Sometimes when I weed my garden I get a bit lazy. Many of you probably recognize the scene – you have been beavering away at removing the weeds for a while and then either you look at your watch and realize you will have to stop soon, or a big rain cloud looms into sight, or well something which means that the next deeply rooted weed which you come across you might think – I just want this to look alright now – I know this is going to come back but I will dig it our properly next time.
This quick fix, make it go away mentality is the heart of the unjust judge. He does not deal with the woman for the sake of justice but for his own convenience. He is simply thinking, what can I do to make her stop nagging me.
God, on the other hand, says Jesus, the source of true justice, God will listen more carefully. The problem with real justice in this world is that it is rarely a quick fix – because God knows us way below the surface, God sees our motivations and our inter-relatedness – using justice as a sort of byword for keeping those who we find uncomfortable or dangerous to us under control is falling into the same short-term thinking as that judge. Of course we need controls on behaviour in our society but Christian justice cuts much deeper than simply punishment and retribution.
For this reason, justice can be a hard word to use in the Christian context. Too often it is bandied about as a sort of short-hand for punishment – justice really is not about punishment as it is about restoring balance – ultimate justice restores balance between all of humanity and God – our human justice in its best form restores some sort of balance in our society – but too often only on a punitive and restrictive basis.
Real justice, the sort that comes from and with God, starts from a place of value. Not values, those largely external expectations which we put upon ourselves, but the intrinsic value of every human life. An intrinsic value that sees each and every person as God sees them. This vision then, translates into every aspect of the formation of society. If everyone, throughout the world, is equally valuable how should we be living as a society?
This week is One World Week – the theme is piece by piece – towards peace. It comes from an understanding that peace is not something which can be achieved in a hurry – we cannot just pick off the weeds which are showing and make the garden we live in look nice – it requires going down to the very roots of the problem or the weeds simply become bigger and more pernicious as their root systems develop quietly beneath the surface.
Lets think for a moment about how that might look in our own town. So imagine for a minute that you are out shopping in town, it is a Saturday and the market is busy. You hear a bit of noise from the other side of the market but you carry on with what you are doing. Then you decide to go and look at the plants and as you wander over there you notice several police officers tackling a young man to the ground. As they put handcuffs on him and haul him to his feet his face is set and angry – he looks defiantly at the ground – he does not seem to care. You watch for a moment and a passer by stops next to you – nicked some CDs, he tells you, needs locking up – all of them need locking up.
This scenario is played out over and over again around the world, from stealing CDs to hate crimes, from religious fanaticism to vandalism – we want those people dealt with, kept away from us, taught a lesson and perhaps, eventually, rehabilitated – but rehabilitated somewhere else, rehabilitated in a way which means that we can keep our sense that it is them and not us.
I am not, for one second, denying anyone's responsibility for themselves – I am suggesting that when children are brought up in situations where they find no help, where the adults around them have lost hope, where hope is barely even remembered that society has a problem. There will never be peace in a world where people find little value in their own lives. There will never be peace in a world where people are brought up to fight the system because the system lets them down or actively oppresses them. There will never be peace in a world where justice is used to describe treating the end result – where justice is not seen as integral to everyone.
In Psalm 85 the writer paints a picture of restoration and rightness with God – in verse 10 (REB) he says.
Psalm 85:10 – love and faithfulness have come together: justice and peace have embraced – justice and peace have embraced. The two go hand in hand in the vision of utopia which he is suggesting. Justice and peace are flip sides of the same coin. Peace is, like justice, not a quick fix – peace is not simply an absence of noise – it goes much deeper – peace is an abiding in the heart of God. The value which is intrinsic in abiding in the heart of God – the assumption of God's longing for us to return, is common to all humanity.
It is too hard to find world peace tomorrow – we cannot find our own peace tomorrow but accepting that God holds that peace for us is the first step.
Paul is writing to Timothy to say that they must remember that the words they have learned in scripture are inspired by God – not just in a vague sense but in the sense of being the very breath of God in words on a page. This, then, he urges must keep them faithful to their task – even when times get hard, even when people around them find other things which seem more appealing and easier to swallow – there is still a truth to be told.
These words are just are true for us – we have to be who we are – we have to be people who know the truth of Christ, who have accepted God's call to reconciliation and see that, not just for ourselves, but for the whole world. We simply cannot settle for half answers, we cannot pretend that a key in a lock solves any problems at all. There will always be locks and keys but without seeking the depths of problems – without seeking true justice and offering the love of Christ in the darkest corners of humanity and lock and key will not bring us peace – simply a respite which leaves us afraid of the next time.
The One World Week leaflet contains the following sentence:
“The irony is that to seek peace and to make it we must engage in struggle, non-violent struggle obviously, but struggle all the same to ensure that that the last will be first; the struggle to know and to insist that life is sacred – both the life of humanity and of the natural world, that together they reflect the very being of God. ”
We have to engage with the places we live – especially with those who we would generally avoid. I suspect most of us would agree with the passer by in the market who declares that we are better rid of thieves than to take the time to engage with the man who has been arrested, with his circumstances and motivations and then to use the very real power and influence which we have in this society to demand justice for him.
We have to get it out of our heads that people somehow choose misfortune – that they choose to exist in ways which some of us find hard to deal with – lifetimes of unemployment, mental health issues which imprison them, cycles of abuse and neglect. Many, many people have simply never been taught to hope – let alone been taught that they have value beyond the economic. People make choose from the table which is laid before them – if they can only choose from scraps that is what they have to live on – but God's demand for humanity is not for scraps – it is not for sharing out meagre supply but for lavish abundance.
This is justice – giving worth, sharing abundance and from this piece by piece justice will come a more lasting peace. But to achieve it we will have to live with the weeds, see them as they are, be honest about the state of our garden. It might seem as though it is a hopeless task as we work hard and more and more weeds grow – but as those of you who are gardeners know – the more flowers that there are, the less chance the weeds have – there is no space for them. The more people who are treated with justice, who are tended by the Gardener – the less space there will be for violence and discord.
Even if life looks messy, even if we have to admit to the places where there is a lack of justice, even if we have to share our abundance, surely that is better than simply making things look good on the surface and letting the roots of hatred grow ever deeper.
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