Unjust God
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“Grant me justice against my opponent,” the widow demanded of the judge.
“Alex Jones picked on the wrong people.” That’s the headline of a recent editorial by Anna Merlan of the New York Times. “Alex Jones picked on the wrong people.” Who is Alex Jones? Alex Jones is a conservative, far-right radio show host and prominent conspiracy theorist whose net worth is speculated to be somewhere between $200 and $900 million dollars. He’s made a hefty profit off of make-believe claiming that major tragedies in our country are fake and staged by actors. Why does he do this? Because he believes these tragedies are staged by our government to bolster a sinister totalitarian system.
So on his radio show he makes things up. People listen and while they listen they are invited to buy things like supplements and supplies for their bomb shelters for when the world comes to an end. So he makes things up. People buy things from him, and he gets richer and richer. He started all this nonsense with the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, continued his nonsense with tragedy after tragedy like 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombing, the Pulse Nightclub massacre and on and on and on.
Well, Alex Jones finally messed with the wrong people – that is the parents of Sandy Hook, the horrific tragedy on December 14, 2012 – almost 10 years ago – when twenty 6,7 & 8 year olds and six adults were murdered in their school. For some unknown reason, Alex Jones singled out Robbie Parker, the father of Emilie who was killed claiming that he was just an actor and suggested that his behavior at a news conference a day after his daughter’s murder was “disgusting.”
In the defamation trial against Alex Jones, Robbie Parker testified how they had to take down a Memorial Page for Emilie on Facebook because it was being bombarded with vicious lies, and that four years after the attack while he was in Seattle on business, he was pursued down a street by a man screaming obscenities at him, telling him that his daughter was alive and demanding to know how much the government paid him.
For years Robbie Parker and other Sandy Hook parents have been like the widow in our gospel story from Luke, “Grant me justice against my opponent!” And like Alex Jones, the heartless judge in today’s gospel story who bragged that he neither feared God nor had respect for anyone, picked on the wrong woman. What was even more remarkable about this woman who demanded justice was that she at least four strikes against her. First she was a woman and women had no legal standing whatsoever. Second she was a widow and widow might as well have been invisible. Third she was a foreigner, a stranger in a strange land. And finally she was persistent. She didn’t give up. She demanded justice. She kept pestering and she kept praying. She kept praying and she kept pestering.
Alex Jones messed with the wrong people and last Wednesday a Connecticut civil jury found that Alex Jones should pay nearly $1 billion dollars to the Sandy Hook families and an FBI agent he defamed on air. And the Lord said, “And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.”
But that’s not always the case. In agony and in pain many would disagree. In fact, many may be up in arms, feeling totally betrayed with regard to this notion of God granting justice – of God granting justice to those who cry to him day and night. For four years the families of the Parkland, Florida high school shooting have been crying out for justice day and night. “Grant me justice against my opponent.”
From the New York Times again just a few days ago we read: “Nikolas Cruz, the profoundly disturbed young man who carried out a massacre in the hallways of his former high school four years ago should not be condemned to death and instead should spend the rest of his life in prison, a state jury said on Thursday. In a swift decision that stunned many of the victims’ families, the jury of seven men and five women sentenced Mr. Cruz to life in prison without the possibility of parole for all 17 first-degree murder counts, after about seven hours of deliberations in a grueling and often emotional sentencing trial.”
Listen to what Debra Hixon said after the verdict. Her husband, Christopher, the high school’s athletic director was one of the adult murdered that day. She said, “What it says to me, what it says to my family, what it says to the other families, is that his life (that is the shooters) his life meant more than the 17 that were murdered.” And then she said something that might perk our ears up here in church this morning. She said this, “He should give thanks to God that someone had grace and mercy on him that he did not show other people.”
Tony Monalto, the father of 14-year-old Gino who was murdered that day said this: “The monster that killed them gets to live another day.” Nicholas Cruz who was just 20 years old on the Valentine’s Day in 2018 when he stormed in Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School with a legally purchased semiautomatic rifle and 300 rounds of ammunition shot 139 rounds down hallways and into classrooms sometimes going back to his victims shooting them again to make sure they were dead. And for four long years the families of those victims cried the widow’s plea, “Grant me justice against my opponent.”And the Lord said, “And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.”
When it comes to justice, what are we left with except confusion? We are left confused about the nature of justice and where God fits into our notion of justice. Is it justice that the Sandy Hook families get awarded almost $1 billion dollars for their pain and suffering while the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School families are left in shock and disbelief that the murderer of their loved ones get to live another day?
It’s not fair. Justice is not fair. The nature of God’s justice is not fair. God’s mercy is not fair. It doesn’t make sense. Perhaps the greatest offense of this parable is that Jesus is unjust.
Perhaps the greatest confusion about this parable is the nature of God’s justice – which is unjust. Wait – what did I just say? I said the nature of God’s justice is not fair. God’s mercy is not fair. It doesn’t make sense. Perhaps the greatest offense of this parable is that Jesus is unjust.
Jesus is unjust because Jesus hears the prayers of the righteous and the unrighteous alike. Jesus is unjust because he hears the prayers of those who are labeled as good people and those who are labeled as evil. Jesus is unjust because God’s mercy is based not on the merits of your case, but rather on the expansive, abundant, outrageous, inexplicable love Jesus has for you and for all people.
Does that mean in God’s kingdom here on earth and in heaven there is the possibility of mercy for all? For all? Including every single one of those 26 victims of Sandy Hook and every single one of those victims of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas and every single family member impacted. Our faith, our belief in a just God wrestles with that very question just as Jacob wrestled with the divine as told in today’s first lesson.
Now on the other hand – and we’ve got to go there this morning – does that mean there is in God’s kingdom here on earth and in heaven there is mercy for Alex Jones, for Nicholas Cruz and for Adam Lanza the Sandy Hook shooter. Again, our faith, our belief in a just God wrestles with that very question just as Jacob wrestled with God.
The truth is that Jesus’ love is so unfair to us that it doesn’t make any sense. The truth is that Jesus’ mercy is so unfair and so outrageous that we react. We react by labeling people according to their actions – good or bad, saintly or evil. The truth is that even Jesus’s forgiveness is so unfair that we easily think there is somebody worse than we are. The truth is that Jesus’s love is so outrageous that we sometimes truly believe we don’t deserve it.
No doubt this is an obtuse, strange, mind-boggling and confusing parable from Jesus, but I like how it ends. Listen to how it ends. Jesus asks a very simple question: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith?” Another way to ask the same question, “When Jesus shows up today in the breaking of bread, will Jesus find one community or will he find people divided up and separated from one another? Will Jesus find you caring for one another or you labeling others? Will Jesus find you listening, truly listening to one another or – from a distance –judging one another. And finally, will Jesus find you on your knees receiving his very body and blood, the bread of life and rising up in the fullness of his image. Amen.