God will establish his justice

1 God will establish his justice I learned my first lesson about justice when I was 6. My younger sister was 4 and my younger brother had just arrived, so my sister and I were in the same bedroom. I was, naturally, a little sensitive about my previously private space and special toys. Four year olds have incredible destructive power. Meanwhile, my sister was going through the phase where all she wanted to do was be like her big sister. There were going to be problems. I had a prized colouring in book. It was a good two or three centimetres thick. Full of beautiful pictures of animals and cartoons to colour. One day my sister decided that it was in fact hers. My dad entered our room to find us in full meltdown over the colouring in book, both claiming, in tears, that it was our book and the other was trying to take it away. So a quick survey. Many of you here are parents or aunts or uncles. What would you do to bring justice to the situation? - Timeshare? Buy another? Take it away? Well my dad must have been reading his old testament and looked at Solomon in particular. He decided to rip that favourite book of mine right down the spine so we would have half each. The destruction of the book was punishment, and justice in itself. The thing is, there are a lot of different ideas going around about justice. Does justice mean we all get the same thing half a colouring in book? Different ideas about justice go right into some of the most fundamental debates about how to organise our society. Is justice treating everyone the same? Or is it making sure we all get the same opportunities? And if it s that, how could we make sure everyone gets a fair go? I learned another lesson about justice when I was 16. I was in year 11 and went to a nice Anglican girls school. My friends would catch the train north, but we had friends at a nice Anglican boys school in year 12 who d catch the train south, so we d meet on the station before school. The two groups were Christian, so we met up at various inter-

2 church events and camps. Things like that. Actually, one of the boys used to work at this church and has just had his first baby. I got a call from one of the girls in this group saying something terrible had happened to one of the guys. He was going to gaol. He d just finished his HSC and apparently he had another group of friends I didn t know about, and they weren t a great influence. He was involved in a robbery. Someone had a knife. Now I was pretty sheltered, so I d never imagined something like this in my friendship group. The guy was friendly enough. Not the brightest, but always kind. He had wanted to go to ADFA and join the air force. Now, while his friends were going on schoolies and off to uni, he was going to gaol and would come out with a criminal record. I had believed pretty strongly in justice until then. But now justice seemed hopeless, depressing. I knew my friend needed to be punished. But I couldn t see how sending him to gaol fixed anything. How did it help the people who were robbed? How was it going to help an 18 year old making stupid choices after his exams make better choices for his future. Justice was lose-lose. We have a lot of ideas and experiences of justice in our life and in our culture. So when it comes to reading about God s justice in the Bible, there s a risk that we read in what justice means to us in our world into the Bible, and make assumptions about God and his justice. And what our culture says about justice isn t always pleasant. We often think of justice as a kind of lose-lose payback. And we might read in our feelings of justice just like I came to worry that justice was always unpleasant, an unfortunate fact of life. Perhaps you ve worried that God s justice will be like that. Unpleasant like a ripped up colouring in book - but unfortunately necessary. But God in psalm 82 actually tells us what his idea of justice is. And it s not the kind of thing I had in mind. It s something to look forward to. It s so different to what our culture says about justice that you might find it surprising. Psalm 82 shows us that for God, justice is not about payback, or even treating everyone the same. It s about making things right, especially for those who have been mistreated, taken advantage of, exploited or are vulnerable.

3 So let s turn to the psalm. In this psalm the psalmists sets up a kind of thought experiment, comparing God YHWH, the God of Israel to the gods of all the other countries. Now you have to remember when you read the Old Testament that the full truth about God was only revealed little by little, and only eventually in Jesus who is YHWH himself. When some parts of the Old Testament were written, they still thought that the Gods of the other countries were really gods, but they knew that YHWH, their God, was the best God. It was only when the Jews got kicked out of their land and sent to Babylon and God was still with them that they learned that YHWH, was still powerful even over in Babylon, and over time he told them actually he s the God of the whole world and then finally, eventually, that these other so-called Gods don t even exist. So we know now that these gods don t exist, but we ve got to kind of go with it and enter the world of the psalmist, based on what the psalmist knew about God. Lots of cultures thought there might be a council of Gods. This is a Babylonian picture of what it might look like. Anyway, so the psalmist imagines that the gods are all gathered together in an assembly of Gods. There s YHWH the God of Israel, there s Marduk of the Bablyonians, there s Ashur of the Assyrians, Chemosh of the Moabites. And YHWH judges them all and says to them that they are terrible gods. They re not doing the job of a god. Why are they so bad at being gods? Were they not powerful enough? Did they not strike enough people down? Did they not give enough commandments? Not sovereign enough? No, he judges them for not judging justly. And what would it mean to judge justly? YWHW tells them: Provide justice for the needy and the fatherless; uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute. Rescue the poor and needy; save them from the power of the wicked.

4 There we have it. God gives us his definition of justice. He tells us, essentially, his idea of what a god is meant to do. And the psalm ends with a prayer, even a demand to the true God Rise up God, judge the earth. Now this is just the kind of place where we might read in our preconceptions about justice. Judge the earth! It s payback time! We re thinking, fire, brimstone, lava, smiting of people, gnashing of teeth. But read it in context, and what is the psalmist really asking God to do? The psalmist is asking God to rescue the poor and the needy, uphold the rights of the vulnerable people without family, friends or connections, save them from wicked, powerful people. You see, for the ancient Israelites, justice was not mainly about payback although it did mean consequences for the oppressors it was about restoration, it was about putting the world back together again, but most of all, it was about creating a world where those who have been mistreated or just unlucky can flourish. So God s justice is not something to fear but to look forward to. The other day I was speaking with a Christian friend and God s judgement on the world came up. She was worried that God s justice would be a horrible thing, something that we couldn t possibly look forward too. Terrifying. Maybe you ve felt like that. When you do, or when you about that, turn to Psalm 82. When God speaks of judging the world, bringing justice, this is the kind of thing he has in mind. Restoration. Peace. This is something we can look forward to and find comforting. So did God answer the psalmist s prayer rise up and judge the earth? If God prides himself on being the God of true justice, what s he actually doing about that? This is where we turn to the New Testament gospel of Luke. Luke s my favourite gospel. Seriously. I love it so much I called my son Lucas, which is the original Greek way of saying Luke. Part of why I love it is its message about Jesus bringing justice. See there s an old prophesy in the book of Isaiah about someone coming to bring what s called the year of

5 the Lord s favour. It s not a literal year of 365 days. It s a time when people hear God s word, when there s healing and justice and freedom. You might have heard of impromptu weddings like when people don t want the hassle of organising the whole big white thing, but they still want a party. I know of some people who invited all their friends and family to their engagement party. The engaged couple get up to give a speech. And suddenly there s a celebrant, they start making vows, giving each other rings, and it s on. The family is in shock. Everyone thinks they ve come to hear about a future wedding, to celebrate the wedding that is to come but the couple s announcing that the wedding is actually now. So that s kind of like what Jesus does in Luke 4. Everyone thinks he s telling them about a future time of justice. And he says, no, it s on now. So Jesus is in his home town, Nazareth, and he goes to synagogue. He s the one doing the bible reading that day, so he reads from the book of Isaiah, chapter 61. He reads it out. The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord s favour. That verse in Isaiah about someone coming to announce the year of the Lord s favour that time of freedom and justice. That s about me, and it s now, says Jesus. That prophesy is like Jesus mission statement. He brings justice to people who are poor or lonely or outsiders, he brings healing physical, spiritual, social and he brings freedom, from sin, death and oppression.

6 I know we re in an advent series, and I promised Michelle/Michael I d make this sermon nice and Christmassy. So here s where Christmas comes in. Centuries ealier, speaking through the Psalmist, God declared that his version of justice means rescuing poor and needy people. He proved that this is priority, his commitment, his passion because at Christmas, this same god became a poor and needy person. God actually joined the ranks of the nobodies, the no-hopers, in a nothing country town, with people with nothing. Even refugees as his parents fled to Egypt. And the baby grew up and faced the grossest injustices. When religious leaders felt threatened, they colluded with the rulers of a powerful empire occupying the land. He he no proper hearing, and was executed. If there is anyone knows what it is to be oppressed, it s Jesus. And of course, wonder of the cross is the way that God laid bare the darkness and depths of human injustice and took it on himself. He condemned human sin. And when the Father raised Jesus from the dead it was like he was saying Yes to Jesus, Jesus is vindicated, he his in the right. Of course there s much more to say about the cross and justice. But I ll just say this - Jesus, most innocent and unjustly treated person, was first to be raised from the dead and shown to be in the right. God will do the same for everyone else who belongs to Jesus. They will be vindicated. He ll make it right. By now I m making God s justice look pretty rosy and you d be fair enough to wonder where s the judgement in God s justice. If God s justice is about restoration, what about all the warnings in the Bible. What about wrath? What about the wicked? After all Jesus himself spoke more about fire and gnashing of teeth and stuff like that more than anyone else in the Bible. Or to push the point further, if God s justice is about making things right for the poor and vulnerable, what about people like us who are mostly well off and secure. This is not all of us, but on the whole, most of us at St Stephens are wealthy by global, Australian, even by Sydney standards. I felt this pretty keenly the other day. I was in a taxi coming back from the airport. The taxi driver asked what I did for a living, and my husband (that s always an interesting conversation). Then the conversation turned to what he did for a living and how hard it is to make ends meet as a taxi driver and how hard he had to work. We drove over the

7 Roseville bridge and it was just a gorgeous day summer and the water was glimmering. And he said this was such a nice place to live. I have it so good. And he does not have the life I do. And it s not fair. Even when we try be just and remember the poor, maybe we re all too aware that some poor woman in Bangladesh made our clothes for a pittance, or that some Indigenous kid in regional NSW does not have the same healthcare that we have. We are often the beneficiaries of injustice. So are we the very evildoers that the psalm aims against? Is God s justice good for us too? Well two examples in Luke s Gospel come to mind of people who met Jesus who might be on the wrong side of God s justice mission. Jesus himself rejects neither of them, but only one experiences joy. The first is the rich young ruler in Luke 18. We don t know how he got rich, but we know he had money and he had power and he had status. Jesus tells him, you still lack one thing: sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. And what does it say. The rich young man became extremely sad, because he was very rich. Sad because most of all, he wanted to stay rich. You see he wasn t willing to join Jesus in his mission. In a way, he brought judgement on himself. It s a serious thing to put yourself on the wrong side of Jesus justice. But another example comes from the next chapter in Luke, chapter 19 where Zacchaeus meets Jesus. Now the Ladies at 8 know I love Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a rich man too, and we know how he got rich he got rich by ripping people off! Jesus came to dine with him and Zaccheus response, without being asked was Look, I ll give half of my possessions to the poor, Lord! And if I have extorted anything from anyone, I ll pay back four times as much! This guy got it. He got that God s justice is not just about paying back what s due, it s about restoration, abundance, hope. He got that Jesus had come to bring justice to the very type of people he had ripped off, and he wanted to be part of it. But the really beautiful thing is, for people like us who, might worry we re on the wrong side of Jesus justice, is that Zaccheus encounter with Jesus wasn t just a chance for

8 restoration to the poor, Jesus brought restoration and rescue to Zacchaeus too. One of the ways God brings justice to the vulnerable and makes the world right is by melting and changing the hearts of those who have benefited from injustice. As Jesus said to Zaccheaus, Today salvation has come to this house For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost. Jesus offers rescue and restoration, even to the rich. God s justice is good news for all who repent and join in his mission. So what can we do with all this? I know this is a generous church, having been on the receiving end of this generosity many times in many ways. But continue to give generously of your influence, your money, your time or your knowledge. If you have not turned to Jesus repenting and asking for restoration in your own life, do. Ask him to make you part of his justice mission. Part of why Christians are especially dedicated to justice for the poor, because like the psalmist we believe God will come good on what he s said about himself. When the world throws up its hands and says, some social problems can never be fixed we believe we re not fighting a losing battle when we fight poverty. We re not wasting our time when we defend those who have no one to defend them because we believe God will say YES our efforts and complete this work. If you don t know how you might be part of this mission, pray that God will show us how best to join in. And talk to others at church, because there are so many in our church doing great things for people facing injustice and they re very passionate about it whether it s microfinance in Indonesia, working with remote Aboriginal communities in Western Australia, or assisting local people who are socially isolated who have real practical needs they need a lift, help with shopping or just company. I ve got a friend who writes emails to politicians. All the time. About poverty, about healthcare, about domestic violence. He says it s so easy. It takes 5 minutes. Politicians read them and reply. But not many people do it. This week especially we should think hard about the findings of the royal commission, pray for the victims, for the changes that need to be made and thank God for the work

9 that s been done because if there s anyone that s vulnerable and experienced injustice, its abused children. And also remember what God means when he s bringing justice it s not something to fear but something to join in. It s good news for the poor, rescue for the oppressed. This is something so good that we literally cannot wait for it, we get to be part of it now.