Matthew 9:12-13
Jesus Came for Sinners
12 On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.13 But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Luke 15:11-32
The Parable of the Lost Son
11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on.27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
Matthew 7:1-6
Judging Others
1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
6 “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.
There are certain intangible things that surround justice and fairness...And these intangible things are love and mercy and being able to forgive...Some might ask, why does justice and fairness need things like love, mercy, and forgiveness to be included in its definition, or help in its explanation?...But justice and fairness are deep subjects, and are, in fact, encompassed by things like love, forgiveness, and mercy...
Others might think that justice and fairness could be explained easily...But in the Parable of the Lost Son, when we think about the older son and the position he took in his life of staying home and working hard with his father and doing what is right, a question for me comes up...Was and is the older son being treated just and fair, when his younger brother returns?...We are told, not once over the years had his father so much as given the older son a young goat, so that he might celebrate with friends...And his younger brother who had squandered away his father's property with prostitutes and the like, had now came home after many years, and the father kills the fattened and prized calf -for the very one who lost a large portion of his dad's estate...What kind of justice is this, from the elder son's eyes?...And because we do have this sinful nature, how just and fair is it for the first to be last and the last to be first?...The older brother had tried to do the right thing, while the young brother went out and sowed his wild oats, with his father's money...And now that money (the money the father had given him) was gone...And now he has came back and there is a celebration...
C. S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity, writes about the Laws of Nature, and in his explanation, justice and fairness towards others comes is written about...Lewis writes about the Laws of Right and Wrong or the Laws of Nature...And immediately this question comes up...What is the Law of Nature?...Lewis sees the Law of Nature as the known difference between right and wrong...That is, man's distinction between what is right and what is wrong...“This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that everyone knew it and did not need to be taught it”...Lewis saw the Law of Nature as how we treat others, and how we treat our neighbors, as well as our family...We treat others the way we want to be treated, and if they treat us poorly in return we become upset and irritated with them...Lewis states that we have become a society of excuses when something goes wrong on how we see thing from our own eyes...He goes on to say that we want to behave in a certain way, when in reality we do the opposite of what is right or what is wrong...We are humans and humans have primitive instincts... And some of our instincts do us right and others do us wrong...These instincts he goes on to say this "Isn't what you call the Moral Law simply our herd instinct and hasn't it been developed just like all our other instincts?...' Now I do not deny that we may have a herd instinct: but that is not what I mean by the Moral Law...We all know what it feels like to be prompted by instinct — by mother love, or sexual instinct, or the instinct for food...It means that you feel a strong want or desire to act in a certain way...And, of course, we sometimes do feel just that sort of desire to help another person: and no doubt that desire is due to the herd instinct...But feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that you ought to help whether you want to or not...Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger...You will probably feel two desires — one desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-preservation)...But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away...Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them...You might as well say that the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard...The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys."...This is one way of seeing moral law...
Lewis goes on to say he was an atheist because the world was unjust and unfair...Lewis states, "My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust...But how had I gotten this idea of just and unjust?...A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line...What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?...If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it?...A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet...Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own...But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too — for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies...Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist — in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless — I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality — namely my idea of justice — was full of sense...Consequently, atheism turns out to be too simple...If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark...Dark would be without meaning."...
Justice and fairness becomes very complicated as I read through Lewis...Men ought to be unselfish and fair...And being unselfish and fair seems to lead us back to God, and back to thinking about the older son, who seems to be looking for justice, and questioning justice...And he is questioning his father, about why should he (the father) allow his young brother to go out and waste his money, while he has worked away with him for years, and then be celebrating his return...
So what does justice and fairness really mean, especially knowing that we as mankind regularly sin, and do the wrong thing like spend money foolishly, like the young son?...Lewis says that outside our own personal preferences there is this Greater Justice...Yet, when we define justice it becomes personal to each of us...We bring in our own personal feelings of what we think should be right...Just like the older brother is doing...We look through our own eyes...We judge others through our eyes...And our eyes are veiled when we judge others...Our eyes get weighed down with time, thoughts of personal fairness, selfishness, and planks...Defining this Greater Justice is only something God and Jesus can explain...This Greater Justice is quite complicated...And I think Jesus makes this point or at least some points on Greater Justice in His Parable of the Lost Son...Jesus, very well, could have ended this Parable with the celebration of the Lost Son returning...But no, He adds His comments about the elderly brother taking exception to his father's grace and love with the return of his younger brother...
God does give us justice and fairness...And I used to think the Parable of the Lost Son was a simple one, and now I see so much...Justice and fairness are very much a part of this parable...Has the older son been treated fairly and just?...His father tells him, that all that he has and owns is his...And the father truly means this...The older son takes a personal stance on selfishness, and self-righteousness, and it almost seems he has forgotten about his younger brother returning home...After all he has been away for years, and he hasn't seen him in quite a while...And it also seems the older brother does not care too much for the celebration that his father is putting on, or for his younger brother (right now)...From the eyes of the father, the young brother is completely atoned for...The young brother has repented and confessed the proper things to his father...He is completely welcomed back graciously...He is completely forgiven...But the older brother does not think and feel that he has been treated justly, because of the way the father is now treating his brother...The elderly son's eyes are weighed down...Jesus maybe telling us that the older son has forgotten about love, forgiveness, reconciliation, and mercy for his brother...Are not these things to be considered, when justice comes down, and is to be served?...What is more important, justice and fairness or your brother -or your neighbor for that matter...Jesus sees love, forgiveness, repentance clearly and brings these loving qualities to our attention in this parable...The Parable meshes love and justice and forgiveness...And while thinking about these things, it is so difficult to let go of my self-directed attitude to pass out justice - I feel sorry for the elder son...But should I?...
For me the parable does not end...The parable is left for each of us to think about...Does love, forgiveness, mercy and graciousness trump justice and fairness?...Or are these things a part of justice and fairness?...Did the injustice toward the older brother only start, when his younger brother returned home?...Was the elderly brother really being treated unjustly, or was he just comparing himself to his brother (and his brother's actions)?...With all the sins that we do, do we really want God to be just?...Does our selfishness regularly get in the way of the way we see justice?...Would it have been easier for the older brother, if his brother had came back the first week, and did the length of time have something to do with his thoughts of injustice?...It is very difficult to pull planks out of our own eyes and maybe time adds to the size of our planks...
We know Jesus came to earth for the sinner and seeks out the sinner...That is in His Nature...That is what He does...He wants to find those who are lost, and He does it without any selfishness...Love and forgiveness seems to looked at (and is give much weight) in the way Jesus gives us His Parable, if we see injustice in this Parable...But it is so hard to pull out our own selfishness, when we are judging others, and giving out our own justices to others...And time seems to have little to do with forgiveness and (our personal) fairness (type thinking)...We and others are completely forgiven, when we repent...