God's Justice

Texts: Luke 15:11-32, 2 Corinthians 5:16-20 (Fourth Sunday in Lent)

“It’s not fair,” we might find ourselves saying, after reading this morning’s parable. When we hear this story, we might think to ourselves that God is certainly loving and forgiving, but God doesn’t seem very just, and God is most definitely not fair! After all, in the parable of the prodigal son, it would seem that justice is, in fact, not done. The younger son does not get what he deserves. The older, more dutiful son, is seemingly not appreciated. It doesn’t add up, we think to ourselves. It’s not fair.

Conventional wisdom says that while this is a wonderful story about God’s unconditional love for us-- God’s offer of abundant and extravagant grace--things just don’t always work that way in the real world. Perhaps that’s because in the real world, our sense of justice and fairness is so inherently tied to getting one’s due. Those of us who consider ourselves to be good people, living decent lives, making sacrifices for those whom we love, expect that our goodness will somehow be rewarded. We expect that we will somehow be better off than the person who shirks responsibility, or hurts family and friends with selfish or self-indulgent behavior. We expect to get our due, and we expect others to get theirs. What’s more, in our competitive culture, we assume that in order for there to be winners, there must also be losers. In order for one thing to be valued, something else must be worth less. As a graduate student I know this all too well. In order for my good grade to be worth something, someone else has to get a lower one. If we all walked away with honors in all of our classes, it wouldn’t mean much— according to the competitive, sometimes even ruthless reality in which we live.

This competitive method of measuring worth is everywhere in our society, and I imagine that many of you can think of examples in your own lives when you’ve felt this way about something. And while sometimes our righteous indignation is justified— particularly when we challenge unjust laws or systems-- there are many other times when our sense of what’s fair is based more upon conventional, human notions of justice. Notions of justice that are detached from any sense of mercy, grace, or compassion. And so the question I would challenge us to think about this morning is: what if this parable, rather than somehow negating the idea that God is just, is actually asking us to expand our view of justice and fairness. What if it is asking us to make room for a little mercy, and to be a little less competitive in how we measure our worth?

A few years ago, I saw an episode of a documentary television show called 30 days. The main character of the episode was a man named Frank-- a Texas Minuteman whose parents had immigrated to the US legally when he was a child. As the show begins, Frank is preparing to go and live with an undocumented family for 30 days. Frank recalls how hard his own parents had worked for their citizenship, and the many sacrifices they had to make in order to achieve the American dream. Frank didn’t think anyone should be able to take a short-cut to that dream. Thus, was vehemently against any kind of amnesty for illegal immigrants. In Frank’s mind, there was a proper way to achieve citizenship. A way which required dutifully following the rules, and living by the law. Anything else just wouldn’t be fair. At one point during Frank’s 30 day stint with the family, he visited their former “home” in Mexico. It consisted of little more than four crumbling brick walls and a dirt floor, with water being supplied from a near-by well that was untreated and very likely contaminated. During his visit, something visible happens to Frank. After seeing the contaminated well from which the family got their water and the abject poverty in which they lived, he realizes that no one could be expected to live in such conditions. “Unimaginable,” he calls it. All of a sudden the old rules about what was “fair” no longer applied. Frank’s sense of justice is turned upside down by his sense of compassion. Justice was interrupted, and expanded, by grace.

Now I realize this illustration is not a one-to-one correspondence to the biblical parable. After all, the undocumented family-- while they have technically committed a crime-- have not lived licentiously or selfishly, like the younger son. They work hard and make many sacrifices for one another. They are in many ways dutiful and responsible members of the society in which they live. Frank, on the other hand, is very much like the older son in our parable. His resentment of undocumented immigrants stemmed from his notion that their legitimacy ought to be based on their willingness to play by the rules and put in the time— just like his own family did. He thought it was unfair that they should get to join in the party without going through the proper channels. That’s what he thought— until compassion intervened. Until grace happened. Frank realized that it was love which brought this family from the depths of poverty in Mexico to a more stable, if still poor, life in California. And he realized that love would have compelled him to do the exact same thing, if the situation had been reversed.

Frank’s story reminds us that sometimes, our notions of fairness are limited by our own bias and prejudice, and that sometimes we could stand to examine why it is we get so bent out of shape when we perceive that something isn’t fair. Frank’s story also reminds us that oftentimes, even when it seems to us that things aren’t fair, we don’t always know the whole story. And while it is true that sometimes the world just isn’t fair, it’s also true that we may not always know the untold struggles of the person who seems to get things that they don’t deserve. In the biblical parable, what the older son does not know is that his younger brother was willing to become a slave in order to make up for the sins of his past. He was willing to go back to his family in utter humiliation, and live out the rest of his days as a hired servant to the family he once betrayed. While it seems— from the perspective of the older son— as if the younger son is getting rewarded for bad behavior, that’s not really what’s going on in this story. The younger son is granted forgiveness and grace after he decides to face the consequences of his actions. After his heart is turned back towards his family in a moment of true repentance. The older brother, being all too human, cannot see that. But God does not see as humans see. This parable teaches us that only God can see into the deep recesses of the human heart. Therefore it is in fact God’s justice which is the truest justice of all.

In the biblical story, we don’t know what happens to the older son. Does he eventually join the party, allowing his love for his brother and happiness at his safe return to overwhelm his initial sense of unfairness? Or does he go through the rest of his life, resentful of his younger brother, never to speak to him again? We don’t know. Perhaps the story is left open-ended in order to give us the opportunity to finish it ourselves. For we often have the option, as we go through life, to remain resentful or jealous that that we were not given our due, or that someone else was given something we don’t think they deserve, or that we thought we deserved more. Or, we can allow our sense of justice to be interrupted and expanded by grace. We can join the celebration, knowing that God’s love for us is not diminished because it is so extravagantly and gratuitously poured out upon someone else. Knowing that our value is not to be determined by how much better we are than someone else. Knowing that even though we live in a competitive world, we do not have to compete for God’s love. Indeed, we cannot compete for God’s love. But what’s more, and what’s harder, is that just as we can’t compete for God’s love, so others should not have to compete for ours. Make no mistake. Most of us are much more like the older son in this story. But every so often, perhaps we can make room for a little more mercy and a lot more grace in our dealings with others.

The apostle Paul tells us in our reading this morning that through Christ, we have been transformed. We are no longer to see the world through our limited human point of view. God has given us, Paul says, the ministry of reconciliation. We are to be ambassadors of Christ in this competitive world. Therefore, the work of extravagant grace and gratuitous mercy is not just God’s work-- it is our work as well. We are the hands and feet of Christ, offering abundant mercy and gratuitous grace in the midst of this world’s all too often stingy notions of justice and fairness. We are the hands and feet of Christ, striving to imitate the wideness of God’s mercy and the broadness of God’s love.

Is it fair? Perhaps not. But that’s grace. That’s compassion. That is love.