Not Our Justice

OT Lesson: Jonah 3:10-4:11 (CEB)

God saw what they did; He saw that they had given up their wicked behaviour. So He changed His mind and did not punish them as He had said He would.

Jonah was very unhappy about this and became angry. So he prayed, “Lord, didn’t I say before I left home that this is just what You would do? That’s why I did my best to run away to Spain! I knew that You are a loving and merciful God, always patient, always kind, and always ready to change Your mind and not punish. Now then, Lord, let me die. I am better off dead than alive.”

The Lord answered, “What right do you have to be angry?”

Jonah went out east of the city and sat down. He made a shelter for himself and sat in its shade, waiting to see what would happen to Nineveh. Then the Lord God made a plant grow up over Jonah to give him some shade, so that he would be more comfortable. Jonah was extremely pleased with the plant. But at dawn the next day, at God’s command, a worm attacked the plant, and it died. After the sun had risen, God sent a hot east wind, and Jonah was about to faint from the heat of the sun beating down on his head. So he wished he were dead. “I am better off dead than alive,” he said.

But God said to him, “What right do you have to be angry about the plant?”

Jonah replied, “I have every right to be angry—angry enough to die!”

The Lord said to him, “This plant grew up in one night and disappeared the next; you didn’t do anything for it and you didn’t make it grow—yet you feel sorry for it! How much more, then, should I have pity on Nineveh, that great city. After all, it has more than 120,000 innocent children in it, as well as many animals!”

NT Lesson: Matthew 20:1-16 (NRSV)

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.” When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” So the last will be first, and the first will be last.

Sermon

Introduction

Good morning. We as a congregation of loving and caring Christians had a tough week last week. Saying good bye to our good friends and family is never easy. We will continue to grieve. Grieving is not a day or week thing. Little by little our grieving will become missing and then in the hope of our Saviour, we will long for the day of reunion. So until that day, let us live in hope.

Last Sunday afternoon around 3PM, I was at church and the phone rang. Initially I did not want to answer because I was quite busy, but then I thought that might be something about the next day memorial service. So I answered the phone. “Hello, this is First Presbyterian Church. How can I help you?” Then the first word from the other side was not hello. He said, “I am Jewish.” So I answered, “I am Korean.” Then the guy at the other side of the line was kind of frustrated, not expecting this kind of response from me. There was an awkward silence for a while. Long story short, his point was that he is Jewish and it was the week of Jewish high holiday, and he needed money to celebrate it. Besides, he is not a Lebanon resident. Nonetheless, I gave him the phone number of the Caring Centre. As you know, we have been doing this Caring Sunday for many months now. We donate money and food items to the Caring Centre so that they can help our neighbours. It is because I do not know how to discern who is in actual needs and who is faking it. But the Caring Centre can tell with their long experience and through thorough background check. So we are happy to work with the Caring Centre in God’s ministry of helping our neighbours, and we will continue cooperating with them.

Grumbling Workers

Anyway we have another memorial service today at 3PM, and I need to make my message quick. I pray that there will be no more of grieving in our congregation for long time. We had enough. So we are following the Revised Common Lectionary which means I do not get to choose the Scriptures. It is there and I just follow it. I think everybody knows today’s NT lesson. There is a huge farm owner at the harvest time when he needs more workers. So he went to the labour market to hire some people. You may not be familiar with this labour market, but I am. When I was young, there were and still are labour markets in Korea, and my father used to go there. All the people looking for a day’s job go to the labour market very early in the morning, way before the sunrise just to find hundreds of other job seekers. They are all general labourers without any special skills and they don’t know where they will work on that day if they are lucky enough to get hired. It could be a construction site, a farmland, a fish market, or whatever. The employers come and look around. Then they pick so many number of people they need into their pick-up or van, and go. You must be so lucky to get picked. And there were general rule for wages, but usually you don’t get to negotiate. You just take whatever they give you. When my father was lucky enough to get hired, late at night he came home with a black plastic bag with some food to feed the whole family. If he was not lucky enough, then the whole family had to go to sleep hungry. So in the parable of Jesus, the farm owner is not desperate because there are tonnes of people longing for any kind of job for the day. But the workers are very desperate because they know that if they don’t get hired, their whole family will starve that day.

So the farm owner went to the labour market early in the morning and hired some desperate workers for the day’s job with the promise of fair daily wage back then, which was one denarius, but let us just say $100. He went back again at nine o’clock, at noon, and even at five o’clock. Each time he hired some more desperate workers with the promise of $100 daily wage. Have you imagine how those people would have felt when they were hired? After sunrise at the labour market, there is no hope at all. But all those job seekers stay there because they have nowhere to go. At nine o’clock, there is no hope of employment for the day, not to mention noon or five o’clock. If I were hired at noon or five o’clock, I would cry aloud on the spot because I though my cute and lovely son had to starve but now I can feed him. I have to say that the grace of the farm owner is beyond measure.

But the problem began at the pay time which was supposed to be happy hour. By the way, we should make the happy hour T-shirts. Front says “Join us for Happy Hour,” while back says “10:30AM at the Presbyterian Church.” Anyway, everybody got paid $100 each as promised. Now those people who were hired first became unhappy, “Hey, I worked more hours. Why should I get paid the same?” Well, actually that makes quite good sense. But the thing is their contract was not based on hourly wage but daily wage. So Jesus answers, “Hey, this is my money. I can do whatever I want with my own money. And you are the ones who signed the contract. Are you angry because I am generous to other people? Take the money and go home.” In my opinion both of them make sense. More work, more money. When I was working at another company before seminary, there were lots of Latino workers, and they habitually said, ‘Mucho Trabajo, Poco Dinero,’ which means ‘lots of work, little money.’ That is what the employees who were hired first thought. To be fair, it should be more work, more money and less work, less money. This is fair. But also they signed the contract happily. They were not forced to sign it. Besides, the wage was fair daily wage. So what the farm owner did was one hundred per cent legal, and fair to them. He was just generous to others. I guess if you are employees, then you must side with the labourers, and if you are business owners, you must side with the farm owners. I don’t think one is right and the other is wrong. The thing is that the labourers and the farm owners had different ideas and thoughts about the fairness. The labourers wanted justice but Jesus wanted generosity.

Jonah’s Justice and God’s Justice

And our justice sometimes can be different from God’s justice. That is the case for Jonah in today’s OT lesson. To recap the Jonah’s story, God initially told him to go to Nineveh and preach the gospel but he fled to Spain. It is like God says someone in this town to go to Minneapolis, MN, but he goes to Key West, FL—opposite direction. Jonah’s message was simple: “You are bad. Y’all gonna die!” It is actually almost same as John Calvin’s theology which is “1. God is good. 2. But you are not. 3. Thus you are doomed unless Jesus saves you.” Jonah just did not have the last part. Jonah proclaimed the destruction of the city, and then he had set far outside from the city to watch it as an entertainment. “Destruction of a great city, it is going to be so spectacular! Will there be fire and brimstones? Wow, I am so excited and cannot wait to see it myself!” But the thing is, it did not happen because they repented and God was gracious and merciful enough to forgive them. To ease Jonah and to teach him a lesson, God gave him a giant plant with a cool shade. As you may know, in the Middle East, the air is quite dry and the shade makes great difference. Even in a piping hot day, it is quite cool under a shade with a slight breeze. But the thing is, the next day God killed the plant which gave Jonah the cool shade. When I went to Egypt, it was 120F, and without a shade or A/C, it is literally unbearable. And of course, Jonah was super upset and God asked him, “What right do you have to be angry?” And he angrily answered, “I have every right to be angry—angry enough to die!” I think Jonah is really unique character. No one in the Bible is disobedient like Jonah. No one in the Bible is rude to God like Jonah. And yet God loved him to the end. Jonah is very unique. Anyway Jonah wanted to see the destruction of the great city, because the city sinned and was evil. So their destruction is the justice being done on earth. But God had a different idea of forgiveness and grace. I don’t think Jonah was wrong. The judgement was God’s message to begin with. It is not that one is right and the other is wrong. They just had different ideas and thoughts. Jonah wanted to see an instant karma but God wanted to show mercy.

Instant Karma

We humans are made in the image of God. One of God’s clear and distinctive characteristics is the justice. Bible says that God loves righteousness and justice, and He is the God of justice. And thus humans have the deep desire for justice. Presbyterians have deeper desire for justice. We all want justice. We want to see the justice to be done on earth. The deep desire for justice is the whole point of legal and law enforcement system, and justice system in most countries. Because we love justice, we are bothered when we see other people not keeping the law and order. For example, when we see someone throw trash out of their car while driving on highway, we get to frown. It bothers me a lot whenever I see cars making right turn on red light in front of the county court when it says “No Turn on Red.” We are bothered because we love the law and order. We all love justice. But the thing is that we are somewhat impatient and we all want to see the justice as soon as possible. We want to see the quick justice or instant karma. If you look up instant karma on YouTube, there are millions of videos coming up, and watching them give us some sort of pleasure. That is how much we want to see the instant karma. Jonah wanted to see the instant karma for the great and evil city. But God wanted mercy. Those workers in the parable of Jesus wanted justice, ‘Others worked less. They should get paid less. They do not deserve the same wage.’ But Jesus wanted generosity. Again, Jonah wanted the justice, ‘Those wicked and evil people do not deserve life.’ But God says in Ezekiel, “I do not enjoy seeing sinners die. I would rather see them stop sinning and live.”

Different Definitions of Justice

God says in Isaiah 55, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” So God’s ideas are different from ours. God’s thoughts are different from ours. So when we want instant karma, God desires mercy. In the gospel of Matthew, when Pharisees asked for instant karma for the tax collectors and sinners, Jesus says to them, ‘Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ But to make it clear, it is not that God does not care about justice. God of course loves justice and He is the God of justice. But the thing is, as the heavens are higher than the earth, God’s thoughts are higher than ours. The definitions of justice are different. Our definition of justice may not same as God’s definition of justice. Prophet Micah asks us, “What does the Lord require of you?” and he answers himself on behalf of us, “To act justly and to love mercy.” Micah says as if justice and mercy are same or similar things. And this is confirmed in Psalm 72, which is a song by Solomon, asking for the blessings on the king, which is himself. It begins like this: “Endow the king with Your justice, O God, the royal son with Your righteousness. May he judge Your people in righteousness, Your afflicted ones with justice.” In another words, Solomon is praying, “Let me exercise justice on the people.” And then other blessings follow, and in the later verses, Solomon gives some examples of what justice is: ‘May the king defend the afflicted, and save the children of the needy.’ The song continues, ‘The king will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help. He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy from death. He will rescue them from oppression and violence.’ So this is the definition of God’s justice. While our definition of justice is condemning other people we do not like, and punishing those who do not meet our standards, the definition of God’s justice is helping the weak, saving the needy children, rescuing the oppressed from the violence.

Conclusion

When our justice conflicts with God’s justice, which one should we follow? It is our choice because we have free will. But we’d better choose and follow God’s definition. Even Jesus on the night when He was betrayed prayed to God, ‘not My will but Yours.’ We need to do the same. Not our justice but Your justice be done on earth, and we are the agents of God exercising God’s justice here in our town. So let us stop pointing fingers, if we ever have. And let us start helping and loving. And I tell you, we already do. Supporting the Caring Centre and the Live for Life Indiana is one way exercising and performing God’s justice in our community. Friends, let us continue our good works in Christ because God wants to see His justice being served in our neighbourhood, and because what the Lord really requires of us is to act justly and to love mercy. Amen.