Justice and Judgment
The basic message of our Scriptures today is that the Father (Creator), Son (the Word) and the Holy Spirit (Wisdom in the Old Testament; The Spirit of Truth in the New Testament) existed at Creation. The Bible story begins with a Triune God. A Triune God who, for love and love alone, created the universe; who, for love and love alone, kept calling the Israelites back as often as they wandered; and who, for love and love alone became one of us and showed us how disciples would live in this world, empowered and guided by the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ story is first and foremost about the love of God for every single one of us—an incredible, beautiful, limitless love for everybody, everywhere.
The Bible doesn’t try to define, describe or prove what God is like. It simply tells a long complicated story of God's love affair with one particular people, the Israelites, which becomes the model of God's relationship with all people. Jesus opened up that Jewish story to include all of humanity. Working through the Holy Spirit, the disciples continued to extend the story to all non-Jewish peoples.
The Bible is the story of a God who has been looking for partners since the beginning, people who will take seriously their God-given responsibility to care for the earth and each other in loving and sustainable ways. In the midst of the Biblical story, there are a few statements about who God is and what God wants from us. One of those is Micah 6:8 He has told you, O mortal, 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. The demand of God for justice is so central that any other responses to God are empty or diminished if they exist without it (Amos 5:21-24; Mic. 6:6-8). This is what Micah 6:8 (repeat) truly says. The Biblical God is the sure defender of the poor and the oppressed (Jer. 9:23-24; Ps. 10:17-18). The focus is upon the oppressed, with particular attention given to specific groups, such as the poor, widows, the fatherless, slaves, resident aliens, wage earners, and those with physical infirmities (Job 29:12-17; Ps. 146:7-9; Mal 3:5).
Since the justice of God is characterized by special regard for the poor and the weak, a corresponding special regard for the poor and the weak is demanded of God’s people. In the Bible, basic needs are basic rights. At the same time, justice goes beyond just caring for physical needs. Justice is the means for the creation of community and the preservation of the people in it (Lev. 25:35-36; Job 24:5; Ps. 107:36; Luke 7:29-30). Justice is central to God's story. Justice — in its various forms — is mentioned over 200 times in the Scriptures. It's not optional, it's required. We are commanded to seek justice. (-Eugene Cho).
As I read the Gospels, I see Jesus as a young man wandering around Galilee, Samaria and Judea totally present in each moment, continually aware of the persons around him – so aware that he could feel a woman touch the edge of his cloak. Over and over, with each person he encounters, Jesus is moved by compassion to respond to their need – to turn water into wine for a friend’s wedding, to stop a woman’s continual flow of blood, to heal a blind man, to raise a friend from the dead. The point is not that Jesus had these powers, but that he was always moved by compassion to meet the need of person after person he encountered.
Despite Jesus’ acceptance of so many different persons, there was one group that he continually railed against – the Pharisees--, or as the Gospel of Matthew usually puts it, “teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!” In Matthew 16:5-12, Jesus tells his disciples to beware of the teachings of the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the most devout of Jews. They believed if the Jewish people were only completely faithful to God, totally pure, God would restore the Jewish nation. They’d started out on the right track; they wanted to live for God. But keeping the law became an end in itself. They forgot that the law was meant to draw them closer to God and to each other.
So why was Jesus so adamantly opposed to those Jewish persons who were most faithfully trying to follow the teachings of Moses? In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says: 17“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. It is not the Pharisees’ careful observance of the Law of Moses that Jesus is railing against. It is the way they observe the law. The Pharisees see non-Jews as pagans, enemies. To their fellow Jews, they are judgmental, self-righteousness, and hypocritical.
Unfortunately, we Christians seem more like the Pharisees Jesus railed against than followers of Jesus Christ. Aren’t we as guilty as the Pharisees of claiming the right to speak for God? In Matthew 23:16-17, Jesus says, “ Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred?”) We Christians say, (The Bible says John 14:6 “I am the way and the truth and the light. No one comes to the Father except through me.” ) means that only Christians are saved. Can’t you just see Jesus saying, You blind fools! Who will be saved? The Christian who proclaims loudly his faith in the Bible or the non-Christian who lives according to my example?
In Luke 11:42, Jesus says, “But woe to you Pharisees! for you tithe mint, rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God.” (Doesn’t that remind you of Micah 6:8) Both the Old and New Testament are clear, if we love God, we will desire justice and give to the poor. We will love people just for being human, no matter how different they are from us.
But justice is hard! Justice is not to the advantage of everyone in the community. So if decisions are made only on the basis of self-interest, the self-interests of the powerful (injustice) will prevail. You mean you want me to operate against my self interest? To love the poor as much as I love myself? Boy, that would change our budgets! Then we would have to give not just what we can do without but what is truly needed by the poor.
Justice is also hard because it requires us to see things from perspectives other than our own. That means we have to be willing to encounter others who have different perspectives. We have to spend enough time with them to hear their stories. That means we have to listen rather than preach--to listen long enough to understand where they’re coming from and then to be willing to meet their needs rather than judge them.
Lastly, justice is hard because we have to be willing to admit of the possibility that we are wrong! Jesus teaches Judge not that ye be not also judged. So I won’t say these as judgments, just as questions. What if you don’t have to call yourself a Christian to receive God’s grace and forgiveness? What if the sins God can’t forgive are the sins that destroy community—violence, exploitation of the weak and the vulnerable, prejudice, injustice. What if God’s grace absolves us of all individual sins but not of our cooperation with the principalities and powers that create injustice. After all, Jesus did tell the Pharisees, Woe to you! For you are like graves which are not seen, and men walk over them without knowing it. (Luke 11:44)
As Pope Francis said last Wednesday, "The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone!” ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone! We cannot limit God. No people, no book, no religion, even, can limit God’s ability to respond to others. God created every one of us in God’s image and likeness. God loves all of his creation. God seeks to be in relationship with all of his creation and to guide each of us to become the person we were created to be.
All that we have comes from God. God has provided everything we need to live a good life here on Earth. If there are those who do not have everything they need, it is because we tolerate the evil of injustice, a sin for which we need to seek forgiveness.
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