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The Demand for Justice.

The Demand for Justice.

Sadly, over the last few months, we’ve seen the untimely deaths of a number of young people here in South London – two very close by in Streatham – and elsewhere in other parts of the country. Each death brings with it the call for justice.

We can understand that, and we have sympathy for those who are left to mourn. You can’t expect them to turn the other cheek – in a way to do so would seem to demean the person who has died – it seems they aren’t worth fighting for – and of course they were.

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It’s all the more striking then, when a bereaved mother speaks of feeling sorrow rather than anger – sorrow for the mother of someone who is a murderer. No calls for justice – but an expression of sympathy for what it must feel like to know what your son is.

But this reaction is unusual, indeed rare. Usually people talk about wanting justice, meaning, I think, revenge, or at least they want the perpetrator to suffer for what they have done.

And it doesn’t just apply when someone has been killed. Sadly we live in a blame culture and when anything goes wrong, whatever it is, there has to be someone to blame.

We hear a great deal about rights but not enough about responsibilities. People turn to litigation, it seems, whenever things don’t turn out as they had hoped, as well as for more serious breaches of trust.

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It all seems such a far cry from the way God set out his blueprint for society as we heard in the reading from Leviticus. And further still from the way of Jesus in our gospel reading.

Justice and right treatment of other people is very close to the heart of God and therefore to the message of the gospel. Justice and that great biblical word righteousness don’t sound in the English language as if they have a great deal in common, but in both the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament, the words for justice and righteousness share common roots, and are very closely related.

That means that to the writers of the Old and New Testaments, righteousness – right living before God – is justice. You cannot be right with God if you are doing things which are unjust.

Right living before God means living as Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount, of which the gospel reading was a part. So we are told we must turn the other cheek, we must love our enemies, go the extra mile. And we must forgive, as we have been forgiven.

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That means the call for justice must take on a new aspect.

Justice in God’s eyes is not about retribution – it’s about reconciliation. It’s about forgiveness and making a new start.

That’s awfully hard when something bad has happened and punishment is necessary according to the law of the land, and we might argue that it is also necessary as a deterrent to help prevent others acting in the same way.

But the problem with retributive justice is that it is often disproportionate to the deed. Youngsters who get into trouble, once they are in the criminal justice system, find it very difficult to get out of it. One thing leads to another, and it seems the probability of getting into more and more serious trouble is very high.

Restorative justice is much more akin to God’s justice because it is about reconciliation and forgiveness. It’s the kind of justice which has come from things like the Truth and Reconciliation tribunals in South Africa and Northern Ireland, and a great deal of good has come out of it by way of healing past hurts and helping people who would otherwise be locked in to their past, trapped in a web of bitterness and hatred of those who had hurt them.

I’m not saying there was no retributive justice in the Law of Moses – there was – and quite a lot of it – but it was limited in its effects. An eye for an eye – only an eye for an eye. The problem with much of our justice system is that the effect of sending someone to prison, especially a young person, can be disproportionate to what they actually did – all too often their lives are ruined.

We know that there is a close link between poverty and crime. People who are living in poverty are far more likely to turn to crime - for all sorts of reasons. That neither excuses crime nor absolves those who do criminal acts from blame. But it may help explain why people who have been disadvantaged through poverty lack the self-respect and respect for others which can help them to follow a positive rather than a negative lifestyle.

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So there is another side to the concern for justice. And that is God’s concern for the just treatment of those in society who are powerless to fend for themselves – the poor, the disabled, the refugee.

In the law of Moses and in the gospels, we are told repeatedly that God expects those who are well off to remember the needs of others. And specifically to treat the poor with justice.

It is a common theme in the Old Testament prophets – Isaiah, Amos, Micah, Hosea – God condemns the people of Israel for failing to have compassion for the poor – for treating them unjustly. In Psalm 14 we read ‘Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon the LORD?’ The prophets – especially Isaiah – had much to say about just treatment of the poor or rather the lack of it – see, for example, Isaiah 3:13-15 – and also Micah 6:8.

And of course it doesn’t end with the Old Testament prophets. Jesus himself had much to say. The Sermon on the Mount is all about right living with God, and about how to live with others.

Jesus says the poor will be first in the kingdom of God. Not the hard-working poor who just about get by but the really poor – those who have nothing and are nothing – those who sit by the wayside and beg. They will be first in the Kingdom.

This was shocking news to the people who listened to Jesus – they couldn’t understand it at all and were offended by it. After all, wasn’t wealth a sign of God’s favour? No, says Jesus. God loves everyone.

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God favours those who know their true worth. Those who come before God thinking they have done well, that they have done something that God will thank them for, or who think they deserve praise – have no place in the Kingdom. We must come with empty hands acknowledging that of ourselves we are nothing before God. Then we can put God first in our lives.

The Christian life is cross shaped. It’s based on the first two commandments – love God, love your neighbour as yourself. As Jesus said, on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. We put God first, and our relationship with him, and then all else follows. If we put the second first, God very soon falls out of the picture and the church becomes a social club.

We must take seriously what the bible teaches about justice. It’s a real challenge and we should feel a bit uncomfortable about what is being demanded of us.

But the point of the cross-shaped life is that it is founded on God, built by prayer, and study of God’s word, and generally seeking to put God first in all things. Then, by the Spirit we will be led to do whatever God wants of us. Our reaching out to others will be done in God’s love and power, not our own.

The Psalmist berates people for eating others and ignoring God. Nothing changes – the greedy north of the world eats the hungry south. We do it all the time.

And not just through what we eat. Despite the brilliant technological advances of recent years we have still failed to ensure a clean water supply to millions of people in Africa. What does Jesus say in Matthew’s gospel about failing to give someone a drink of water? When will we learn?

We eat others when we should be feeding them. 'You are what you eat', someone has said. Jesus gives himself for us to eat – so let us feast on him, and as we do so week by week, pray that we may gradually become more like him, to better understand and to practice the biblical ideals of God’s justice, and so play our part in working for the coming of his kingdom of love and justice. Amen.

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Isaiah 3:13-15: The LORD rises to argue his case;
he stands to judge the peoples.
The LORD enters into judgement
with the elders and princes of his people:
It is you who have devoured the vineyard;
the spoil of the poor is in your houses.
What do you mean by crushing my people,
and grinding the face of the poor?
says the Lord GOD of hosts. (NRSV)

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Micah 6:8: He [The LORD] 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? (NRSV)

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* Note. This sermon, by Dr Marion Gray, Reader at Immanuel, was not given at Immanuel but at St Barnabas, Mitcham.

It was given on 25th May 2008 - the 1st Sunday after Trinity. © Copyright Marion Gray 2008.

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