get tricky for us as humans.  I would dare say that there is not a blanket, one-size-fits-all balance.  Balancing justice and mercy in this situation depends on how you know your kid.  This may be the first time your kid has ever tried something like this, so you may think that it's appropriate to nip this in the bud, so you choose to be heavy on the justice aspect.  Or, you may know that your kid will be very humiliated to have been caught breaking the law, and that the damage to his/her reputation may be fairly significant in his/her life, so you show more mercy.  On the other hand, this may be something that isn't unique in the kid's life, and so it's time to show that justice has a great price for breaking the law.  Or your kid may be defiant about it, in which case a greater dose of justice may be called for.

The thing I most want to point out in this situation is that it requires knowing your child to know what will be appropriate and effective.  That's the thing with justice and mercy.  In many cases, the balance of these two depends on how you know the other person.  While it may be the case that there are some common points in which justice needs to be administered (he/she did, after all, break the law by stealing), the balance of mercy and justice depends greatly on how well you know your child, and what affects them the most.

This places a great deal of responsibility on all of us.  It means that we probably are not the best ones to determine the balance of justice and mercy on those that we don't know.  But it also means that, if we want to have the right balance toward the people we know in our lives, we need to take the time to get to know them, so we know what will be best in our connection with them.

The differences between justice and mercy

Justice and mercy are two words that really intrigue me a lot.  We seem to want these, though we tend to want them on somewhat of a situational basis.  When someone wrongs us, we want justice, and we want it now!  But when we are the one who did the wrong, we really hope that the other person responds to us in mercy, and may actually get upset if they call for justice.

The balance of these two is difficult, both in the lives we live as we encounter other people, but also when it comes to our faith in God, and in what God has done for us in Jesus and the cross.  In our own lives, we may wonder if we should demand justice in a certain situation, or if we should show mercy.  And maybe a small illustration will help us as we consider this.

Let's say you are a parent.  Your child calls you up one afternoon because he/she has been caught stealing a movie from a local electronic store.  For the moment, this is all you know.  What are your initial reactions?  We might be angry at the child.  After all, we taught him/her that stealing is wrong.  Even as we get into our car to go over and pick this child up, we may be thinking about the appropriate punishment and consequences to their actions.

Now, here is where I could ask this question.  How many of us would first of all think about showing mercy to the child?  Would we think that, even if things are as bad as we are thinking, we should show him/her mercy for this trouble?  Probably not.  We think that they should know better, and so it seems that some justice is called for.

So we get to the store.  There's your kid, talking to an office who was called in by the store.  What is going to be your first reaction to your child?  Anger, because he/she should know better?  Anger because they got the police involved?  Anger because it reflects badly on you?  Anger because you had to take time from other things to come get this situation taken care of? 

So you go over to get to the bottom of the story.  That's when the officer says that they've gotten to the bottom of the problem.  It seems that a couple of your child's friends tried to play a joke on your kid, and put the movie into his backpack while they were in the store.  He/she didn't know it was there, and then, when leaving the store, the alarms went off.  The other kids had already left, which left your kid there to take the full brunt of the situation.  They've looked at the video and seen that your child didn't do anything wrong. 

I think most of us would agree that punishment and consequences would not be called for in this situation (at least, not for your kid, but maybe for the others).  We would probably want justice to be served now on behalf of our kid.  And tomorrow, I'll dive a little deeper into this whole situation.  But as I close today, just a couple of quick thoughts.

First, why do we typically assume guilt before innocence? 
Next, why is anger typically a first response when something doesn't go the way we want or hope for?
Another one: what would justice look like in this situation for your kid?
Final one: would you apologize to your kid for assuming that he/she was guilty, even though you may not have said anything to them about it?