Sermon Preached at Northbrae Community Church, June 15, 2003 – Father’s Day
By Ron Sebring
The Necessity of Justice
There is a Jewish legend about the "Sorrow Tree." It seems that the people of the world sat around and complained about their sorrows. They protested about how unjustly they’ve been treated. The many things that have gone wrong in their lives that were simply unfair. Hurts, and tragedies, and losses, and anger … slow burning resentment. "We didn’t deserve this!" they’d say.
God invited everyone to hang their sorrows on the Sorrow Tree. They were then to walk around the tree and look at everyone else’s sorrows. If they found another set of sorrows that they would preferred over their own, they were welcome to make the exchange. And this they did. They hung their sorrows on the tree and then circled the tree, looking at everyone else’s sorrows. They studied what each sorrow had to teach, and the long-range consequences, and benefits, that normally we do not see. Every one of them came back to their own sorrows, and reclaimed them.
It is possible for any of us to get wrapped up in our sorrows. Sometimes we may be sitting on the back porch, or taking a walk … and our minds lock onto some injustice of the past. After a moment, we can find ourselves feeling sad, or angry. We wonder where the hand of justice will find us, and how it will be with those who have offended us.
Yesterday, I attended a Tibetan Buddhist Transmission in Haver Hall. It was a special day in the Buddhist tradition. Yesterday was one of several ‘Transmissions,’ this one was ‘Wisdom.’ It consisted of bowing, chanting, bells, visualizations, a kind of responsive reading, and an extensive lecture. Before one of the chants, the Lama spoke on how to clear the heart. He explained Karma … how all of our deeds collect and lock us into a certain place in the world. And how this goes back many lifetimes. Everything we say or do has a consequence in this interrelated web of reality. Before opening up our hearts, we first have to clear them. This means feeling both an intense joy for all the good Karma we’ve built up over many lifetimes. And feeling remorse for all the things we’ve done wrong … as he said, over our many lifetimes clear back to the beginning less beginning. This is not remorse in the sense of guilt, but remorse in the sense of a simple recognition.
I never heard it put quite like that before. That’s a lot of stuff to recognize and let go of. The underlying idea, and this runs through many of the world’s religions, is that fairness and justice are a necessary part of the way things unfold. It is simply the way life works. It may not seem that way. It sometimes feels like life is grossly unfair. So in religions, it becomes an act of faith; something we condition our minds to believe: There will be a balance beyond anything we can see in the moment that will eventually restore itself.
All people have an inborn sense of fairness. I believe it was C. S. Lewis in his book, Mere Christianity, who said that even hardened criminals have a code of behavior among themselves. As perverted as it may be, there is a sense of honor, and fair play. Certainly children have a sense of fairness. Many of the scraps children get into are when one feels that a game has been played unfairly. Athletes like to argue with the umpire. Sometimes they try to hide a play from the umpire. But they all need the umpire in the game. One of a parent’s roles is to negotiate fairness. [TOP]
When I was small, my Mom cooked the most delicious French fries. Potatoes fresh out of the garden … and she’d slice them thin and cook them to a golden brown. A big heaping plate … all we could possibly want. Still, my brother and I would argue about who got the bigger portion. No matter how evenly Mom would divide them, we both felt cheated. In her frustration, Mom let us count them out, one by one. But that further delayed and disrupted the meal. Then my dad would step in, with that gentle smile on his face, and offer a better solution. One of us would divide the pile of French fries. Then the other one would pick which pile he wanted. You never saw such careful precision of evenness! That’s one of my precious memories of my father … sitting there at the end of the table, arbitrating fairness.
That urge-to-fairness that all of us have in our hearts … perhaps hat’s the urging of the God within us. Like a father sitting at the end of the table, arbitrating fairness. In our ministerial discussion group on the internet, I posed a question, once. This is a group sensitive about using inclusive language. And I asked how other ministers handle the Lord’s Prayer …something so basic in services of worship, but with an obvious masculine reference. One minister responded about how she handles it in her church. Perhaps it is not good to make everything inclusive language lest we lose the power of the metaphors … Father and Mother. Perhaps a better approach would be to find a balance in the usage. Use masculine references when appropriate, but make sure that other images are respected as well.
As we saw on Mother’s Day last May, the Bible is rich with nurturing and mothering images of God. God’s love is like a mother who lifts her infant to her cheek. God’s love is like a mother eagle who spreads her wings to protect her young. God’s love is like a mother hen who cuddles here chicks under her wing. In the bible, it is in the context of restorative and retributive justice that we see another image of God emerge.
I suspect that this human sense of justice has much to do with sensing God as Father. God is a force in reality that balances the scales. God is a force in life that gives consequences to all our actions. God is the force that grants fairness and guides us through the tough times in life. [TOP]
There is evidence that Jesus intentionally used "Abba" to refer to God. Jesus spoke a dialect of Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Greek. Three times, in the Greek New Testament, the writer diverts to the Aramaic "Abba" to depict Jesus’ reference to God. The Greek word for God is "Patros." Why the use of "Abba?" While it was common in the 1st century to refer to God as "Patros," "Abba" is unique to Jesus. "Abba" is a child’s utterance, perhaps more appropriately translated as "Daddy." What Jesus invites of us is to see ourselves in an innocent, childlike security within the embrace of this cosmic Parent who so dearly cares for us AND who is eager to make things fair among us. We participate with God when we strive for fairness and justice.
King Solomon is known for wisdom. As a child, knowing that he would someday be king, God offered him anything he wanted, if he would ask in prayer. Solomon could have asked anything for himself, but instead, he asked for ‘Wisdom,’ that he might judge fairly among his people. Because he thought beyond himself, God granted him wisdom, and all the other things he didn’t ask for … wealth and the good life. The wisdom literature in the Bible is attributed to Solomon. In the Proverbs, Wisdom is personified as a woman. Acquaintance with her is more precious than the finest jewels or the greatest wealth. For she is the keeper of the gates of our fate. And why? What is the benefit? What is the bottom line? It is Wisdom that provides the key to fairness, justice and equity. It is the necessary prerequisite for peace on earth and good will among all people.
The two metaphors … God as Mother and God as Father … offer a balanced relationship with Deity. We sense in one the nurturing, the caring, the sustaining Source of life. We sense in the other the fair, the just, the guiding Power of life. Both are needed. One without the other represents a serious deficit. For this truth is critical. There can be no peace on earth and good will among all people, unless there is first fairness and justice in the world. Each is a necessary counterpart to the other.
© Ron Sebring [TOP]