Mercy Not Sacrifice: Embracing Restorative Justice

Jesus calls Matthew in the thick of scandal. The line, follow me, lands not on a harmless outsider but on a collaborator with Rome who profits from an occupied people. Matthew rises, and Jesus sits at a table full of tax collectors and sinners. The Pharisees ask the burning question anyone under the boot of empire would ask: why does he eat with them? Jesus answers with a doctor’s image and Hosea’s summons: it’s not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick; go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. He has come not to call the righteous, but sinners.

The text refuses a tidy story about the “margins.” Tax collectors in Judea are not merely misunderstood. They skim off the top in a system that bleeds the poor and funds imperial luxury. Think Vichy collaborators, blood diamond dealers, sweatshop bosses. No wonder the Pharisees bristle. Their anger is the sting of real injustice, not petty prudishness. And here is the difficulty: the mercy of God sometimes feels wrong. It can look like letting people get away with it. The gut wants a reckoning. Someone should pay.

Hosea, though, pairs judgment and mercy in the same breath. Frederick Buechner’s house helps: justice is the pitch and the walls; mercy is the rain on the roof and the life inside. From God’s vantage point, mercy and justice are one thing. Only from street level does mercy to Matthew feel like injustice to those harmed. So the call is to go and learn. First, humility and curiosity about others. Sorting people into “innocent” and “guilty” flattens their stories and inflates human certainty. C. S. Lewis reminds that God judges by moral choices, not appearances. The closer the look, the clearer the truth: everyone needs healing from something and restoration for something done.

Second, shift from retributive to restorative justice. Retribution measures debt and exacts payment. Restoration seeks a repaired people. Jesus practices restoration when he calls Matthew closer. Come be my disciple. Come learn another way to live. Calling in, not calling out, creates room for transformation.

Cristobal Jimenez’s story brings this home. A father meets the boy who killed his son and chooses mercy that costs. Forgiveness becomes freedom, not denial. It rebuilds a life that could have been thrown away. That is mercy, not sacrifice. What good is so-called justice if it wastes another son and chains another father in resentment? The call of Jesus holds mercy and justice together, opening a path where Pharisees, tax collectors, and sinners can all be made new. Follow me. And Matthew got up and followed him.

Key Takeaways

• 1. Mercy can offend a just conscience The call of Matthew lands on a real perpetrator inside an oppressive system, so outrage makes sense. God’s mercy does not blink at harm, but it does move toward the wrongdoer to heal what retribution can’t touch. When mercy feels like a scandal, the text invites a longer view of what God aims to restore. [29:10]
• 2. Justice and mercy belong together Hosea sets “judgment” beside “mercy,” and Buechner’s house image shows their interlock: structure and shelter, law and life. From God’s perspective, these are not rival goods but one coherent work. What looks like unfairness to the harmed can be the beginning of a deeper making-right. [30:58]
• 3. Choose humility and curiosity first Quick labels of “innocent” and “guilty” hide complex stories and overestimate human certainty. Lewis’s insight about moral choices cuts to the heart: only God sees what a costly kindness may have required. Curiosity does not excuse sin; it opens a path where truthful mercy can actually land. [32:22]
• 4. Trade retribution for restoration Retribution settles an account; restoration repairs a people. Jesus’s “Follow me” draws Matthew into relationship where a new life becomes plausible, not just required. Justice that calls in rather than calls out creates space for repentance, repair, and durable change. [34:04]
• 5. Forgiveness frees and rebuilds lives Cristobal Jimenez’s mercy toward his son’s killer did not erase grief; it broke resentment’s grip and sparked a future. Restoration spared another life from being sacrificed to “what’s deserved” and turned pain into work that heals others. Costly forgiveness became the doorway to real justice. [36:48]

Youtube Chapters

• [00:00] - Welcome
• [21:07] - The doctor for the sick
• [23:15] - Jesus calls Matthew
• [24:12] - Eating with tax collectors
• [24:31] - Mercy, not sacrifice
• [26:48] - What tax collectors were
• [28:15] - Scandal in today’s terms
• [29:28] - When mercy feels wrong
• [30:58] - Mercy and justice as a house
• [32:22] - Humility and curiosity about others
• [34:04] - From retribution to restoration
• [34:25] - Calling in, not calling out
• [35:06] - A father meets his son’s killer
• [36:27] - What forgiveness really does
• [37:40] - Mercy that transforms all

1. What specific action by Jesus caused the Pharisees to question his choices, and how did he respond?
2. How does the sermon compare tax collectors in Jesus’ time to modern-day examples like “blood diamond dealers” or “sweatshop bosses”? [28:15]
3. What two images (from Hosea and Frederick Buechner) does the sermon use to explain the relationship between justice and mercy? [30:58]
4. What practical steps did Cristobal Jimenez take to pursue restoration instead of retribution? [36:27]

1. Why might Jesus’ choice to call Matthew—a collaborator with oppressive systems—have felt like a betrayal to those harmed by tax collectors? How does this challenge common assumptions about “marginalized” groups?
2. The sermon argues that mercy and justice are “one coherent work” from God’s perspective. How does Buechner’s house metaphor help reconcile the tension between these two ideas? [30:58]
3. How does the story of Cristobal Jimenez illustrate the difference between “calling in” and “calling out” as methods of justice? [36:27]
4. Why might labeling people as “innocent” or “guilty” hinder our ability to show mercy, according to C.S. Lewis’s insight? [32:22]

1. When has someone’s wrongdoing made you feel like they “didn’t deserve” mercy? How might seeing their story through humility and curiosity change your perspective? [32:22]
2. Retributive justice asks, “What punishment do they deserve?” Restorative justice asks, “What healing is possible?” What would it look like to apply the latter question to a broken relationship in your life?
3. The sermon says forgiveness “frees and rebuilds lives.” Is there a resentment you’re holding onto that, if released, could create space for healing—for you or someone else? [36:48]
4. Jesus’ call to Matthew required him to leave his old life and “learn another way to live.” What habits, relationships, or systems might God be asking you to walk away from to follow Him more fully?
5. How can you actively “call in” rather than “call out” someone this week—offering grace while still honoring the need for accountability? [34:25]
6. The Pharisees’ anger was rooted in real injustice, not pettiness. When have you dismissed someone’s pain as “overreacting”? How could you listen differently to their hurt?