Justice meets Mercy
Before him he saw two roads, both equally straight; but he did see two; and that terrified him--he who had never in his life known anything but one straight line. And, bitter anguish, these two roads were contradictory.
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
The merciful precepts of Christ will at last suffuse the Code and it will glow with their radiance. Crime will be considered an illness with its own doctors to replace your judges and its hospitals to replace your prisons. Liberty shall be equated with health. Ointments and oil shall be applied to limbs that were once shackled and branded. Infirmities that once were scourged with anger shall now be bathed with love. The cross in place of the gallows: sublime and yet so simple.
― Victor Hugo, The Last Day of a Condemned Man
How do we reconcile the call to justice and mercy at the same time? These two roads seem to diverge. In a way they do. They are not the same. “Walking humbly” with Christ is like a third way. His way is justice, but enveloped with mercy. The road of mercy incorporates justice when walked with Christ. The road of justice, as we understand it, resists mercy. Unfortunately, we have too few examples of the wisdom of justice with mercy.
Les Miserables, is undoubtedly the most life altering story I have ever encountered. I have yet to experience it without being overwhelmed. The human condition is well depicted. Life is full of beauty and pain. Misery is like a cloak of darkness, and grace a candle. Seemingly there are two roads. One road seeks to dominate and rule, thereby conquering pain. In so doing, misery becomes a natural consequence to those who suffer it. It is their fault and their fate. The other road seeks to serve and love, therein absorbing the pain and ending its power. The consequence of forgiveness and mercy is restoration. The grace and mercy found belongs to Christ, freely given. Now theirs, it illuminates the world and confounds power.
In Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, the rigid religion of Javert abuts the generous mercy of Valjean. Javert was born in prison (his mother a fortune-teller and his father a galley slave) and grew up in the streets. He knew the world as law and rebellion. He suffered the consequences of the lawlessness of his parents. Perhaps this is the reason he pursues such gypsies with cold vengeance. There is obedience to the law and there is sin. The law is on par with God. Reject the law, and you “will fall as Lucifer fell- the flame, the sword.” He became a prison guard, later police inspector, and an unflinching enforcer. In the novel, we first encounter him in Montreuil-sur-Mer, where he is a newly-appointed inspector under the mayor, Monsieur Madeleine. “The Stars” tells of Javert’s homage to order and the fatal and permanent consequences of those leave that path. Law and order were certitudes that gave him authority to exact penalty over all who fail.
Jean Valjean was orphaned as child. He worked as a pruner to help feed his widowed sister and her seven children. One day he was arrested for breaking a window and stealing bread to feed them. He was arrested and ended up spending nineteen years in prison. He broke the law, but the penalty was egregious. Upon his release, he was forced to carry a card identifying him as a convict. The world was not fair, nor kind to such people. After all, they were lawless and deserved harsh treatment. The only way to survive was to lose the card and find a new identity. The turning point for him was his first encounter with mercy.
Valjean received exceptional hospitality from Bishop Myriel. He was cold and hungry and rejected, the plight of being an unwelcomed convict. During the night, he absconds with silverware and silver plates. He is promptly arrested and brought before the bishop. The police relay the story that Valjean told them; they were gifts. The bishop confirms this and then hands Valjean silver candlesticks, asking him why he left these. The police leave and Valjean stands before him confused. He stood before a man who wielded the power of life and death over him. He was guilty of the crime. He expected what he had always known, the scourge of the law.
Like Javert, he had known only one way, the way of the Code. An orphan, a pruner, impoverished, feeding a widow and her children, a convict- his life was unfamiliar with mercy. The bishop, in the musical adaptation by Claude-Michel Schoenberg, Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, hands the candlesticks to Valjean, saying “I’ve bought you’re soul for God.” This is redemption! This is generosity. Rather than clinging to wealth, this man freely gave it to someone underserving, buying his freedom and elevating his status (see Philippians 2). Suddenly, like an apocalyptic vision, he sees another way. He sees a way that is true and beautiful. His identity transforms; his heart is reborn. The gift of grace given him, became the grace that flowed into the dark and imprisoned lives around him.
Freed from the label of convict and now with plenty of money for a new start, Valjean starts a factory and becomes Monsieur Madeleine, The Mayor. About this time, Javert is assigned to this area and the two meet once again. One day, an old villager is trapped under a cart and the mayor uses his unusual strength to lift the cart off the man. Having witnessed this freakish strength in prison, Javert begins to suspect his true identity. He sends a report to the Prefecture, denouncing the mayor as nothing but an ex-convict.
However, Javert receives word that a man matching Valjean’s description has been arrested. He goes to the trial and identifies him as the fugitve. Humiliatied at making a false report against an upstanding citizen, he comes to the mayor to be dismissed from his post. Monsieur Madeline will not accept his resignation, saying that he was only doing his duty.
One note regarding the novel, Victor Hugo often uses animal metaphors to describe Javert- a tiger or a wolf. The wolf is used to describe the prowlings and actions of the criminal as well, including Valjean. The innocent are called lambs, a biblical metaphor that is immediately understood. Valjean identifies himself as as a wolf- not forgetting what he was, nor the benefits of mercy. Scripture adopts the same device for those who leave the world of shema and become ruled by either appetite or power. The best example is probably King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel, grazing on grass as a beast.
Monsieur Madeline reveals his true identity at the trial in order to free an innocent man. Had he been silent, this man would have been damned to prison. As a mayor and factory owner, people depended upon him. If he went to prison, what would become of them. The dilemma is the same as when he left the bishop’s and a boy dropped a coin. Valjean stepped on it and he would not give it back. Now, well acquainted with mercy and a lover of God, he can do no such thing.
From here, Valjean goes to visit Fantine, a factory worker who was kicked out of his factory by the supervisor for refusing his sexual advances. She has a child, Cosette, in the custody of caretakers and to whom she sends payment. Abandoned by the father, she passed the child off of them to care for her. Now out of work, she resorts to selling her teeth, her hair, and eventually becomes a prostitute. Javert arrested her, but at this point she is dying in the hospital. Javert meets Valjean, justice and mercy meet, here at the bedside of a dying woman who will leave behind her daughter. What does justice require? What does mercy offer?
Valjean goes to retrieve Cosette from the greedy caretakers. He takes her as his own daughter, honoring the vow to Fantine. Javert reads in the paper that Valjean has died. However, he hears rumors of a man with a child living in the Gorbeau tenements, with a coat lined with lots of money. They go along the streets passing out this money to the poor. Javert seeks to track him down, to arrest him, so that he is “safe behind bars.” Justice is a misnomer; it is wrath and vengeance Javert wants.
During the June Rebellion, Javert disguises himself to join the resistance of those seeking better treatment for the poor of France and deliverance from the ostentatious and callous aristocracy. Behind the barricade, a young boy recognizes him and alerts everyone else. He is bound and given over to be killed. Valjean volunteers to to do the deed. Javert expects no less from the criminal Valjean. However, in a secluded area, Valjean releases him and fires a shot into the air. The others think Javert has been killed. Javert flees, free but bewildered. He returns to his post along the Seine and notices a man emerge from the sewer, carrying another man on his back. Ensconced in sewage, Javert does not recognize Valjean until he declares himself. This is such a Christ image- entering filth to carry out the wounded. Valjean vows to return after he gets the young man to safe care. Javert resists, but agrees. When he returns, Javert is gone.
Javert begins to write “ Notes for the good of the service.” He contemplates means of improving life for the prisoners. This binary thinker has glimpsed a spectrum of color between black and white. A life of beauty, honor, and mercy emerges like a rainbow after the storm. What will become of Javert? To arrest Valjean is to arrest a good man; to release him is to release a felon. Which road to take? He has found affection and respect for a convict, but a convict has always been nothing but a lawbreaker. His worldview is shattered, his religion undone, his modus operandi drowned in a flood of mercy. This becomes the fate of Javert, unable to reconcile or leave the path of vengeance and penalty called justice, he drowns himself in the Seine.
Valjean demonstrates mercy because he has known mercy. Care for an orphan, generous to the poor, not driven by riches and partiality, but gratitude and love. He is reviled by Javert, who regards him as just a convict. Yet, Valjean shows him mercy and grace. He does not take vengeance into his hands, though it puts his life at risk. In this, Javert begins to see another road. How do these contradictory roads exist together? The path to God has always been rules and order. Yet, this rule-breaker is more angel than man. Like the blinding of Paul on the road to Damascus, Javert is whirled into darkness because the light is incomprehensible. This is the wisdom of God: mercy redeeming justice.
Micah summarizes the union of these roads as the “whole duty of man: do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.” He declares this as he indicts Israel and the hypocrisy of their religious observances mingled with violence and injustice. What good are sacrifices when the poor are starved and the rich are unmoved. Legalism without mercy, justice with partiality- these things are reconciled in walking humbly with God. This is the wisdom of reconciling justice and mercy- walking humbly with Christ.
Jewish Wisdom, by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, shares this beautiful story of New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia (1933-1945).
At one time during the Depression, he was serving as a night-court judge when a woman appeared before him who had stolen food to feed her children. Desiring to satisfy the demands of both justice and mercy, La Guardia told the woman, “ I fine you ten dollars for stealing and I fine everyone else in this courtroom, myself included, fifty cents each for living in a city where a woman is forced to steal to feed her children.” The money was immediately collected, the fine paid, and the extra money given to the woman. (p 399)
In this story, he honors the law that requires no partiality be shown- to rich or poor. When it comes to justice, there is only law and penalty. And so he upholds the law, finding her guilty because she did in fact steal. But, there were laws of the Torah set up to care for the poor and the widows and create community. The community was guilty of violating this law, and so the judge found all guilty. However, this justice was mercy. It was love, not law, that won the day. Yet both were served. To choose the road of such mercy is wisdom and joy… and oh, so rare!
When we are ruled by Code, there can be no liberty, only miserable infection. We throw stones, erect gallows, spew venom, thump bibles, and condemn those on the wrong side of the ledger. But, to be ruled by Christ, is to know love and mercy. It is an infusion of His Spirit. Stones are rolled away, gallows vacated, forgiveness offered, hearts renewed, and the ledger balance is paid. In the Code, there is only unachievable adherence. In Christ, there is unfathomable mercy and justice. The choice we have is Christ or Code. As Robert Frost wrote in “The Road Not Taken”:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
