Justice and mercy

Micah 6:8 is one of my favorite verses. It makes everything so simple. "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (ESV)  It puts some teeth on your faith- makes it hard to be all about what you believe and forces the question of what are you doing. I read a blog today that brought up that idea in relation to the Ebola outbreak and Kent Brantly (see my previous post for more on that).

Tonight I ran smack into a question that I'd never considered before: what do you do when justice and mercy collide? When the kind thing to do doesn't seem just, or the just thing to do doesn't seem merciful? We have rules at our hospital about who we will see and what kind of things we will see them for. Our primary responsibility is to the patients who live in our defined catchment area. The rules are there to make sure that we can continue to make them our first priority. When resources are limited- doctors, staff, supplies- the rules help save those resources for the patients we are here to serve. I really respect these rules and appreciate how they allow us to keep our focus on a particular patient population. However, those rules mean turning away some patients for certain services, and a lot of times that doesn't seem very merciful. Especially when those patients are pregnant (ok, they're the ones who tug on my heartstrings the most), I wrestle with what is just versus what is merciful.

I have more thoughts on this but I don't think a public forum like the internet is the place to share. Get in touch if you want to hear or dialogue more. Has anyone else ever faced a situation where justice and mercy seem to be in opposition?