A sermon on justice where I survived mentioning brexit and climate change, for Sunday 20th October 2019

Sermon for October 20^th

Gospel: Luke 18:1-8

¹ Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. ² He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. ³ In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, "Grant me justice against my opponent.' ⁴ For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, "Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, ⁵ yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.' " ⁶ And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷ And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? ⁸ I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, my lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.

Injustice is everywhere, we see it all around us, in society, in church – I know, how unlikely! – in politics, although I can’t think of any examples at the moment… and what one person would see as just, another would see as the greatest injustice ever. Our experiences, our faith and family all help to shape how we perceive justice.

There was a moment of judgement at work a few weeks ago, I’m in a large open plan office, where sound carries very easily so that phone calls aren’t private and meetings often happen at people’s desks, which can be disruptive to some.

One gentleman in the office is generally accepted as being the noisiest and most argumentative, there is another chap who is generally quiet and unassuming, and it isn’t me – I know, what a shock!

In fact, both these chaps are named John, although names have been changed to protect the innocent... The other week, my boss, who in this situation could be described as the judge, without looking up, called out, “John!” The noisy John shouted back, “yes, what is it?” To which, my boss called back, not you, “Good John…”

Of course, the whole office heard, and some were concerned but most laughed and fortunately, noisy John, took no offence whatsoever and now takes great delight in telling everyone that he is, ‘bad John.’

It’s possible that an injustice was done here and the judge, my boss, was unjust; in fact, most people thought he was very fair, which is how we think of God, as fair and just.

So, when we read today’s gospel, it’s important to be clear from the beginning that the judge in the story, does not represent God. We have the good Judge, or God. Then the bad Judge, the actual Judge. Once I got this idea straight in my mind, it helped to explain the rest of the parable.

Because, while we are encouraged to be persistent in prayer, it is not any human judge who will making a decision about whether our prayers will be answered or we will go to heaven, in fact, as far as heaven is concerned, if we have faith, we are promised eternal life.

The world we live in is not so simple, the judge is very much human, he gets bored, doesn’t like to be bothered, lacks respect for God or people. He sounds very human and very similar to many people in power today. There is nothing God like about him, except perhaps the size of his ego and his arrogance, like I say, like many people in power today.

The widow is an interesting character, we aren’t told what kind of justice she is seeking against her opponent, which means it isn’t crucial to Jesus’ message.

However, we do know that at that time, widows were among the most vulnerable in society. Once their husband had died, they had no right to property or family money, it would all go to a son, son-in-law or nearest male relative.

As a result, they were extremely vulnerable, which is partly why Jesus chose her for the parable, her needs have scriptural origins, in Zechariah 7:10, we are told, “do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.”

In Jeremiah 22:3, we read, “Thus says the Lord, “Do justice and righteousness, and deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor. Also do not mistreat or do violence to the stranger, the orphan, or the widow;”

And in Deuteronomy 26:12 we are told, “When you have finished paying all the tithe (a tenth of income) of your increase in the third year, the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite (a sect of Judaism dedicated to serving the temple and with no land or income), to the stranger, to the orphan and to the widow, that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied.

Much of our justice system is based on biblical principles, we only have to look at the ten commandments, the beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5, or the gifts of the spirit in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, or perhaps the greatest commandment given to us by Jesus, “to love the Lord your God and to love your neighbour as yourself,” and perhaps a shape of life we can aspire to, something beyond legal formulas.

Keeping this in mind, there are three messages I think we take can from this passage.

The first, is that, as Jesus clearly states, he is teaching about prayer, and simply put, that when you pray, God will hear you, God will grant justice and God will respond quickly! - and you won’t need to repeat it over and again like you would to the dishonest judge.

There is another message here, in fact, two more.

The second message is about faith and it helps if we see or imagine God, being the widow, persistently seeking justice, to protect, to save and redeem us, the human race who God loves so much. God will never stop, God persistently nudges away at our hearts and the hearts of our friends and neighbours, until they have come to know God and have faith.

The third message is about justice. Justice is every way possible, but through the lens of Jesus, of God and of the Holy Spirit. So, what is biblical justice? I hope we are moving away from the unhelpful image of the vengeful God smiting the sinners, in fact, not since the time of Noah, has God taken direct action. In addition, you’ve probably guessed that I’m not a fire and brimstone sort of preacher, so where am I going…?

I’ve already mentioned what biblical justice can look like, to protect the most vulnerable in society, the poor, the widow, the orphan and the stranger, and by stranger the Bible also uses the term alien, but simply means, anyone who is from outside the area, for example, people moving for work (in fact, we came here from Wales for my job – I know, me an economic migrant!).

People emigrating from here to new places where they’ll need the help of locals (for example, folks who move to Australia or Spain), people who move to another country looking for work, in places like London, where the cultural diversity is amazing, yet they all mix and work and live together, then we have refugees, who are forced to leave homes for all sorts of reasons, famine, disease, war, persecution or violence.

These are folks, just like us, who need to be protected and helped, who are vulnerable, and as compassionate people, Christian justice would say that we must do everything we can to help.

It might sound like I’ve made too much of that point, but all too often, the weakest in society become scapegoats or justification for laws which are unjust, from some points of view.

Society never changes, there has always been injustice and corruption. Recently, deceitfulness at the highest levels of governments and in the press has become more obvious, speaking lies as truth is so easy to far too many - so that when we seek fundamental truths or facts, they are almost impossible to find or are dismissed as false.

Interestingly, Jesus never did or encouraged us to lie, cheat, pursue money or power, to reject the poor or harm the planet, and yet, we do.

So, what can we do, when we see injustice? Well, as Jesus teaches; loving, accepting and helping the poor, the stranger, the widow and the orphan is a Christian calling, and if we people, or the planet, being treated unjustly, we must be persistent in prayer and persistent in seeking justice on their behalf. This means seeking the truth, campaigning for justice, praying for peace and speaking out against those who have a stronger voice than ours.

This applies as well to other issues, like Brexit and Climate Change, lets try to seek truth and see who will be the worst affected, and my guess is that it will be the poor, the refugees, the orphans and widows.

Once we have discerned truth, and I realise your truth may be different from mine. Then we must decide if this is a truth we must speak out about – and I know many of us already do. Then if we can or are able, we must be persistent, courteous and respectful like the widow was with the judge.

For whatever our passion may be, let us pray, for justice, persistently, to be known and heard by God, for biblical principles of justice for those with no voice, power or money. If we pray in the spirit, for justice, persistently, then that is the beginning of us being Christ-like symbols of truth and justice in the world, perhaps a better world than todays.

I’d like to close in a prayer if I may.

Let us pray.

God of justice,
we pray today for your light to shine in places of darkness, for truth to be revealed,
for honesty to be desired,
for the words to speak
which are salt to those who would listen.
We pray for the voiceless, the weak and the oppressed.
We pray for all represented by the widow, the orphan, the poor and the stranger, may they be made welcome, receive justice and know peace, in this world and the next.
Amen.