Justice Misapplied

Yesterday my family and I were on our way to a funeral. We, obviously, needed to get there on time. We got on the expressway north and made good time for about ¾ of our trip. Much to our chagrin however, the traffic slowed to a crawl without any discernable reason. As we limped along, we began to notice that the southbound lane of the freeway was deserted. The southbound lanes, it seemed, had been shut down due to an accident. We proceeded on until we could see where the police had the expressway cordoned off and traffic was stopped.

Just then, about ten car-lengths ahead of us, an SUV pulled out into the “authorized access only” turn arounds and pulls a U-turn into the now abandoned expressway. Both my wife and I were aghast and furious that this person would a) disobey a posted sign and b) disobey a police-directed initiative. As I watched the car disappear in my rear-view mirror I saw movement come up alongside me. A police car drove up on the shoulder and approached the turn around. My wife and I both said out loud, “Go get him”. In a moment of perfect justice, the police officer, too, pulled a U-turn, flipped on his lights and chased after the offender who must have felt so isolated and vulnerable being the only car driving down an abandoned expanse of highway. We cheered. Justice was done. All was right in the world.

Humans have an inherent sense of justice. Our quest for justice is born and rooted in being made in the image of God. We know that the Lord is righteous, wholly and perfectly righteous; so righteous in fact that He must be then opposed to anything that is unrighteous. From that attribute flows the wrath of the Lord which opposes anything that would hate or be opposed to His moral character. It is one of the communicable attributes of the Lord. We, too, seek out justice and fairness in this world, whether it is in some offense or slight committed against us or whether it is, in the instance of this driver, someone who has broken the rules. We naturally demand that those who break the rules require punishment for justice to be done.

Illegal U-turns must be punished.

Yet our desire for justice can quickly transition into hatred and bitterness. A misplaced sense of justice leads can quickly lead into pride and self-righteousness since we, unlike our Maker, are not perfect and are riddled with sins of our own. Our sense of justice can quickly cause us to overlook the long list of our own sins.

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells a parable to those crowds gathered around Him. He tells of a landowner in need of workers for his vineyard. Early in the day he hires a group of men, promising them a day’s wages. Around noon he hires another group offering them, too, a day’s wages. He does the same around three in the afternoon. Finally, around five, he hires a final group, offering them a day’s wages as well.

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius [a day’s wages]. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 

‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work in the heat of the day.’

But he answered them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’”

Jesus told this story to illustrate to self-righteous religious Jews that He was more interested in bringing others into His fold through grace than He was in validating the already righteous (or at least, self-righteous). It was the misplaced sense of justice (and jealousy) that led these men to overlook that they too were hired fairly by the landowner.

In our quest for justice we must not too quickly ignore the fact that mercy is also an attribute of the Lord. We need to seek justice as a means to save and serve others, not out of some sense of self-righteous pride. We, too, should be as quick to show mercy and grant leniency as we are to condemn others for infractions for which we have been forgiven. None of us can conceive of exactly how guilty and unrighteous we are in the eyes of God. Yet, in spite of this deficiency, we have been redeemed by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. As we begin, in our own feeble human terms, to seek retributive justice for others, we must never forget the ledger of offenses that were once levied against us. This does not absolve others of guilt or exclude them from punishment (especially on a civic level) but it keeps us grounded in the reality that we too are debtors who cannot pay. We should not take joy from the downfall of others but turn our eyes to ourselves and praise the great and merciful Father who chose us before the foundation of the world to demonstrate His loving kindness.