Justice or Mercy?

20 July 2026  Micah 6:1-4,6-8

“…and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)  

Sometimes the right thing and the merciful thing are not the same thing.

Parents, teachers, bosses, police officers, coaches, judges and many others face situations like this all the time. Someone has broken the rules, perhaps flagrantly, and the penalty is clear. But so are the circumstances, which sometimes make the clear penalty not the wisest choice. Maybe the guilty party was sick, or hurt, or trying to accomplish a larger good than the rules envisioned. Sometimes a just penalty is an act of injustice. Sometimes the right thing and the merciful thing are not the same thing.

Micah 6:8 is one of the most quoted passages from the Bible – it is the favorite of many, the stuff of bumper stickers, greeting cards and internet memes: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

Walking humbly with your God indicates people who are constantly reflecting on the Word of God, anticipating having to make creative decisions at those times when the right thing and the merciful thing are not the same thing.

The tension between justice and mercy is evident to anyone who is paying attention. To “do justice” is to give people what they deserve, what they rightly have coming to them. Insights like this are the foundation for the modern conception of civil and human rights. At the same time, is getting only and exactly what we deserve what we really want? Only a complete idiot could imagine standing before God, as we all will one day, and saying something so complacently stupid as, “Give me what I have coming to me.” The wages of sin are still death, and we all know we are sinners. What we all want even more than justice, therefore (and what should be the first word on all our lips come Judgment Day), is mercy. The tension is obvious – we want something that we don’t deserve, and we deserve something that we don’t want. The right thing and the merciful thing are not the same thing.

To resolve the tension Micah adds “walk humbly with your God.” The English translation of this text is a little misleading, suggesting that we walk humbly with God by keeping our heads down, hands folded, and mouth shut. In Hebrew, Greek, and Latin (the first three languages of the Bible) the word for “humbly” suggests not passivity but vigilance, not stillness but intentional activity. The Latin word used in the Vulgate translation by St. Jerome is sollicitum, which gives us the English word “sollicitous”, someone who is paying careful attention and looking for ways to remove obstructions. Walking humbly with your God indicates people who are constantly reflecting on the Word of God, anticipating having to make creative decisions at those times when the right thing and the merciful thing are not the same thing. Jesus Himself modeled that very thing when a group of Scribes and Pharisees dragged before Him a woman caught in the very act of adultery. Jesus had been pondering something, writing with his finger on the ground when it happened. The Scribes and Pharisees wanted to know what He would do, hoping that it would be something outrageous that they could later accuse Him with. Jesus simply stood up and said, “Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone” (John 8:7). Then he returned to pondering, and writing on the ground. Soon all the stones were on the ground, and all the men had walked away.  “Go and sin no more,” Jesus said to the woman. They all knew the right thing to do, the woman included; but they all wanted the merciful thing, the men included. Jesus gave them all permission to choose the merciful thing, and they all did.

The right thing and the merciful thing are not always the same thing. Mercy is never fair, but it is sometimes right. Justice is always fair, but sometimes isn’t right. People vigilant, careful, and constant in scripture can spot the right.

Walk vigilantly.