What kind of justice?

(Message given at Wayside Friends Church on October 13, 2024)

When you’re heading to the big family gathering, the first thing you look for is a favorite cousin, right?

My favorites (ok, ok, technically they are second cousins) are Vikki and Janet. Vikki was the closest in age to me, and the one I hung around with the most.

Here we are about 10 years ago…

…and here’s a (not great) photo of us after my dad’s memorial service last April.

Me being the youngest of the trio, though, had a few disadvantages. At their grandma’s house, I remember there being two favored glasses. You know how it gets with kids, something becomes the obsession. And at family gatherings at their grandma’s, it was always the star glasses. There were two glass cups that had stars etched into the glass on the top, and each of us ALWAYS wanted to get a star glass. But there were TWO glasses, and THREE of us, so you do the math on how it went for me, the youngest cousin. 

I hardly ever got a star glass. 

We talked about this at the memorial service. Well, ok, let me be more honest: I bring this up every single time I am with them, because (sniff) it’s a very deep wound. We all laughed about it, and they didn’t say a thing. But a couple of days later, the UPS driver dropped a box on our back porch unexpectedly, and sure enough…they sent me one of the star glasses they had inherited from their grandma!

FAVORITE COUSINS!

I thought about my favorite cousins when I read the scripture we’re looking at tonight. 

I wonder what it was like for Jesus and John the Baptist, cousins who ended up turning first century Palestine upside down. John was the older cousin, by six months or so. Maybe he always got like the star jug, I don’t know…

What the bible does tell us is that John was the first one to make a splash (haha, Jordan River-baptizer pun there.) John was the first one to draw a crowd. 

John’s maybe that cousin that no one ever forgets, even if they don’t necessarily want to hang out with him at the family gatherings. Eats locusts, lives in the desert, dresses in camel skins. His mouth gets him in trouble with the people in power.

Everyone, and I mean everyone knew John. He was not a warm and fuzzy guy. He called people snakes. And when they came to try and ask forgiveness and make things right with God, he mocked them and asked, “Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?”

That was his big message in Matthew chapter 3. Wrath is coming, judgment is coming. 

Get yourselves right and ready, because, you think I’m a big bad dude? Somebody is coming after me so much more worthy, so much more important, bringing judgment and fire and destruction. 

That’s what John is telling everyone who comes to see him by the Jordan River, when cousin Jesus comes out and joins those who want to get right, who want to be baptized.

This moment is the changing of the guard. 

John recognizes Jesus is the one, the coming one, the one to bring wrath and judgment and fire. At first John declines, saying Jesus should be the one baptizing him. But when Jesus makes him go through with it, there’s this confirmation, this voice from heaven that says, yep. Jesus is it. John was right about his cousin. It’s go time.

In the gospel of Matthew, the attention rightly leaves John and turns to following Jesus.

But John still pops up, or at least his disciples do, first in Matthew 9. They are a bit—perplexed? frustrated? judgy?—about Jesus’ methods. “Why,” they ask, “Why don’t your disciples fast like we do, and like the Pharisees do?”

I think we can read between the lines and realize this is about more than fasting. John and his disciples strike me as earnestly serious people, very focused, very type A. You get that way, I think, when you talk about fire and judgment all the time. 

And they watch Jesus having his little banquets with sinners, and parties with the wrong people, and they are getting a little worried that either A) he has lost a little bit of focus or B) maybe he’s NOT the one who was to come—because if you get all chummy and have dinner dates with the people you’re supposed to judge and burn up, you maybe AREN’T going to bring the heat like we want. 

Jesus gives John’s disciples one of those enigmatic answers, something about wedding guests and new wineskins, and they exit again, stage left.

That’s what leads us up to the text for today, another encounter with John’s disciples in Matthew chapter 11. And while I’ve been talking lightly and glibly about John the Baptist, I need to be serious for a second and say clearly: he’s got real reason to be concerned. He brings a deeply important question to Jesus, the question I chose to focus on in this Sunday night series on questions and transformation.

I chose it because over the last couple of years, John’s doubt and pain are things I have shared at times, too. His question is one worth pondering for us, too.

Listen to Matthew 11, verses 2 and 3.

John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?” (Matthew 11: 2-3, New Living Translation)

Let’s not miss the contrast and the context here.

Since John recognized and baptized Jesus, Jesus has been the one pulling the crowds. Things have gone badly for John. The ones in power, the ones John had been critiquing and mocking, have turned on him and arrested him. He’s imprisoned by Herod without much hope, while Jesus is teaching to thousands and having parties with people. 

John proclaimed the coming of one who would bring judgment and justice. Jesus himself began his ministry by quoting Isaiah, which promised freedom for the captives. 

But there’s no justice or freedom for John. John hasn’t experienced the promise. John is sitting in prison.

True to form, there’s no beating around the bush for Mr. John-let-me-be-direct-The-Baptist.

He’s not going to ask about fasting, or spiritual practices, or methods. He’s just going to come out with it: “Are you the one who’s going to do something about the injustice we are all living under or not? Are you gonna do something, or do I have to try and hold on until somebody else comes and does the job I thought God appointed you to do?”

This comes even though John was the first one to publicly say Jesus was God’s appointed and anointed one.

This comes even though John heard the voice from heaven, “This is my beloved Son.” 

But it just hasn’t gone like John hoped. No, I’ve got to find words stronger than that. John knows, in the deepest, most justice-oriented part of himself, that it’s just not going how it’s supposed to go. 

John looked at the religious leaders of his world and saw their unfaithfulness and abuse of power. 

John looked at the Romans who had conquered and oppressed his people, and he felt in the core of his being the anguish and the need for freedom for his people. 

He suffered in the desert, he earnestly sought God and tried to get people to listen. And they DID listen, and he boldly kept up the resistance fight even when the people in power started to shut him down.

And then he turned things over to his cousin. He trusted Jesus, trusted God, heard the voice, and believed with everything in him that now was the time, now God would act, now his people would be free. Now evil people would start to pay, now things would be made right. 

This was his life, his faith, his identity. And it all seemed like it was heading toward vindication.

But it didn’t.

Why was John losing? And why were Herod and the Romans, why were the Chief Priests and Pharisees winning?

I can get on board very easily with this anguish when I think of how things have gone around me, in church circles and school district circles.

I could join John easily, and believe me, at times I have. I trusted, I did what I could, and unfaithful and unjust people are winning. When is now coming? When is it go time? Why isn’t Jesus doing what seems so obvious to these cries for justice in the pit of my stomach?

Have I understood you wrongly, Jesus? Is my faith misplaced? Are you going to act in the here and now, are you going to do anything to actually do tangible good in this world now, or do I need to look somewhere else?

This question from John the Baptist is deep, and oh-so-legit.

And while this isn’t where I have gone, I can look around at people I know and love, I can look around at our community and our world, and I can see how John the Baptist-type questions can lead to a kind of deconstruction that says: I do need to look somewhere else. This faith in Jesus is not delivering the kind of justice and freedom that I want to see.

So how does Jesus answer this serious question?

At first glance, not very well. Matthew 11:4

Jesus told them, “Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen…” (Matthew 11:4, NLT)

Um, that’s not a good way to start! It literally says two verses earlier that while he was sitting in prison, John “heard about all the things” Jesus was doing. Why go back and tell John what you’ve heard and seen me do here? HE ALREADY HEARD IT!

But there’s something deeper here as Jesus goes on.

Verse 5:

“…the blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.” (Matthew 11:5, NLT)

Jesus has carefully crafted the language describing what he’s done. He’s organizing this for John’s disciples, for John, for his hearers, and for us in a way that reminds us of a specific group of Messianic prophecies from Isaiah. 

Through the chapters of Matthew to this point, Jesus has literally done the things listed here, and this list comes from Isaiah 26 and Isaiah 35. 

At first, it seems like Jesus is not answering John’s very legitimate and real question. At first, it seems he’s just repeating to John’s disciples things that John already knows, the things that frustrated John and caused him to wonder if he was wrong to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah, as the coming one.

Bible scholar George Beasley-Murray does a great job highlighting John’s rightful frustration with Jesus’ way: 

“What is [Jesus’] message of the kingdom? Beatitudes, parables of the gracious rule of God, prospects of feasting in the kingdom of God. Where was the thunder of judgment? Where was the rebuke of the wicked? Why this use of power over demons but not over evil [people]?”

John’s question is, “Are you the Messiah we were expecting?”

Jesus, with these examples, is gently saying no. I am the Messiah—but not like you were expecting. I am doing the things that were promised in Isaiah 26 and 35. But they are different things than the judgment and justice you envision.

The kind of justice John sought—the kind of justice many of us seek—does not see all the way to the radical grace of the rule of God through Jesus.

The kind of justice John sought—the kind of justice many of us seek—has a divide at the heart of it, a right side and a wrong side. Think of John by the Jordan River. He accepted all who came…but he accepted them only as sinners who repented. If you came to see things the right way, God’s way, his way…if you could repent, then you could be immersed in the river and made clean.

But in John’s world, some deserve judgment. Justice is done when the right side is freed and the wrong side is punished. There is a divide, and until people see it the right way, you don’t hang out with them. Forgiveness is there, but there is a power to dispense forgiveness that John seems to hold onto in a way that is a bit like how we critique “white savior-ism.”

Jesus is bringing a different kind of freedom for the captives, a different kind of healing, an all-encompassing, radically grace-filled justice!

What does this grace-filled justice look like? Jesus’ table is open to all…no, wait, it is deeper than that! It’s not even always his table. This radical justice is Jesus, showing up at the table of others, the table of the “wrong” ones; it’s Jesus joining a table that isn’t his, and laughing and partying with ones who don’t always repent first. This kind of open table…this is different.

This all-encompassing justice is Jesus, telling us to erase divides, to love enemies, to go be a neighbor instead of parsing who is my neighbor…this is different.

This unexpected Messiah mission is Jesus, making room even for those who killed him to experience God’s forgiveness—“for they know not what they do”…this is different.

It’s Jesus, setting his face toward the cross and letting Rome crucify him rather than being a zealot who fights the Roman oppressors…this is different.

In my best and truest and wisest moments, I want this different kind of justice.

I have come to see at deeper and deeper levels how the bible shows us the radical love of God, a love that does not operate on the same calculus as the power structures of this world. A radical justice that refuses forever consigning anyone to fire and judgment, that refuses to forever divide.

I have come to experience the work of the Holy Spirit in my own life, constantly pushing me to see and acknowledge the humanity in those who have hurt me. And you know what? I’ve watched that bleed over into the Holy Spirit pushing me to see and acknowledge my OWN humanity, when I have done things I wish I had not done.

If I am going to define justice as punishment and wrath for those bad ones, if I will demand punishing justice for other’s wrongs, I’ve got to think long and hard about the consequences of that kind of justice for the things I have done.

And if I am going to accept God’s transforming, grace-giving, wide-open table of love for myself, no matter what I’ve done, I need God’s strength to help me find a way to hold out the hope of that transforming love for those who have hurt me, too.

What’s good for me, has to be good for thee.

I’ve thought quite a lot about what examples to share to make this tangible tonight.

It’s hard, because the realest ones are the personal ones, right? 

Some of us at Wayside were part of a church split years ago, a church where I was the lead pastor. And in the hardest days of that time, there were two people who caused me the most pain, two people who I most wanted God to rain fiery justice down upon. That’s just me being real.

I don’t think I will ever forget the afternoon I was praying on the floor of the office, about something completely different, when I got a picture in my mind about these two people. I choose to believe that this picture in my mind was the Holy Spirit teaching me.

The vivid picture made it crystal clear to me the humanity of these two individuals. It forced me to see how they were trapped, and how God wanted freedom from that trap for them just as much as he wanted freedom for me. 

It softened me. It transformed me. 

Not in a way that caused me to ignore the things they were doing, which I thought were wrong. Not in a way that made me minimize the stakes of what was happening. 

But instead of praying for their ruin, I could honestly pray for their freedom. I could honestly pray for God’s love to envelop them. 

Am I reconciled with either of these individuals all these years later? No. And we obviously are no longer part of the same church family. 

But I like what that Holy Spirit work did in me to pull me out of a cycle of bitterness. I recognize that work in me as a time where I saw more of Jesus’ radical, grace-infused, transforming justice love than the wrath and judgment of John the Baptist.

Near the end of my time working for Newberg Public Schools, there were changes that created a lot of tension between those of us who worked together.

One thing in particular really hurt me, and brought resentment and friction in a work relationship. Again, in a time of prayer, I remember experiencing what felt like a thought outside of my own bitterness cycle. I choose to believe it was the Holy Spirit again. 

I knew that the tactic of those aligned with the School Board at the time was, “divide and conquer.” Divide us, divide us. And the Holy Spirit thought was: I can choose not to let them have that win. I can choose to not let them divide us, not let them break the relationship that existed before they came in and made changes. I can recognize that the hurt I’m feeling is more from their actions than from my co-worker.

Again, as I look at what the Holy Spirit has done in me sense then, I’m glad I’ve been pulled out of the vortex that the bitterness cycle can have on me. 

I see it, again, as a sign of that radical Jesus love and grace. Something from outside myself, that doesn’t excuse wrong actions—but that always holds to the belief that love, and seeing the humanity in each other, is more powerful and transformative than an us vs. them call for wrath and judgment.

This is who I see Jesus to be, as he sends his answer to his hurting cousin.

I choose, in the times when I feel like John the Baptist sitting forgotten in the prison, I choose to hold onto what I have seen and heard Jesus do. I choose to hold on to the transforming power of Jesus’ loving justice that goes against the rules of the powers that be in our world. 

It’s hard sometimes. I’m grateful for the Spirit’s work in me which can break my bitterness and vengeance cycles. 

In the resurrection of Jesus, I see God’s ultimate vindication of a Messiah who does not act as we expect, but who acts in a way that makes transformation and healing for everyone possible. Without the divides I sometimes find my gut demanding.

Frankly, you still might want to look for something else.

But I want tonight to be true to what I understand the gospel to be, to present Jesus as he is, and force us to grapple with what the message of “love your enemies” and “take up your cross” looks like in this power-mad world.

You may not be able to be all-in on that tonight, and that is ok. Valid. John the Baptist and Matthew 11 show it’s legit.

For me, I will remember what Jesus has done in my life, and how the work of the Holy Spirit takes me to places I like better than where I sometimes go on my own.

For me, I will remember that Jesus conquered death—not by revolting or leading an insurrection, but by going through an unjust crucifixion to experience resurrection on the other side.

For me, I will remember how Jesus promises a truly wide-open path, for anyone—no boundaries, no us/them dispensing of tickets to heaven—how Jesus walks alongside us in love and invites us into radical, grace-filled justice.

May what you have heard and seen Jesus do truly sustain you in the times that feel like a hopeless prison sentence.

May the Holy Spirit show up in our lives to speak truth and show us the humanity and worth of others, and the humanity and worth of ourselves. And, oh please God, may we see the goodness of God in the land of the living. Oh God, hear our prayer.