God’s Justice: Better than Fair

God’s Justice: Better than Fair

Matthew 20:1-16 T Septuagesima

INI

God isn’t always fair – at least not according to our own human understanding of fairness. When we were taught in our catechism classes and Sunday schools that God is ‘just’ – I think it’s easy to get the wrong idea about what God’s justice means.

            You see, when people talk about divine justice, they think – God’s fairness. It’s not fair that an infant child might die in childbirth, it’s not fair that someone close to us dies when we didn’t get to have a formal goodbye. It’s not fair that someone who leads such a godly life endures so much suffering. God’s not fair, ergo, God’s not just. But sometimes, I think people believe in karma more than they believe in the God of the universe.

When the bible says “you reap what you sow” – we interpret that in terms of fairness – what comes around goes around. Sort of like ‘karma’. It’s the cause-and-effect principle – work more, get more. There might be some truth in that, on this side of heaven – that effort yields a proportionate reward –  but that doesn’t apply in the cosmic realm.

            Take for instance, Job. If you’re familiar with the story of Job, Job had a wife, family, lots of cattle, great wealth. He truly had earthly blessings. But then one day, God allowed Job to be tested in his faith. God allowed Satan, the author of evil, to take away Job’s earthly blessings.

            Job struggled. He questioned – ‘God, why are you allowing me to be tested in such a way? Why me? Aren’t I a good enough person?’ There goes Job – believing in karma more than the God of the universe. He questioned God’s fairness – not according to divine justice, but according to his own human understanding of ‘fairness’. Certainly, God had to set Job straight – telling Job that He’s the author of the universe, not Job. But, the story ends with God’s grace – for all the things that Job had lost, had been restored to him in even greater number than before.

            Another example is Cain and Abel, when Cain killed Abel. God’s earthly punishment for Cain was that he was forced to be a fugitive and wanderer of the earth. Cain felt that His punishment was too much to bear, because he thought he might be killed. Cain called God ‘unfair’. Yet, God’s grace still came upon Cain, for he spared Cain’s life, and left a mark on his forehead to warn others not to kill him.

            That brings us to our readings today. In the Old Testament, the Israelites were constantly calling God unfair. They had been brought out from Egypt so that what… they could wander in the wilderness for 40 years? Constantly worry where their food and water is going to come from? Yet, God acted graciously toward the Israelites, providing water and food for them in desolate places. He gave them water from a rock, and manna would simply appear to them in the morning. His grace sustained them.

            The workers of the vineyard in the Gospel lesson called God unfair too. They labored for the entire day, but were paid the same amount as the ones who came into the vineyard, and only worked an hour. The master was being unfair, right? Shouldn’t the ones who worked more, get paid more? Well, maybe according to earthly standards. But that’s not how the kingdom of God works. Work more, get more isn’t the guiding principle here in the kingdom of God. The guiding principle is grace.

            Because you don’t want God to be ‘fair’ to you according to human standards. God’s justice and fairness isn’t on a sliding scale like how human’s measure fairness. We think, ‘if the good outweighs the bad (because after all, nobody’s perfect), then we come out on top, and we deserve a life that’s proportionate to the good we do. But God’s justice has no such sliding scale or gray area. It’s black or white – you’re either perfect, or you’re corrupt and evil. You’re either righteous, or unrighteous. You’re either in heaven, or hell.

            God expects perfection. He made humanity to have a life without sin, without rebellion against Him. If we’ve transgressed against any portion of His Law, we’ve transgressed against all of it. Sin brings God’s judgment, and we cannot escape that justice. In the cosmic realm, we do reap what we sow. Which is terrifying because in our sinfulness, we have only sown a corrupt heart, mind, and will that’s rebellious against our heavenly Father – and for rebelling against Him only once deserves eternal death. And before we cry, “well that’s not fair” it’s also not fair that a God who loves us, sustains us, and gives even unbelievers their daily bread gets mocked, rejected, and forgotten.

            I love this Sunday right after Transfiguration, where we learned that the path of God’s kingdom is suffering before glory. Sinful man wants the path of least resistance in this life – so when God calls us to carry our crosses, we call God ‘unfair.’  That is to say, we believe we’re owed something by God because of how good we’ve been lately. Or, we didn’t commit an egregious enough sin to deserve that medical diagnosis or that loss. But carrying crosses means joining Jesus in what He’s done for us. His cross was ‘unfair’. It wasn’t something He deserved. Yet, He did it to bring you something you don’t deserve. Carrying our cross means trusting in God’s grace even when we suffer, remaining steadfast in faith, and loving those who may not deserve it—because Christ has done the same for us.

            Although the only thing we’ve sowed in our lives is sin which deserved condemnation, Christ reaps what we sowed. By His grace, HE took the punishment of our sins – which was certainly unfair. Yet that is the very heart of the Gospel—God’s justice met with His mercy in Christ. Jesus, the only truly righteous one, bore the full weight of our sin and judgment upon Himself. He labored under the curse of sin, though He had never sinned. He suffered the wrath of God that we deserved, so that we might receive the reward that He earned. That’s not fairness; that’s grace.

This is why the kingdom of heaven is not about our works, our efforts, or our perceived merit—it can only be about God’s generosity. The landowner in the parable asks, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?” That’s the question before us. Do we grumble against God when He gives His mercy freely? Do we resent the fact that He saves sinners who, by our reckoning, “haven’t worked as hard” as we have? Or do we rejoice that He has chosen to be unfair by giving us not what we deserve, but what we could never earn?

The kingdom of God is not about fairness—it is about grace. And that grace is yours in Christ Jesus, poured out freely upon you in Word and Sacrament. It’s yours, whether you’ve labored in the vineyard from your youth, or whether you have come to faith in the eleventh hour. It’s yours because God, in His mercy, has declared it so.

Do not look at your life and think that your suffering means God is against you, or that your blessings mean you have earned His favor. Instead, look to Christ, who bore what He did not deserve so that you might receive what you could never earn. Look to the cross, where justice and mercy meet, where sinners are made saints, and where the last are made first. Rejoice in the unfairness of grace, because in Christ, it’s yours.

INI

Pastor Joshua Ralston