Once upon a time there was a town that was built just beyond the bend of a large river. One day some of the children from the town were playing beside the river when they noticed three bodies floating in it. They ran for help and the townsfolk quickly pulled the bodies out of the water. One body was dead so they buried it. One was alive, but quite ill, so they put that person into the hospital. The third turned out to be a healthy child, which they placed with a family who cared for it and took it to school. From that day on, every day a number of bodies came floating down the river and, every day, the good people of the town would pull them out and look after them--taking the sick to the hospitals, placing the children with families and burying those who were dead.
 
This went for years. Each day would bring its bodies. The town began to be shaped by this daily event. Careful schemes of transportation, medical care and education were developed. Some people devoted their lives to this extraordinary ministry of compassion. The town acquired a deserved reputation for its generosity and became a model for caring action that was studied and copied in may place.
 
However despite all that generosity and effort, nobody thought to go up the river, beyond the bend that hid from their sight what was above them, and find out why, daily, those bodies came floating down the river.

This parable highlights the difference between justice and mercy. Personal compassion, or mercy, responds to the homeless, hurt, and needy and seeks to make a difference at the point of contact but does not enquire further.  Justice goes round the bend in the river and finds out why there are homeless, hurt and needy and seeks to change the reason for their existence in the first place.

It’s time to do justice and mercy.  We are commanded to “Follow justice and justice alone” (Deut. 16:20) and that “The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of God’s unfailing love” (Ps. 33:5).  Wieuca’s history is filled with valiant displays of mercy (BCM, AUM, Habitat, mission trips, etc.); but when and in what ways have Wieucans ventured up the stream and around the river’s bend to do justice?  A group of concerned Wieucans has recently banded together to form JEPR (Justice and Ethics in the Public Realm).  Please join us in the battle against injustice in our world… It’s Time!  (Contact Scott Pyron or Bill Givens for more information.) 

Remember, “God has shown all you people what is good.  And what does the LORD require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8).