July 26, 2020
Justice.
When we think about justice, we sometimes think about TV shows like Law and Order, detective stories, courtroom dramas, and shows that focus on stopping crime or bringing a criminal to justice. But there’s more. God has his own idea of what is just and unjust, and it isn’t always the same as our idea.
Jesus is not harsh with most regular everyday people who came to him, and he never rebuked someone who wasn’t out of line. But the people who were often out of line were the “hypocrites.” They were the people who were so concerned with following all the rules that they neglected the “weightier matters” of justice. They tried to keep their measurements exact, but they often failed to measure up to the standards of common decency and loving their neighbors.
God’s idea of what’s important is not our idea, and we often need to adjust our way of thinking. The prophet Amos tells us that we should help the poor and oppressed people. We might point out that Jesus said the poor will always be among us. That’s not an excuse to stop helping, because the problem will never go away, it’s an opportunity to keep helping, because there will always be somebody who needs a hand.
We should think about God’s idea of justice, and how we can represent him to the world.