Justice

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, May 6, 2018.  The Bible verses used are Luke 18:1-8.

            When you heard our reading for today, you might have wondered how it fit into our sermon series on Humor in the Bible.  And I’ll admit this is not one that makes any of the lists of the funniest Bible passages.  But I find it funny.  Maybe it’s just because I’ve had experience with judges, I don’t know.  But I am amused by this scene that Jesus describes.

            There’s a judge in town.  And this judge does not fear God.  He also does not care what anybody thinks.  And I have to tell you, when I hear Jesus’ description of this judge, there’s a certain judge I had dealings with who comes to mind.  I don’t know whether he feared God, but he certainly did not care what anyone thought.  This judge had figured out that he could make any rulings he wanted, whether they followed the law or not, and there was nothing much anybody could do about it.  They could appeal his decision, but even if they got his ruling overturned nothing was going to happen to the judge.  He was not going to be disciplined for making a bad ruling.  He was just going to go on being a judge as if nothing had happened.  And in fact, for him, nothing had happened.  So that’s what he did.

            So anyway, we have this judge who really does not care about anything.  And we have a widow who keeps coming to him with this plea.  “Grant me justice against my adversary.”

            Now, again, having once been a lawyer, I want to know the details of this case.  What’s the widow’s complaint?  Who’s on the other side of the case?  What does she actually want?  I mean, yes, justice, but what does that mean to her?  I want to know what this case is really all about.

            Jesus does not tell us that.  And probably the reason Jesus does not tell us that is because it’s not relevant.  It’s not relevant to the judge--he does not care about the widow or her case.  And it’s not relevant to the point Jesus is trying to make, either.

            But the widow keeps coming to the judge with the same plea.  “Grant me justice against my adversary.”  I mean, try to picture this.  The judge gets up in the morning--probably late, because he’s a powerful man who does not have to live his life according to anyone else’s schedule.  He looks out the window, and there’s that widow, calling “Grant me justice against my adversary.”  He leaves the house to go to the court, and there’s the widow, following him.  And every step of the way, she’s saying, “Grant me justice against my adversary.”  He leaves at noon to have lunch and there she is again.  “Grant me justice against my adversary.”  He leaves the courthouse in the evening, and she’s still there.  “Grant me justice against my adversary.”  He gets ready for bed, and she’s still outside, calling, “Grant me justice against my adversary.”

            I mean, this would drive you nuts, right?  Everywhere you go, there’s this widow.  You cannot get away from her.  You never get a moment’s peace.  You probably start to hear her in your dreams, saying that same thing, “Grant me justice against my adversary.”

            Maybe I should’ve tried this approach against that judge I was telling you about earlier.  Because the fact is that, for this widow, it works.  She just wears this judge down.  He thinks to himself, I still don’t fear God, and I still don’t care what anybody thinks, but I cannot handle this widow constantly nagging me and bothering me anymore.  I’ve got to get rid of her.  I’ve got to shut her up, and the only way I’m ever going to do that is to give her what she wants. 

            And of course, that’s what the judge does.  He gives the widow justice.  Not because he cares about the widow, and not because he cares about justice, but because it’s the only way he’s ever going to have any peace.  The widow gets what she wants, just be sheer persistence.

            Now again, maybe you see the humor in that, maybe you don’t.  But either way, as we’ve always done in this sermon series, we ask the questions:  Why did Jesus tell this story?  What are we supposed to learn from it?

            Well, the Bible tells us.  That’s unusual.  Most of the time, in Jesus’ parables, we’re not told what the message is.  In fact, sometimes even the disciples had a hard time figuring it out.  But this time, Luke comes right out and tells us.  He says, in the first sentence, “Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.”

            That’s what the widow did, of course.  She kept going to the judge over and over again.  Day after day after day.  She never gave up.  And finally, even though the judge did not care about her or what happened to her, she got what she wanted.  So how much more should we expect God, who does care about us and what happens to us, to answer our prayers, as long as we keep praying and don’t give up?

            But why should we need to do that?  I mean, if God cares about us and cares what happens to us, why should we have to keep praying over and over again?  Why should we have to nag God over and over and over again?  After all, Jesus told us Matthew Chapter Six, Verse Eight that God the Father knows what we need before we ask.  And a little later, in Verse Thirty-two of that same chapter, Jesus says we should not worry about the things we need because God the Father knows that we need them.  So why do we need to keep bothering God with this stuff?  Why do we need to keep asking God for things that God already knows we want?

            Well, what does Jesus tell us we should be praying for?  Justice, right?  That’s what the widow prayed for:  “Grant me justice against my adversary.”  And at the end, Jesus says, “Will not God bring justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night?...I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.”

            So that’s the first thing.  When Jesus tells us to keep praying and not give up, he’s not telling us that God will give us everything we want as long as we just keep asking.  Jesus is telling us that God will give us justice.

            But that brings up the question, what is justice?  Well, the dictionary tells us that “justice” means “just behavior or treatment.”  So we say, well, okay then, what is “just”?  The dictionary tells us that “just” means “based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair.”

            So what we’re being told here is that if we keep praying and don’t give up, God will treat us in a way that’s right and fair.  Well, I guess we’d expect that, right?  It’s an important point to make, because there are people who believe that God is arbitrary and just does whatever God feels like doing.  But still, as Christians, we would certainly expect God to treat us fairly.

            But here’s an interesting thing.  We’re told that the judge finally decided to give the widow justice.  But that’s all we’re told.  We’re not told what justice meant to the widow.  We’re not told what it meant to the judge, either.  What if the judge, in all fairness, decided that the widow should lose her case?  What if that truly is what was right and what was fair? 

            The judge would’ve done what he’d promised to do.  He’d have given the widow what she said she wanted.  But how would the widow react to that?  Would the widow be satisfied that justice had been done?  Or would the widow be angry because she did not win?

            It can be a tricky thing to pray for justice.  Because we all think that “justice” is on our side.  We all think that justice means we win.  But what if we’re wrong?  After all, in every case, there’s someone on each side.  And each of them thinks they’re right and that justice is on their side.  Somebody has to be wrong.  What if the right and fair and just thing for God to do is not to do what we want done?  How will we react to that?  Will we say thank you, God, for doing what was right and just and fair?  Or will we be angry because God did not do what we wanted God to do?

            We should pray for justice.  We should always pray for justice.  We should not give up praying for justice.  But we need to realize that justice may not mean that things happen the way we want them to.  Justice does not necessarily mean God does what we want God to do.  And we need to be able to accept that.

            But Jesus did not say justice is all we should pray for.  In fact, it’s important that we pray for more than justice.  Because justice would mean that each of us would be judged for our sins.  Justice would mean that each of us would need to take the punishment for our sins.  And because, as the Apostle Paul says in the eighth chapter of Romans, we have all sinned, justice would mean that each of us would be punished for our sins.

            So what we also need to pray for is forgiveness and mercy.  We need to repent of our sins and ask God to forgive them.  And because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we know that God will forgive our sins.  We won’t be punished for our sins because Jesus took the punishment for us.  All we need to do is accept Jesus as our Savior.  When we do that we will get, not justice, but forgiveness and mercy.  And that’s something we all need.

            We will all be judged.  But our judge is not a judge who does not care about justice or anything else.  Our judge is a judge who cares about us.  Our judge is a judge who loves us.  If we accept Jesus as our Savior, our judge will forgive our sins and pronounce us not guilty.  Not because that’s fair or just.  But because God loves us.