Praying for God’s Justice

Rev. Robert Traer

Scripture Readings: Jeremiah 31:27-34, Luke 18:1-8

The gospel of Luke says that the parable of the unjust judge reminds us of the need to pray always and not lose heart. Without this explanation, we might not know what the parable means. An unjust judge, who neither fears God nor has respect for people, renders a decision only because he wants the plaintiff to stop pestering him. Surely, God is not like the unjust judge. The point is that if even an unjust judge responds to persistent appeals, then surely God (who must be a just judge) will give justice to those who persist in their prayers.

So, end of sermon. Right? Wrong. The image of an uncaring judge relenting because of the pleading of a plaintiff will hardly comfort us, unless we trust in a caring God who will answer our prayers — because we have faith and our cause is just. Yet, we are well aware of people with faith and a just cause, whose prayers seem unanswered.

So, forget the unjust steward. Let’s talk about a just God. Is there any evidence for that kind of faith? It all depends on what we mean by "justice" and by "God".

Consider the biblical story of God. God creates all life, then judges Adam and Eve for disobedience and sentences them to life in the real world. When people gets too uppity, God destroys their great civilization (tower) and confuses their language (babel). Then, to cleanse the earth of human wrongdoing, God sends a flood to kill everyone except Noah and his family. So far in the story God is righteous and humanity is unrighteous, but there’s no hope for justice. Moreover, God's wrath is very ineffective. After the waters recede, Noah’s descendants continue to live unjustly, as others did before the flood.

God tries again by calling Abraham into a covenant. If Abraham does what God wants, he will father a great people. But when God says that Sodom and Gomorrah must be destroyed, because of the wickedness within them, Abraham argues with God to spare the cities. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" (Gen. 18:25) Abraham persuades God to show mercy if even ten righteous men are found in the city. A righteous man shows God what justice means.

In the time of Moses, God frees the Israelite tribes from slavery in Egypt by defeating Pharaoh and making the Egyptians suffer. Under Joshua the Israelites pray that God will defeat their enemies, and scripture tells us God does. Under King David the nation of Israel is founded, so God’s justice seems to be validated. Yet, after Solomon the Israelites are divided, and in the next few centuries foreign enemies conquer their lands.

In the midst of this national disaster, prophets proclaim that God’s justice is not protecting Israel from its enemies but means establishing justice for all nations. The prophets assume that Israel will be restored as part of this divine plan, but their hopes are not realized. After the Persians conquer the Babylonians, Israelites in exile are allowed to return home and the temple in Jerusalem is rebuilt. But Israel languishes under one oppressive empire after another, until its revolt in against Rome is put down in 70 and the temple in Jerusalem is again destroyed.

Since that time, for almost two millennia, Jews have debated God’s justice and found it lacking. Some conclude that justice is only possible when God brings about the end of the world. Others argue that it is up to human beings to create justice on earth — by enforcing God’s law justly.

Christians at the end of the first century, when most of the New Testament scriptures were written, also were divided about God’s justice. The apocalyptic crowd looked for the end of the world and God’s victory over the forces of evil. Other Christians saw in the Christ who died unjustly for the sake of humanity a new initiative by God to reconcile the all the world's peoples.

Think about all this for a moment — from God’s point of view. God creates everything and starts the story, kills everyone but rescues Noah’s family and starts over again, argues about justice with Abraham and accepts the patriarch’s appeal for mercy, frees the Israelites, fights for them against their enemies, and helps them to establish a nation. Yet, the people God chooses and helps do not remain faithful. What is God to learn from this experience? Apparently, being almighty God does not ensure that those favored by God will live according to God's commands.

So, what is God to do? God tries something new. The passage from Jeremiah says that God writes the law on the hearts of the people. That means people should know God’s law and be able to live justly. But the prophets also cling to the idea that God intends to bring justice at the end of time, whether people live justly or not.

These two insights into God and what justice might mean are worked out in a new way in the New Testament, which for Christians ends the biblical story of God. God is not only present in the hearts of the faithful, but God defeat injustice by being its victim. How is that a victory? We can’t blame God anymore for injustice, for God has become one of us. In the New Testament a just man, in whom we find God, is crucified unjustly. No longer is God an unjust judge, who refuses to hear our prayers. Paul writes that nothing "will be able to separate us from the love of God [we know] in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:39) The good news of the church is that God's justice is God's steadfast love — a love that is with us as we face injustice, and a love that forgives us for our injustice.

Yet, there is also in the New Testament a vision of God's final victory over the forces of evil. The church proclaims that the Son of Man will return at the end of time. (Luke 18:8) The New Testament affirms that the world will end with justice, for those who have been faithful. The Christ who died is the Christ who lives again and will reign forever.

So, what are we to pray for? The justice we know as God's love in our time? The justice that we believe will reign at the end of time? Answering these questions is not what is important. What really matters is that we keep praying (for God's justice), that we persist in our faith (in Christ), and that we live (in the Spirit) with hope and love. Amen.

21 October 2001