March 16, 2025 • 26 mins
The tension between justice and mercy creates one of life's most profound spiritual dilemmas. Through the character of Inspector Javert from Les Misérables, we explore what happens when justice becomes divorced from mercy, and a system of rules becomes an idol.
Javert's obsessive pursuit of Jean Valjean spans decades, even as he witnesses evidence of Valjean's transformation and redemption. Born into poverty himself, Javert responds by becoming rigidly committed to upholding the law without exception. Where Valjean learns to accept and extend grace, Javert cannot see beyond his black-and-white understanding of justice.
The climax of their relationship arrives when Javert, finally showing mercy by allowing Valjean to rescue the wounded Marius, finds himself unable to live with this transgression against his principles. His suicide raises profound questions: Can justice without mercy ever be truly just? How do we create systems that allow for redemption while maintaining boundaries? What happens when we make idols out of human systems, even seemingly virtuous ones like justice?
Drawing from 2 Timothy and Jesus's summary of the commandments—"Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself"—we discover that faith often means navigating complexities rather than seeking absolutes. God doesn't offer a comprehensive rulebook for every situation but instead provides these two guideposts to orient our journey. When we truly love God and neighbor, we're moving in the right direction, even amid life's most challenging ethical dilemmas.
How might your understanding of justice be transformed by making room for grace? Where in your life have you witnessed the redemptive power of mercy? Join us as we continue this faith journey, learning to balance justice and grace in a broken but beautiful world.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pastor Darren (00:00):
Good to be with you today.
We are continuing in our LesMis series, using the story of
Les Mis but also some materialfrom a study guide by Pastor
Matt Rall.
He's one of our UM pastors downin Louisiana and he seems to do
a really good job of justgetting you thinking and
(00:20):
throwing a lot out there so thatyou really get to wrestle with
some stuff, which I appreciate.
That on the faith journey.
Last week we were focused onJean Valjean and his journey
with relying, believing in God'sgrace, that there was grace,
there was unconditional love forhim coming to that place where
(00:42):
he would believe it and not onlybelieve it but maybe even live
it out.
This week we're going to engagewith what is often seen as the
opposite of grace, the oppositeof mercy, and that being justice
To me right off the bat.
I find it interesting that weoften put these in contrast with
(01:06):
each other, as if mercy isn'tjust, or even that justice isn't
merciful in their own ways.
But maybe we will play withthat a little bit later this
morning.
So we're on Javert.
He is the antagonist of thestory and, like Valjean, he's
(01:37):
actually what we would perceiveas being victimized a victim in
this world just in the fact thathe was born into poverty and,
in fact, was raised in a brothel.
So he's in a place where he toocould claim that life had been
unfair and that he needed toovercome a lot of things in
order to get past what life hadoffered him.
But his response is differentthan Val John's response.
(02:02):
His response is to becomehighly, highly, highly committed
to justice, hardline justice.
What's the law?
Well, that's the law.
That is what we are going to beliving out.
He becomes a prison guard,surprise, surprise, and he is
responsible for guarding overthe inmates that Valjean was
(02:28):
with when he did his 19 years inprison, often the source of a
lot of harsh treatment that theprisoners would receive that
Valjean received.
And we find that the bulk ofthe story is and we find that
the bulk of the story is well,he is obsessed with finding
Valjean after Valjean finallyescapes after the 19 years.
(02:53):
And when we say obsessed, we'retalking about 1,000 pages of
Obsessed, obsessed.
I don't know if you've read it,or you read it in high school
which, by the way, I'm surprisedhow many people actually read
it at some time in their livesand know the story, and I want
you to know it doesn't make meintimidated at all.
(03:14):
I'm not bothered that I'mpreaching on something you read
and I didn't read.
I'll just find out.
Right, taylor, you read it.
No See, and we're Englishmajors.
Maybe we should have beenFrench majors.
We got away 1,400 pages.
(03:36):
I'd rather read some poetry,maybe I don't know.
Anyway, a thousand pages.
Years and years and years ofhunting down Valjean, and it
upsets him to that degree thathis whole life is guided around
finding this guy who had escaped.
(03:57):
And we're talking about theseyears.
So, as the story moves on,javert actually discovers
Valjean later in life.
This is the point at whichValjean had actually made
something of his life.
He escapes from prison and he'sdone so well.
He's actually the mayor of thetown, very well thought of,
seems to be doing a good job ofbeing mayor.
(04:20):
But Javert finds out who he isand Valjean is forced to flee
with Cassette, the young girlthat he had taken on raising
after her mother had diedindirectly from some things that
he, valjean himself had done.
But it's helpful for us to keepin mind at this point too that
(04:42):
in this battle between Javertand Valjean, javert is really
getting windows into who Valjeanhas become.
In fact, at one point Javert,disguised as a homeless person,
receives coins from Valjean, whohad the kindness to offer a
(05:04):
homeless person some money.
So he even sees in thesedifferent situations that
Valjean is actually in adifferent place.
Later they re-engage.
Javert is actually the receiverof Valjean's grace, something
that Javert rarely gave toValjean.
(05:24):
They end up in therevolutionary action.
Javert has been a spy on therevolutionary people's side.
He's been discovered.
Valjean takes on the role ofbeing to taking out that spy, of
actually killing Javert andinstead lets him go, gives him
this gift of grace, all the moresignificant with the fact that
Javert and instead lets him go,gives him this gift of grace,
(05:45):
all the more significant withthe fact that Javert had been
hunting him for years and yearsand years.
It really had made his life ahell and yet amidst that,
valjean finds his way to begracious and let him live.
But the climactic scene forthis relationship is when Javert
(06:10):
has opportunity to once againcapture Valjean.
Valjean is rescuing Marius,who's been injured in the
revolutionary activity, rescuinghim because he knew Cosette,
the child he had raised, wasreally romantically in love with
Marius and wanted to rescue himfor Cassette.
(06:30):
Even against his own heartfeltdesires.
Javert finds him, has one morechance to bring him in and
Valjean said I'm just going tokeep walking, and went and
rescued the young man.
(06:52):
Javert, somewhat inadvertently,had offered grace to Valjean.
His response to that is aninability to be able to live
with himself, inability to livewith himself because he had
given up on his commitment tojustice.
He is so mad at himself heultimately throws himself in the
(07:17):
river, saying we don't fullyknow why he does this.
Does he feel the need to punishhimself because he's allowed
mercy, not justice, to rule hislife?
Is he awakened to all the painthat he had caused Valjean and
others in their lives, committedto this justice as his only way
to measure things?
Or did he just give up in thischallenge of being able to
(07:42):
navigate the balance betweengrace and justice and those
ideals for life?
Now we get a picture of what itlooks like to have a full
commitment to the law, as Javertdoes, to somebody who's put all
(08:03):
his reliance on the wisdom, thegreater authority of truth,
being law and justice.
It's a challenging place to bewhen we live in an imperfect
world, an often broken world.
(08:25):
We look back at Valjean'sinitial situation.
What lands him in prison.
He's stealing bread to feed hisstarving niece and nephew.
This is what he serves,ultimately, 19 years for.
Even if we can agree which is astretch that five years is an
(08:48):
appropriate sentence forstealing a loaf of bread, we'd
still have this reality of thecontext of it being stolen, this
context in which his family wasstarving and he was stealing
what we all might think issomewhat minimal.
(09:10):
There's a context there thatneeds to be in play in the way
we live out the punishment.
But to simply carry out the lawin the absence of any kind of
mercy, well, it clearly wasn'tmerciful, it wasn't gracious and
(09:36):
, I might argue, not even justthe very thing that Javert is
looking to live out.
Even if they had establishedthat this was an appropriate
punishment for stealing neededbread, to pretend that a blanket
system of justice is going towork over an imperfect, often
(10:01):
broken world is probably goingto be a stretch, and Javert is
our model for the difficulty inmaintaining that full commitment
to law without mercy.
We need to be fair to Javert.
His understanding is notwithout some theological
(10:24):
grounding that he is holding onto.
He talks of men like Valjean ashaving fallen from grace.
They made a choice to abandonGod with their acts.
Therefore, they are in someways deserving of the punishment
they're receiving.
He might even feel that there'smercy and that he's offering
(10:47):
these strong boundaries,educating on what is appropriate
, and he is fully committing tothis theology.
He commits his time, his focus,his emotions and eventually his
life To get this justice, thisjustice in regards to Valjean.
(11:12):
Meanwhile, we're starting to seethe potential effects of grace
on Valjean.
We're starting to see thatValjean is rising above his
graceless state.
He is starting to be redeemed.
He's a good person and he showsthis to Javert in multiple ways
(11:36):
.
But for Javert this is of noconsequence.
He made choices against God.
There is a punishment for thathappening.
The only appropriate responseis that he live out this plan of
justice, this system of justice.
(11:58):
But if you're like me, youmight be wondering when Javert
might ever come to this sense of, to a sense of reason in this
thing that he might listen andgo, stole a loaf of bread and
serving five on to 19 years forthat.
(12:25):
Valjean appears to be reformed,but Javert is so clouded he is
laser focused on the law, almostto the point, I would argue, to
have made an idol, a human idol, of this thing called justice.
No room for mercy, for grace orreally for God to do what God
(12:52):
can do.
Ultimately, javert ends hislife letting Valjean go, like I
said, unable to accept that.
Well, he ends his life unableto accept that he has committed
this horrible, horrible act ofgrace.
Can you imagine being sofocused on some earthly
(13:18):
definition of justice that youcan't see the redeeming work of
God that is happening in frontof you?
What we learn, I think, fromthis story and I believe my
colleague, pastor Matt wouldagree is that the journey of
(13:40):
life is really about navigatingbetween these both.
Life is really about navigatingbetween these both.
We need to work at acceptingand living out the grace that
God is giving to us, just likeValjean, but we also need to
manage our systems and ourselvesto give space for redemption,
(14:04):
to give space for grace.
It's something we might callmercy, an act that turned out to
be too difficult for Javert.
There's another way to look atthis, there are other words for
this, and how often do we findourselves in this spot where we
(14:42):
over again, where we have totrust God and live things out in
the best ways that we feel thatwe are able, humbled to what is
the mystery of God's presence,often the mystery of God's grace
.
(15:03):
How often do we land here, inthis place, where the only
answer we can find is trust, god, we want absolutes, don't we?
We want it a little easier, alittle more straightforward.
Give us another tencommandments, god.
(15:25):
Those were pretty clear.
Not that we're good atfollowing all of them, but they
were commandments, god.
Those were pretty clear.
Not that we're good atfollowing all of them, but they
were clear.
God, we'll program them in.
We won't have to wrestle withthese difficult questions
anymore.
We want, these times, we wantto yell out make it clear, god.
But when the answer is trust,live in faith.
(15:47):
We want more from God.
But when the answer is trust,live in faith.
We want more from God.
We want freedom, but not a lotof freedom To think, to believe.
We don't really want to hearthat answer of faith, that
answer of truth, because we wantsomething more absolute.
(16:08):
We can yell to God in thiscontext today Is it grace, is it
mercy, or is it justice and law?
And you know what the answer isit comes back from God.
The answer is yes, it is mercy,grace, justice and law and we
(16:36):
don't really like that.
Just tell me the answers, god,I'll take the test and I'll get
an A.
I'll take the test and I'll getan A, only to learn that life
really isn't a test like that.
(16:58):
Our scriptures today aredesigned to help us walk this
journey, this journey of how welive out faith, faith, how we
live out trust in God.
The first is from secondTimothy, and the hope in the
scripture itself is a.
Paul is trying to affirmTimothy.
(17:18):
He is a young protege, a youngleader in the church and he's
trying to build his confidenceto a certain extent.
But his words to Timothy canspeak to our challenge that we
are wrestling with today here.
Verses 14 and 15 again.
But as for you, continue in whatyou have learned and firmly
(17:43):
believed, knowing from whom youlearned it and how.
From childhood you have knownthe sacred writings that are
able to instruct you forsalvation through faith in
Christ Jesus.
In other words, trust in whatyou've learned, trust in what
(18:06):
you've read about our faith, inthe tradition of our faith,
trust in what you've experiencedin life, trust that God gave
you the brain that sits in yourhead Right, mostly Theologian,
(18:27):
not a biology person.
We can trust that God gave usthis mind to be able to reason
out, balanced out with lots ofdifferent authorities, to be
able to figure out some answers,figure out ways of moving
forward.
Figure out ways of movingforward.
(18:51):
We've known about God'scapacity for redemption.
We want to be able to live thatout in our justice systems,
both our personal justicesystems and our community
institutional justice systems.
We need to be able to trust thework that God can do, that
(19:13):
grace can do, and give space forthat.
Our second passage is fromMatthew 22.
It goes like this you shalllove the Lord, your God, with
all your heart and with all yoursoul and with all your mind.
This is both comforting and alittle frustrating.
I mentioned our human desiresfor absolutes comforting and a
(19:53):
little frustrating.
I mentioned our human desiresfor absolutes, a Ten
Commandments, a book of rulesthat we often would appreciate
to solve some of thesecomplexities.
But Jesus seems to bring it allback to faith, to trusting in
God, loving God, loving neighbor.
(20:18):
It's really kind of a summaryof the ten, isn't it?
The first half of those tenkind of have to deal with that
relationship with God, the upand down, the vertical, me and
God, getting it organized, andthe second half of those ten
(20:40):
commandments.
Aren't they a lot about livingwith each other, living in this
world, loving God and lovingneighbor.
Guideposts for us to navigatethese complexities that are in
front of us daily, thecomplexities of human systems
(21:03):
like justice, and for thecomplexities of our human
potential for redemption,especially through God's given
grace.
We are encouraged to rememberthese guideposts and hopefully
it might help you to remember itthis way Love God, love
(21:28):
neighbor.
If we can walk those two things, we are at least in God's
spirit.
We might still make mistakes,but we're still in God's spirit,
doing our best to be able tonavigate those complexities,
loving God and loving ourneighbor, to navigate those
complexities, loving God andloving our neighbor.
(21:51):
Javert was somebody whowrestled with this guidance.
I would argue like I said.
He makes an idol out of ourjustice system.
He makes it something that heallows to rule his life, guide
every aspect of his decisionmaking, and it comes at the
(22:14):
expense of god's presence in theworld, god's presence even in
him.
Good to be with you today.
We are continuing in our LesMis series, using the story of
Les Mis but also some materialfrom a study guide by Pastor
Matt Rall.
He's one of our UM pastors downin Louisiana and he seems to do
a really good job of justgetting you thinking and
(00:20):
throwing a lot out there so thatyou really get to wrestle with
some stuff, which I appreciate.
That on the faith journey.
Last week we were focused onJean Valjean and his journey
with relying, believing in God'sgrace, that there was grace,
there was unconditional love forhim coming to that place where
(00:42):
he would believe it and not onlybelieve it but maybe even live
it out.
This week we're going to engagewith what is often seen as the
opposite of grace, the oppositeof mercy, and that being justice
To me right off the bat.
I find it interesting that weoften put these in contrast with
(01:06):
each other, as if mercy isn'tjust, or even that justice isn't
merciful in their own ways.
But maybe we will play withthat a little bit later this
morning.
So we're on Javert.
He is the antagonist of thestory and, like Valjean, he's
(01:37):
actually what we would perceiveas being victimized a victim in
this world just in the fact thathe was born into poverty and,
in fact, was raised in a brothel.
So he's in a place where he toocould claim that life had been
unfair and that he needed toovercome a lot of things in
order to get past what life hadoffered him.
But his response is differentthan Val John's response.
(02:02):
His response is to becomehighly, highly, highly committed
to justice, hardline justice.
What's the law?
Well, that's the law.
That is what we are going to beliving out.
He becomes a prison guard,surprise, surprise, and he is
responsible for guarding overthe inmates that Valjean was
(02:28):
with when he did his 19 years inprison, often the source of a
lot of harsh treatment that theprisoners would receive that
Valjean received.
And we find that the bulk ofthe story is and we find that
the bulk of the story is well,he is obsessed with finding
Valjean after Valjean finallyescapes after the 19 years.
(02:53):
And when we say obsessed, we'retalking about 1,000 pages of
Obsessed, obsessed.
I don't know if you've read it,or you read it in high school
which, by the way, I'm surprisedhow many people actually read
it at some time in their livesand know the story, and I want
you to know it doesn't make meintimidated at all.
(03:14):
I'm not bothered that I'mpreaching on something you read
and I didn't read.
I'll just find out.
Right, taylor, you read it.
No See, and we're Englishmajors.
Maybe we should have beenFrench majors.
We got away 1,400 pages.
(03:36):
I'd rather read some poetry,maybe I don't know.
Anyway, a thousand pages.
Years and years and years ofhunting down Valjean, and it
upsets him to that degree thathis whole life is guided around
finding this guy who had escaped.
(03:57):
And we're talking about theseyears.
So, as the story moves on,javert actually discovers
Valjean later in life.
This is the point at whichValjean had actually made
something of his life.
He escapes from prison and he'sdone so well.
He's actually the mayor of thetown, very well thought of,
seems to be doing a good job ofbeing mayor.
(04:20):
But Javert finds out who he isand Valjean is forced to flee
with Cassette, the young girlthat he had taken on raising
after her mother had diedindirectly from some things that
he, valjean himself had done.
But it's helpful for us to keepin mind at this point too that
(04:42):
in this battle between Javertand Valjean, javert is really
getting windows into who Valjeanhas become.
In fact, at one point Javert,disguised as a homeless person,
receives coins from Valjean, whohad the kindness to offer a
(05:04):
homeless person some money.
So he even sees in thesedifferent situations that
Valjean is actually in adifferent place.
Later they re-engage.
Javert is actually the receiverof Valjean's grace, something
that Javert rarely gave toValjean.
(05:24):
They end up in therevolutionary action.
Javert has been a spy on therevolutionary people's side.
He's been discovered.
Valjean takes on the role ofbeing to taking out that spy, of
actually killing Javert andinstead lets him go, gives him
this gift of grace, all the moresignificant with the fact that
Javert and instead lets him go,gives him this gift of grace,
(05:45):
all the more significant withthe fact that Javert had been
hunting him for years and yearsand years.
It really had made his life ahell and yet amidst that,
valjean finds his way to begracious and let him live.
But the climactic scene forthis relationship is when Javert
(06:10):
has opportunity to once againcapture Valjean.
Valjean is rescuing Marius,who's been injured in the
revolutionary activity, rescuinghim because he knew Cosette,
the child he had raised, wasreally romantically in love with
Marius and wanted to rescue himfor Cassette.
(06:30):
Even against his own heartfeltdesires.
Javert finds him, has one morechance to bring him in and
Valjean said I'm just going tokeep walking, and went and
rescued the young man.
(06:52):
Javert, somewhat inadvertently,had offered grace to Valjean.
His response to that is aninability to be able to live
with himself, inability to livewith himself because he had
given up on his commitment tojustice.
He is so mad at himself heultimately throws himself in the
(07:17):
river, saying we don't fullyknow why he does this.
Does he feel the need to punishhimself because he's allowed
mercy, not justice, to rule hislife?
Is he awakened to all the painthat he had caused Valjean and
others in their lives, committedto this justice as his only way
to measure things?
Or did he just give up in thischallenge of being able to
(07:42):
navigate the balance betweengrace and justice and those
ideals for life?
Now we get a picture of what itlooks like to have a full
commitment to the law, as Javertdoes, to somebody who's put all
(08:03):
his reliance on the wisdom, thegreater authority of truth,
being law and justice.
It's a challenging place to bewhen we live in an imperfect
world, an often broken world.
(08:25):
We look back at Valjean'sinitial situation.
What lands him in prison.
He's stealing bread to feed hisstarving niece and nephew.
This is what he serves,ultimately, 19 years for.
Even if we can agree which is astretch that five years is an
(08:48):
appropriate sentence forstealing a loaf of bread, we'd
still have this reality of thecontext of it being stolen, this
context in which his family wasstarving and he was stealing
what we all might think issomewhat minimal.
(09:10):
There's a context there thatneeds to be in play in the way
we live out the punishment.
But to simply carry out the lawin the absence of any kind of
mercy, well, it clearly wasn'tmerciful, it wasn't gracious and
(09:36):
, I might argue, not even justthe very thing that Javert is
looking to live out.
Even if they had establishedthat this was an appropriate
punishment for stealing neededbread, to pretend that a blanket
system of justice is going towork over an imperfect, often
(10:01):
broken world is probably goingto be a stretch, and Javert is
our model for the difficulty inmaintaining that full commitment
to law without mercy.
We need to be fair to Javert.
His understanding is notwithout some theological
(10:24):
grounding that he is holding onto.
He talks of men like Valjean ashaving fallen from grace.
They made a choice to abandonGod with their acts.
Therefore, they are in someways deserving of the punishment
they're receiving.
He might even feel that there'smercy and that he's offering
(10:47):
these strong boundaries,educating on what is appropriate
, and he is fully committing tothis theology.
He commits his time, his focus,his emotions and eventually his
life To get this justice, thisjustice in regards to Valjean.
(11:12):
Meanwhile, we're starting to seethe potential effects of grace
on Valjean.
We're starting to see thatValjean is rising above his
graceless state.
He is starting to be redeemed.
He's a good person and he showsthis to Javert in multiple ways
(11:36):
.
But for Javert this is of noconsequence.
He made choices against God.
There is a punishment for thathappening.
The only appropriate responseis that he live out this plan of
justice, this system of justice.
(11:58):
But if you're like me, youmight be wondering when Javert
might ever come to this sense of, to a sense of reason in this
thing that he might listen andgo, stole a loaf of bread and
serving five on to 19 years forthat.
(12:25):
Valjean appears to be reformed,but Javert is so clouded he is
laser focused on the law, almostto the point, I would argue, to
have made an idol, a human idol, of this thing called justice.
No room for mercy, for grace orreally for God to do what God
(12:52):
can do.
Ultimately, javert ends hislife letting Valjean go, like I
said, unable to accept that.
Well, he ends his life unableto accept that he has committed
this horrible, horrible act ofgrace.
Can you imagine being sofocused on some earthly
(13:18):
definition of justice that youcan't see the redeeming work of
God that is happening in frontof you?
What we learn, I think, fromthis story and I believe my
colleague, pastor Matt wouldagree is that the journey of
(13:40):
life is really about navigatingbetween these both.
Life is really about navigatingbetween these both.
We need to work at acceptingand living out the grace that
God is giving to us, just likeValjean, but we also need to
manage our systems and ourselvesto give space for redemption,
(14:04):
to give space for grace.
It's something we might callmercy, an act that turned out to
be too difficult for Javert.
There's another way to look atthis, there are other words for
this, and how often do we findourselves in this spot where we
(14:42):
over again, where we have totrust God and live things out in
the best ways that we feel thatwe are able, humbled to what is
the mystery of God's presence,often the mystery of God's grace
.
(15:03):
How often do we land here, inthis place, where the only
answer we can find is trust, god, we want absolutes, don't we?
We want it a little easier, alittle more straightforward.
Give us another tencommandments, god.
(15:25):
Those were pretty clear.
Not that we're good atfollowing all of them, but they
were commandments, god.
Those were pretty clear.
Not that we're good atfollowing all of them, but they
were clear.
God, we'll program them in.
We won't have to wrestle withthese difficult questions
anymore.
We want, these times, we wantto yell out make it clear, god.
But when the answer is trust,live in faith.
(15:47):
We want more from God.
But when the answer is trust,live in faith.
We want more from God.
We want freedom, but not a lotof freedom To think, to believe.
We don't really want to hearthat answer of faith, that
answer of truth, because we wantsomething more absolute.
(16:08):
We can yell to God in thiscontext today Is it grace, is it
mercy, or is it justice and law?
And you know what the answer isit comes back from God.
The answer is yes, it is mercy,grace, justice and law and we
(16:36):
don't really like that.
Just tell me the answers, god,I'll take the test and I'll get
an A.
I'll take the test and I'll getan A, only to learn that life
really isn't a test like that.
(16:58):
Our scriptures today aredesigned to help us walk this
journey, this journey of how welive out faith, faith, how we
live out trust in God.
The first is from secondTimothy, and the hope in the
scripture itself is a.
Paul is trying to affirmTimothy.
(17:18):
He is a young protege, a youngleader in the church and he's
trying to build his confidenceto a certain extent.
But his words to Timothy canspeak to our challenge that we
are wrestling with today here.
Verses 14 and 15 again.
But as for you, continue in whatyou have learned and firmly
(17:43):
believed, knowing from whom youlearned it and how.
From childhood you have knownthe sacred writings that are
able to instruct you forsalvation through faith in
Christ Jesus.
In other words, trust in whatyou've learned, trust in what
(18:06):
you've read about our faith, inthe tradition of our faith,
trust in what you've experiencedin life, trust that God gave
you the brain that sits in yourhead Right, mostly Theologian,
(18:27):
not a biology person.
We can trust that God gave usthis mind to be able to reason
out, balanced out with lots ofdifferent authorities, to be
able to figure out some answers,figure out ways of moving
forward.
Figure out ways of movingforward.
(18:51):
We've known about God'scapacity for redemption.
We want to be able to live thatout in our justice systems,
both our personal justicesystems and our community
institutional justice systems.
We need to be able to trust thework that God can do, that
(19:13):
grace can do, and give space forthat.
Our second passage is fromMatthew 22.
It goes like this you shalllove the Lord, your God, with
all your heart and with all yoursoul and with all your mind.
This is both comforting and alittle frustrating.
I mentioned our human desiresfor absolutes comforting and a
(19:53):
little frustrating.
I mentioned our human desiresfor absolutes, a Ten
Commandments, a book of rulesthat we often would appreciate
to solve some of thesecomplexities.
But Jesus seems to bring it allback to faith, to trusting in
God, loving God, loving neighbor.
(20:18):
It's really kind of a summaryof the ten, isn't it?
The first half of those tenkind of have to deal with that
relationship with God, the upand down, the vertical, me and
God, getting it organized, andthe second half of those ten
(20:40):
commandments.
Aren't they a lot about livingwith each other, living in this
world, loving God and lovingneighbor.
Guideposts for us to navigatethese complexities that are in
front of us daily, thecomplexities of human systems
(21:03):
like justice, and for thecomplexities of our human
potential for redemption,especially through God's given
grace.
We are encouraged to rememberthese guideposts and hopefully
it might help you to remember itthis way Love God, love
(21:28):
neighbor.
If we can walk those two things, we are at least in God's
spirit.
We might still make mistakes,but we're still in God's spirit,
doing our best to be able tonavigate those complexities,
loving God and loving ourneighbor, to navigate those
complexities, loving God andloving our neighbor.
(21:51):
Javert was somebody whowrestled with this guidance.
I would argue like I said.
He makes an idol out of ourjustice system.
He makes it something that heallows to rule his life, guide
every aspect of his decisionmaking, and it comes at the
(22:14):
expense of god's presence in theworld, god's presence even in
him.
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