Mark VII: Working Together for Justice and Mercy

Justice begins long before protest.

It begins with seeing.

Mercy begins long before forgiveness.

It begins with recognizing another person's dignity before they have done anything to earn it.

The ministry of Jesus continually crossed the boundaries that society worked so carefully to maintain. He touched those others avoided. He welcomed those pushed to the margins. He restored names, identities, and belonging to people who had been reduced to labels, illnesses, or shame.

I have come to understand that justice and mercy are not opposing virtues.

Justice tells the truth.

Mercy refuses to let truth become cruelty.

Together they create the possibility of healing.

Hospital ministry has taught me that every person longs for the same fundamental assurance:

"Will I still be seen? Will I still be loved?"

Those questions are rarely theological.

They are profoundly human.

Again and again I have discovered that my calling is not to determine whether someone deserves compassion.

My calling is to embody Christ's compassion as faithfully as I am able.

One of the most transformative experiences of my ministry came through the life of a young transgender woman whose name I will protect here.

She died tragically, leaving behind profound grief and complicated relationships. In death, the people who loved her faced a painful reality: the memorial service provided by her family did not reflect the identity by which she had come to know herself. Those who had walked beside her in life experienced a deep longing to honor the truth of who she was.

A circle of women gathered to create another kind of service.

Not to compete with the family's grief.

Not to condemn.

But to bear witness.

Together we created a celebration of her life that spoke her chosen name, honored her journey, and surrounded her memory with beauty, music, prayer, storytelling, candles, and blessing.

As I stood in that circle, I realized something that has remained with me ever since.

Justice is sometimes as simple—and as profound—as speaking a person's name with reverence.

Mercy is creating sacred space where people who have been unseen may finally be fully seen.

That evening was not about political ideology.

It was about human dignity.

It was about proclaiming, through ritual and presence, that every life bears the image of God and deserves to be remembered with love.

That conviction continues to shape my ministry.

Whether I am sitting beside a dying veteran, supporting a family navigating impossible decisions, accompanying someone from a faith tradition different from my own, or listening to a patient whose life has been marked by rejection, I return again and again to the example of Christ.

Jesus never confused holiness with exclusion.

His holiness always moved toward people.

Not away from them.

The United Church of Christ has deepened this understanding through its commitment to extravagant welcome and its call to confront injustice with humility and courage.

Justice, in this tradition, is not simply advocacy.

It is relationship.

It asks us to examine our own assumptions, acknowledge our implicit biases, and remain open to transformation through encounter with those whose lives differ from our own.

Clinical Pastoral Education became one of the places where this work began in earnest.

Again and again, supervision invited me to notice the assumptions I carried into patient encounters, to recognize where fear shaped my perceptions, and to choose curiosity over certainty.

Justice, I have learned, begins not only in society.

It begins within my own heart.

Only then can mercy become authentic.

I rarely have the opportunity to solve the great injustices of the world.

I can, however, practice justice one encounter at a time.

By listening before speaking.

By honoring each person's story.

By protecting dignity.

By advocating for those whose voices may not be heard.

By helping families move toward reconciliation whenever possible.

By standing beside those who grieve.

By refusing to allow suffering to become invisible.

This is the road Christ continues to walk.

It is not always comfortable.

It is rarely simple.

Yet it remains, for me, one of the clearest expressions of discipleship.

Justice without mercy becomes judgment.

Mercy without justice becomes sentimentality.

Christ calls us to both.

And in walking that road together, I have come to believe that every act of faithful accompaniment becomes another small proclamation that Love is stronger than fear.