17th Sunday. A lesson of Divine Justice

Real story…Mayor LaGuardia, in NYC during the Great Depression, would sit as a judge in some courts. One night, doing so, a grandmother is brought in. She was accused of stealing a loaf of bread. The mayor asked her if she was guilty. Yes, she replied. Her son in law had abandoned her family and they had not eaten in several days. They were hungry. The store owner would not relent, demanding justice, he wanted to make an example. Mayor LaGuardia stated that the law was clear, she broke it and will either need to pay $10 or 10 days in jail, and as he did this he pulled out $10 from his pocket, put it in a basket, and then fined everyone in the court 50 cents for indifference, for allowing people to starve. They collected over $40. He gave it to her. Fee paid and she had enough to get food.

Justice, it is a good thing, objectively. Helps to preserve society, ideally. It provides structure, and as Americans we think it is supposed to be blind, meaning it is applied to everyone equally.

We believe God is just, and this would be a truth; yet what we tend to do is attribute to God our own sense of justice. We try to make God in our own image…and this is when we fail. This is when abuse takes place. This is when injustice takes place. People have done this to justify their racism, their hatred of others, etc. We fail as disciples.

Salvation means the freedom to experience goodness, to be those persons that God created us to be; Salvation means to help build God’s kingdom here on earth, not mine, not yours… It is also a now experience, not just an experience of heaven sometime in the future.

I get perturbed at people who demand that God’s justice is harsh, brutal, cold. They often cite the Old Testament, but clearly they have not read it, or just have searched the parts that support their own ideas, their own egos. And of course they forget what the Son of God revealed about Divine Justice.

Let’s go back to Genesis; Adam and Eve disobey. That scene with God is amazing…there is no remorse by Adam and Eve, in fact they both seek to blame another for their participation. God does not judge them. What God does say is that there are consequences of their actions. They will have to work hard now; because they accused each other, this wonderful unity is wounded, so now they will have to work harder to maintain that relationship.  Yet before they leave the Garden God gives them real clothes for their protection, not the leaves they made for themselves. And God still remains with them, they and their children are not abandoned.

Cain and Abel; one brother murders another over favoritism, God speaks out, and again there are consequences, but Cain is not punished, not killed, rather God places the sign on him to protect.

God must go to see what is going on in Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham, knowing his nephew lives there and also knowing the situation, intercedes. He persists. Six times he does this; and on the Seventh it will be God’s decision to preserve or not. (does that sound familiar). God will willingly save all for just the minimum.

The greatest crime against God…the execution of his Son. The expedient justice of humanity; kill the one so that the many may live, so that the Romans will not attack them. The justice of humanity because Jesus offends their egos, their ideas of justice, their idea of God because Jesus dared to show compassion for the sick, the sinner, the foreigner; Jesus forgave, Jesus dared to touch the untouchable…all against the so-called law.

So what was the Father’s justice against this great crime?

Jesus teaches us in the Gospel, not just a method of prayer, but he reveals the Father and the Father’s way. Jesus reveals his own strength, the “why” of his life. The Father is not some abstract distant being, he is Abba, Dad, intimate and present; who desires us to be in union, in the family.

This same Dad, this same Abba will give to us our needs, needs that are truly good and good for others; if we but ask.  Abba does not demand satisfaction, no payment; Abba does not demand proof first; first and last month’s rent, down payments, social security numbers, background checks, citizenship proof…

The disciple of Christ follows Jesus to the Father, and from the Father finds divine justice: based on compassion, based on mercy, based on restoration, based in salvation.  

The Father’s justice for the crime against his Son was the resurrection, it was forgiveness, compassion.  

We who call ourselves Christian, Catholic, disciples, believers..this too must become our justice. God calls us to this justice; this is how the kingdom is built, this is how the Father’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.