micah on Revenge

During that time there was a pastor named Peter Miller, and all through his ministry in a small town in Lancaster County, he had a neighbor who took great pleasure in mocking and ridiculing Miller and...

I did some of my Clinical Pastoral Education Units in Gastonia. One of the units that I served was the Emergency Department. If there was an incident that was suspected to be gang related, they would ...

When something has gone wrong, justice needs to be done and seen to be done. Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement examines exactly this same dynamic. The central character, Bryony Tallis, makes a grave mista...

Jesus offers a new sort of justice, a creative, healing, restorative justice. The old justice found in the Bible was designed to prevent revenge running away with itself. Better an eye for an eye and ...

Zaleusus flourished as king of the ancient Greek Locrians in about 500 B.C. His government over the Locrians was severe but just. In one of his decrees he forbade the use of wine unless it were prescr...

Mercy, detached from Justice, grows unmerciful.

The sin of injustice is defined in the Bible as the abuse of power—abusing power by taking from others the good things that God intended for them, namely, their life, liberty, dignity, or the fruits o...

Since our savior is also our Lord, we are called to follow his ways. And whenever discussions arise about what those ways look like in a church, confusion is bound to follow regarding grace and works....

Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone’s back.

Righteous God, we receive your grace and forget your justice. You teach us to move with compassion yet we have remained complacent. God, forgive us for our complacency and our apathy. Fuel us with you...

Lord of Hosts, We come before you today in a tone of solemnity. We recognize that while it was Judas who betrayed you for 30 pieces of silver, that we often betray you as well. We know what is right,...

For several years, Jason and I nurtured a friendship that led us to decide to work together because we knew each other so well. But things soon became complicated between us. I began to notice some tr...

Justice is for those who deserve it; mercy is for those who don't.

When did the topic of justice become important to you?” Gideon Strauss posed that question to two dozen people crammed into our living room one fall evening in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Some of us wer...

Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things, Judge of all men: We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we, from time to time, most grievously have comm...

What do you want to achieve? Greater riches? Cheaper chicken? A happier life, a longer life? Is it power over your neighbors that you are after? Are you only running away from your death? Or are you s...

Sister Joan Chittister writes about regret in the context of aging, though I think most of us can identify with this personification of Mr. R.: Regret…comes upon us one day dressed up like wisdom, l...

History is not the story of heroes entirely. It is often the story of cruelty and injustice and shortsightedness. There are monsters, there is evil, there is betrayal. That's why people should rea...

He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself: for every man has need to be forgiven.

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity     and passing over transgression     for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever,     because he delights in steadfast love. He...

Dieu pardonerra; c’est son métier; God forgives you — it’s his thing. *for contrast

There is something profoundly hypocritical about praising God for God’s mighty deeds of salvation and cooperating at the same time with the demons of destruction, whether by neglecting to do good or b...

This is in fact one of the many sharp edges of “the problem of evil.” Evil isn’t simply a philosophers’ puzzle but a reality which stalks our streets and damages people’s lives, homes and property. Th...

When God wants to sort out the world, as the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount make clear, he doesn’t send in the tanks. He sends in the meek, the broken, the justice hungry, the peacemakers, the ...

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Almighty God, too often we settle for brokenness in our lives. Rather than offering forgiveness, we hold onto offense. Rather than pursuing justice, we turn away . Rather than offering mercy, we c...

Practicing confession is one way to guard against paternalism in both extreme and more subtle ways. For example, we can tell stories of justice in a way that discounts other people’s agency—that is, t...

Forgiveness is the very opposite of anything which can be taken for granted. Nothing is less obvious than forgiveness.

LORD, too often we live for ourselves instead of how You have called us. Please forgive us for the times when we don’t strive to bring about Your kingdom here and now. Forgive us for the lack of imagi...

Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope ...