Justice and Servanthood.

Isaiah 42:1-9

January 12, 2020 + 

The Baptism of the Lord

I.

Today’s reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah is the first of what are called the “Servant Songs.”  In the Bible that the early church used, “Jacob” and “Israel” are named here, indicating that the “servant" refers to the people of God generally.  It is the descendants of Israel who are given the calling to be God’s special servants in the world.

And to expand on this idea, Christians have always lifted up one particular descendant of Israel, Jesus the Messiah.  Now he embodies this servant image and opens it up to a new Israel, beyond the literal descendants of Jacob.  He widens Israel to include those who trust in him, follow him, and obey him.  

And there is plenty of evidence that Jesus thinks of himself in these terms.  Indeed, the Voice from heaven at Jesus’ baptism strongly echoes these words in Isaiah.  God names Jesus as the Servant, and Jesus calls his followers into the same role.  The disciples of Jesus Christ are supposed to inhabit the calling and task we receive from him, which is that of the Servants of God and therefore servants of all.

Christians are chosen, not for privilege, not for power, not for wealth, not for fame, but for humble service.  This indicates our trust in him.  This is the criterion for salvation.  This is what discipleship means.  Discipleship is servanthood.

And servanthood in Jesus Christ also has certain definite characteristics, the primary one lifted up here is justice: “justice to the nations” and “justice in the earth.”  

Justice is a difficult word in our experience.  When I hear that word I am reminded of the famous opening of episodes of the Law and Order TV shows: “In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate but equally important groups: The police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders.  These are their stories.  DUN DUN.”  

Thus we have in our heads the idea that “justice” has something to do with “the people,” “police,” “investigation,” “crime,” “attorneys,” “prosecution,” and “offenders.”  We are conditioned to understand justice as inherently if not exclusively about retribution and punishment.  And we extend this to our theology and naturally think that God’s justice is a cosmic extension of this earthly “criminal justice system.”  As if God is about law enforcement.  As if God is kind of a heavenly district attorney.  As if God is a judge whose main job it is to identify and punish offenders.

There is a district attorney-like figure in the Bible.  He is called “The Accuser.”  He isn’t God.  He’s the devil.  Just saying.

So I always worry that when I mention God’s “justice” in a sermon, that this is what people are thinking of: a great punisher in the sky, “who knows when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.  so you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout.”  And so on.

II.

But it is not our ego-centric, paranoid craving for order and stability that defines God’s justice.  God’s justice does not follow our desire that the people we deem as “bad” be punished and the people we deem as “good” be rewarded.  For our standards are thoroughly corrupt and arbitrary.  We make laws that are biased and self-centered, and we enforce them selectively.  And when we prosecute them, it is in a system that leans heavily towards those with money and power, and even more heavily against the powerless.  And it is all done in the context of a political system in which some are more equal than others, even though we have a lot at stake in pretending otherwise.

It is no wonder then, if we do apply to God our version of “justice,” that we discover that God apparently hates the people we hate, admires the people we admire, and is out there violently enforcing our fantasies about ourselves and what is good and true and right.

But we do not get to define God’s justice.  It is not something that is subject to an election or a popularity contest.  It is not something that scholars and legal experts get to determine for us.  It is certainly not up to governments or rulers, bought off as they are by lobbyists.  

As with everything else, God’s justice is defined by God alone, and given in God’s Word, who is Jesus Christ, the Servant, as he is attested in the New Testament, and prophesied in passages in the Hebrew Scriptures like this one in Isaiah.

Here we see that the first characteristic of God’s justice is a kind of patient gentleness that works to preserve what is good, no matter how fragile and at-risk it is.  Goodness is like a weak flame, struggling in a stiff wind.  Justice means keeping that little flame alive the changing winds of popular opinion and organized force.

Justice also has to do with, on the one hand, “the nations,” which is to say the political organization of the world according to our arbitrarily drawn borders, regimes, legal structures, races, cultures, and all the ways that humans have devised to divide and rule each other.  And on the other hand, justice is about “the earth,” that is to say, God’s creation, the beautiful and holy planet on which we are placed and which we are “to till and to keep,” that is, to  manage as tenants in the Creator’s name.

Indeed, this creation-centered view of justice has precedence, as God is named as the One “who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it.”  The hierarchy here is God — creation — people, indicating that humans are dependent on Creator and creation, and certainly not in a position to define, let along dispose of, what does not belong to them.  Humans belong to the earth, as Chief Seattle stated, and through the earth to God.  We are not in charge here.  God is.

III.

And God’s justice is embodied in the calling of God’s people to witness to God’s fundamental reversals of our oppressive order.  This is the Servant work of the church, the new Israel: to wake people up to the truth that we repeat almost every Sunday, that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.”  We should be looking to God for justice.  The things we call justice, and enforce with our courts and our prisons, are really forms of injustice and idolatry.

As a covenant people we are to witness to God’s justice by bringing people from a situation of disease, deficiency, dysfunction, and destruction, to inhabit the created goodness, wholeness, purpose, and joy we all share.  That is the larger meaning of Jesus’ healing ministry: he serves to carry people from death to life, from disease to health, from darkness to light, from inertia to empowerment, from evil to goodness, from sin to forgiveness, from selfishness to compassion, from bondage to freedom.   

We see this in how we are in Christ called into servanthood as “a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind,” as Isaiah says.  We are to bring knowledge of the truth into a world languishing unconsciously in the darkness of ignorance.  Our world is increasingly blinded by self-serving lies, propaganda, dopey conspiracy theories, and just plain, made-up fear- and anger-mongering fantasies designed mainly to distract us from what is really going on.

Isaiah also describes God’s justice as a matter of bringing “out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.”  Darkness, blindness, and ignorance are a prison that binds us.  We cannot move  and grow if we cannot see.  So God’s justice is both enlightening and liberating.

As opposed to the retributive justice of the world, God’s justice is restorative.  It is about awakening folks to their true nature as part of the community of God’s good creation.  It is about bringing people together in mutual responsibility and accountability, rather than administering judgment, punishment, and condemnation on individuals.

In Jesus Christ we see that God’s justice is about forgiveness.  Not the world’s nasty and fearful parody of forgiveness as letting people “get away with” anything.  But forgiveness in Christ is releasing the ideas and practices that keep us blind and bound, ignorant and enslaved.  Forgiveness is about letting go of our idolatrous illusion that we are isolated and disconnected individuals, always at enmity with each other, and allowing us to emerge instead into the larger and deeper truth of our integration in cohesive and creative communities of cooperation and trust.

When this happens it appears as a magnificently new thing.  It seems unprecedented and radical.  It feels like an innovation.  But in truth it is a revelation of our truest, deepest, best, and highest nature as humans created in the Image of God.

IV.

God’s justice is always an expression of God’s love.  Our participation in God’s justice is always a matter of our servanthood as we seek to enlighten and liberate.  After all, we are disciples of Jesus Christ, and after his baptism he confronts and defeats the Adversary, the devil, who represents the temptations always at work in our lives to money, fame, and power.  After which he proceeds to his ministry of enlightenment and liberation, always from the approach of humble, self-less service.  Always as a self-offering in love.  Always as a revelation of the true humanity we share in him, and never as a work dominating, controlling, exploiting work that would place ourselves and our agenda ahead of God. +++++++