Mercy must not be funded by injustice

But if you take from the poor and then give to the poor, it would be better for you neither to rob nor to give. Why do you defile your own wealth by bringing unjust gains into it? Why do you make your offering abominable by trying to offer it from injustice, when you intend to show mercy to another poor person with it? Show mercy to the one you wrong. Use your kindness on him; give to him, and you will fulfill mercy with justice. For God will not share with greed, nor is the Lord a partner of thieves and robbers. He did not leave the poor to us because he is unable to feed them, but because he seeks from us a just and kind fruitfulness, for our own benefit. Almsgiving does not come from injustice, nor blessing from a curse, nor good deeds from tears. God says to those who cause the tears of the wronged: “You did what I hated; you covered my altar with tears, with weeping and groaning.” Show mercy from your labors, and do not wish to commit injustice, making injustice a pretext for bringing mercy to God. Such things are vainglory, aimed at praise from human beings, not at the praise that comes from God, toward which one looks. For this reason the Lord rightly says, “not in order to be seen by men” (Matthew 6:1). For if you practice almsgiving as though God sees it, you will guard against doing it from greed, knowing that you do not gladden God the overseer. Let us practice almsgiving in this way, so that we may receive back from God. God gives back to those whom he praises, and he praises no greedy person. You cannot bring gifts to God if you have grieved your brother. “If you are offering your gift at the altar,” he says, “and there remember that your brother has something against you, go first and be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). Remember the tax collector Zacchaeus, who resolved to repay fourfold whatever he had defrauded, and then distributed half of his remaining goods to the poor. For he knew that he wished to receive Christ, and Christ would not accept his generosity toward the poor unless the greed against those he had wronged was dissolved. And so the Lord accepted Zacchaeus’s uprightness and said, “Today salvation has come to this house” (Luke 19:9). These words are for those who practice almsgiving but do not take thought for fairness. But to the one who guards against committing injustice yet neglects to show mercy, we say: “Every tree that does not produce fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:10), and such a tree will never please the heavenly gardener, who says, “He came seeking fruit on the fig tree and found none,” and orders it to be cut down so that it will not use up the ground (Luke 13:6-7). The one who does not return a pledge to the poor also appears condemned before God, and a threat is made against such a person. “If the one who has not received back his pledge cries out to me,” he says, “I will hear him, for I am merciful” (Exodus 22:27). It was also a terrible and lawless thing to reap the harvest a second time, to gather the vineyard again, and to glean the olive grove, because these things had to be left for the poor. But if these things were commanded to those under the law, what shall we say about those in Christ? To them the Lord says: “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20).