Sermon: "And Justice For All"

Ben Johnston-Krase is pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Racine, Wisconsin. This sermon addresses justice in light of the recent death of Osama bin Laden.

Micah 6:6-8 and Revelation 21:1-5

A milk man in a small town goes door to door each morning with a large jug of milk. At midday he sets his jug on a rock while he unpacks his humble lunch of bread and hard cheese. One day, the goat herder comes by as the milk man is having his lunch. The milk man hollers a greeting which spooks one of the goats which in turn knocks the jug over, shattering it and spilling its contents. Not only does the milk man lose the rest of his day’s wages, but it will take up to a month to get another jug. How will he live without a month’s income? The milk man demands the goat herder sell his goats to pay for the milk man’s losses. The goat herder responds that to do so would bankrupt him.

The two men go to the village judge. After hearing both of them plead their cases, the judge declares that it is neither the fault of the goat herder nor the fault of the milk man. To truly find out whose fault it is, he decides to hold a trial between the goat and the rock. The judge sends his bailiffs to bring forward the goat and the rock. The goat comes fairly easily. The rock comes with a struggle.

Soon, word of the trial spreads throughout the village. The trial is held in the town center, and all of the townspeople come to witness the ridiculous event. The judge speaks. “You have come to see a trial between a rock and a goat, which is a foolish thing. Thus, you have come to see me make a fool out of myself. The only fair judgment is to fine each of you a few coins for ‘improper thoughts.’” The money is collected and given to the milk man who is able to purchase a new jug and continue his work.

Everyone in the village is involved and while some resent having to contribute their own money to a situation that didn’t concern them, they all feel that they have been part of the solution. And they all lived happily ever after. [1]

It would be nice if we could use that line more often wouldn’t it? “And they all lived happily ever after.” But in this world, unfortunately, there’s no judge who can magically sort it all out, make peace, and send us all home happy. Our lives are not fairy tales, and it’s rare that we receive fairy tale endings.

The case went to trial, the criminal was convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison, and they all lived happily ever after.

After his seventh DUI arrest, which came on the heels of an accident that left the driver of the other car in wheelchair, he served time in prison and was ordered to pay restitution, and they all lived happily ever after.

The soldiers came home from Iraq, and they all lived happily ever after.

Karla and I had put the kids to bed and were watching television a week ago when the news came that Bin Laden had been killed. We hardly ever watch live TV, so it was kind of incredible that we were actually sitting there. My first reaction? Some relief mixed with a sense of apprehension about what this would mean going down the road—some worry about reprisals—and also a remembrance of September 11, 2001. Karla and I had been married for just three months. We were living in an apartment on the south side of Chicago. Karla was in her second year of seminary and I was in my last, and on that Tuesday morning, we were getting ready for our intensive Hebrew class when the phone rang. It was a friend from the seminary, and she said, “Turn your TV on.” We did, and so did you. Remember that?

A few days after the planes hit, a group of us went swimming in Lake Michigan, just off Promontory Point, close to the Museum of Science and Industry. And I remember on that day that I swam out as far as I could and lay on my back in the water and looked up at the blue expanse, and I was distinctly aware of the fact that there wasn’t a single plane in the sky. Not a one, not yet—they weren’t flying again yet. I wondered to myself then about how things were going to be different in a post-9/11 world.

And they’ve been different, haven’t they? It’s almost hard to imagine what life was like before. But we remember walking right through the airport, not taking off our shoes and not emptying our water bottles, and simply waiting expectantly at the gate for someone to get off the plane. We remember when life seemed a little more predictable—or at least when the dangers in this world seemed a little more predictable.

We remember life before anthrax scares and life before worries about weapons of mass destruction. We remember when there was no such thing as a pre-9/11 and a post-9/11 world, when we were completely unaware that a single day could change everything. We remember life before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And you remember when the soldiers from this congregation were boys and girls coming up front for the children’s sermon.

We can count ourselves blessed or lucky if we haven’t lost too much since 9/11—if our whole world doesn’t hinge on life before and life after—if we didn’t lose someone on one of the planes or in one of the towers—or if we haven’t lost a loved one fighting in the Middle East. But there are some for whom the memory of life before 9/11 is so raw and painful…

In his address to the nation last Sunday night, President Obama had a message for them. “On nights like this one,” he said, “we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda's terror: Justice has been done.”

Going back to September 11, 2001 briefly, it was strange. It seemed that everyone in our intensive Hebrew class was aware of just how serious the attacks were except for our professor, who apparently hadn’t really watched the news that day. For much of the morning, she must have been operating under the assumption that the plane hitting the World Trade Center was a small one—maybe a single-person aircraft. Of course, we can all remember thinking that for a moment. Anyway, in class that morning we sat, studying Hebrew together. A Hebrew word I have not forgotten is “tzedakah.” The root of “tzedakah” is “justice,” but it’s translated in a variety of ways Scripture: justice, fairness, charity, righteousness…

I heard President Obama use the world, “justice” last week, and since then it’s been popping up everywhere. On Monday thousands gathered at Ground Zero in New York City, where former mayor Rudy Giuliani said of bin Laden’s death that “justice has finally been done.”

The biblical concept of justice, or “tzedakah,” is this: that we as God’s people have a religious obligation to make things right in this world—to give and make fair—to justify things—to create righteousness, to make right. The prophet Micah asked the people, “What is good, and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justice…”—to “make right” in the world. And so, for example, in the Old Testament, it is said that farmers should leave some of their crops in their fields so that the poor can come and gather food. This was “tzedakah”—justice.

Some of you here may have mixed emotions about bin Laden’s death. You might feel like it was the right thing to do, but you still might have some sadness that a life was taken. That’s ok. Some of you may be overjoyed that he’s gone. That’s ok too. We can be glad it’s over and/or frustrated that it took this long. We can feel like we can finally move on. We can have reservations… One thing we should not be doing is evaluating one another’s feelings about what has happened. As my mom used to say to me, “Trust your feelings, because your feelings, at least, will always tell you the truth about how you feel.” So I want to pause and affirm this: however you’re feeling about the news this week, it’s ok; you can trust that feeling.

I want to caution us, however, to think carefully about what we mean when we say that “justice has been done.” In the Bible, the creation of “tzedakah”—the making of justice—is “making something right,” and I think it’s reasonable for us to ask whether or not bin Laden’s death makes it “right.” Is the world “right” again?

I used this example with our Bible study on Wednesday. Let’s pretend that tonight someone were to break into this building and vandalize this room. Say we came into the sanctuary tomorrow morning to find horrible things written all over the walls—pews destroyed, windows shattered, the baptismal font smashed to pieces… Let’s just say it was awful. But then let’s say that the police caught the person who did it—that he was arrested and brought to trial. Let’s say that he was sent to prison and ordered to pay for some of the damage. Let’s say, even, that the insurance paid for it all, and that within a few weeks, the placed looked ok. Is that justice? Has everything been made right again?

Consider the serious crime where someone gets hurt. A mugging, an assault, a rape… Our laws provide consequences for those actions—serious consequences. We call the system that processes such cases our “justice system,” but it’s still ok for us to ask, “When justice has been served, has justice been done? Is everything “right” again?” Certainly, through our justice system, we can punish, but we can’t turn back the clock—we can’t undo evil and we can’t undo the things that evil has done. Sometimes no matter what we do, we can’t do justice—we can’t make everything right again—we can’t create a “happily ever after.”

When I wrote this sermon, I caught myself at this very moment wondering just what it was I was trying to say. Am I trying to say that we should have let Osama bin Laden live a long life? No. Am I suggesting that since we can’t really undo the wrongs of this world we should stop trying? No. So what is it then? Well, I suppose it’s this, and I think this could be the Church’s good news to our nation right now: that sometimes it’s when we think we’ve achieved justice that we need to rely on God’s sense of justice the most—that when we think that justice has been done, we need to remember vividly what things really will look like when, finally, God’s justice is done.

God’s “tzedakah”—God’s justice for all. God, the Sacred Source of the Universe making all things right, finally right! There’s an image of that in Revelation, where John writes that “God… will be with [us]; [God] will wipe every tear from [our] eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more…” Make no mistake, we cannot accomplish that for ourselves. We can arrest and prosecute. We can imprison and even kill. But we cannot undo the brokenness of our world. We can’t stop death and pain.

When we put our trust in God, we put our trust in the ONE who is making all things new. Friends, especially these days, let us be mindful of where and in Whom we place our trust, and as we seek justice, may our hearts be drawn even beyond human understanding to the justice that God longs for and provides. Amen.

[1] I first came across this story in a sermon from the Rev. Ian Lawton.

-Rev. Ben Johnston-Krase and the community at First Presbyterian Church, Racine, WI.