Genesis 50:15–21
Romans 8:18–23
St. Luke 6:36–42
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
A few weeks ago, back on Trinity Sunday, I said that we all want mercy on ourselves and justice on everyone else. When we do something wrong, we want mercy, leniency. When someone else does something wrong—especially when someone does something wrong to us—we want justice, punishment. But it’s one or the other really. Either mercy for me and mercy for all, or justice for everyone including me, and we all end up dead. This is ultimately true, and just another way of saying what Jesus says: With the measure you use it will be measured back to you. If you want to measure everyone up against the Law—whether that’s God’s Law, the nation’s laws, or your own personal ideas of right and wrong—if you want to hold everyone to that standard and not allow for mercy and forgiveness, then that’s exactly what you’ll get too. And sooner or later, you’ll also fall short.
That being said, justice is not wrong. And there is need for justice in this world. There is a need for the Law and for the Law to be upheld. Judgments must be made. Jesus’ words do not mean there is no right or wrong. Judge not, and you will not be judged—that means you are not the final arbiter, you don’t get to decide what the standard for judgment is. That is ultimately God alone. His Law defines justice. His Law makes the judgments, says what’s right and wrong.
But below God, there are other earthly authorities, instituted by God for each area of life: Parents in the Home, Civil Government in the State, Pastors in the Church. And these authorities are commanded by God to say what is right and wrong, to make judgments.
This being the weekend for our nation’s independence, our thoughts easily go to the civil authorities. And the word that most comes to mind when thinking of our nation and government is the word, “liberty.” But just as Jesus’ words, Judge not, are often misused to say there is no right or wrong, this word “liberty” is often misused in a similar way to say that you can do whatever you want—it’s a free country, right? That is not at all what this nation was founded upon.
One of the bedrock principles of this nation’s fathers and mothers was the very traditional, very classical idea that only those who can rule their own thoughts and actions can truly be free. This means governing yourself according to God’s Law and good human wisdom. This means you do not follow every whim or feeling or thought, but you judge it, you test it against God’s Word and against history and the wisdom that has come down from the past, and so you rule yourself accordingly. You put limits on yourself, for the good of yourself and for the good of others, and then you can truly be free. People who are blown about by every new idea, or get swept up in the mob, or who give in to every selfish desire are not fit to be free but should be compelled and forced to obey what is right.
This nation was founded upon this idea of liberty, not on licentiousness. Being free does not mean you get to do whatever you want. Judge not, Jesus says. You are not the one who gets to decide what’s right or wrong, what you want to do or get to do. So, an idea like “liberty and justice for all” means that all must be accountable to God’s Law, must govern themselves according to it, and judgments must be made and upheld in order to teach what is right and preserve what is good.
There is certainly a need for justice in this world. There is a need for God’s Law to rebuke sinners, for the nation’s laws to punish criminals, and for each of us to rule ourselves according to these laws in our own minds and bodies.
But in the end, Law and justice can only do Law and justice. In a fallen world, eventually, we all end up dead. We will not establish a perfect society on this earth. America was never and could never be that shining “city on a hill.” As we’ve seen in the last month or so, our nation is a far cry from what it was founded to be. After 70 some years of radical, progressive education and the expansion of government power, our society is crumbling. Of course, there’s a chance this could be reversed and we might rebuild, but that’s a subject for another day. The point for now is that this is the way of all civilization—it doesn’t last.
And this is why we must take hope in St. Paul’s words from Romans 8: The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Law and justice must be upheld in this fallen, sinful world. And so creation groans under the burden of our sin and the punishment for that sin. This world wastes away in its bondage to sin and death. But there is a true freedom promised to us. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. The true freedom that we wait for and groan for in this world is not the liberty of America, not the liberty of this world that only comes from force or self–restraint. What we groan for is the perfect life of liberty of knowing and doing only the good and holy will of God—the life promised to us in the new world of the resurrection.
And that new life and new world is already begun here and now in the Church on earth. It’s not yet perfected here. It’s still quite weak and hidden, while this world lingers on. But the new life begun in us makes the Church a different kind of place. This is the place where we receive mercy and we give mercy.
Your heavenly Father is merciful, so He wants you to be merciful—full of His mercy and showing His mercy. He is merciful to you for the sake of His Son. He does not judge you because He judged Christ for your sin. He does not condemn you because Christ shed His blood for you. He forgives you because Jesus died in your place. And here, in this new place, His Church, He gives gifts to you, in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over… in Baptism, washing you clean; in Absolution, declaring you holy; in the Supper, feeding you His Son’s body and blood for eternal life. He gives all that and more for you, so that you may know His mercy, and so that you may be merciful just as He is.
This is the place where you can get your eye cleaned out so that you can mercifully help your brother. If you get the log out of your own eye by confessing your sins, owning up to them and hating them, and getting God’s mercy touched to you, in Baptism, in the Word, in the Supper, then you can begin to help your brother. It’s no good for a blind man to lead a blind man, but it’s a merciful thing for a Christian to help a brother find his sin and get touched by the mercy of God. Helping a brother with his speck of sin is not an unloving, condemning, judgmental thing to do. It’s a rescue operation. So, even where there is a need for us to speak the Law to sinners, we do it mercifully. We do it with the hope of repentance and a new life.
This only happens in the Church. Christians are the only ones who care about mercy, repentance, and forgiveness. Look at Joseph and his brothers. The brothers were sure Joseph would pay them back for all the evil they had done to him, threatening his life and selling him into slavery. They were only thinking about justice. They were only thinking like this world. But Joseph was thinking like God. He was thinking about mercy. And to those who so grievously wronged him, he spoke words of forgiveness: Do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.
We do not see this much today. Certainly not among the “Woke,” among the social justice warriors. Whether it’s MeToo accusers, or the Black Lives Matter Organization, or Antifa, or white supremacists—none of them care about forgiveness. You can plead with them all you want, you can tell them how sorry you are, but you’re never forgiven. You’re rejected, canceled, torn down or kicked out. At best you’re just left in a perpetual state of penitence with no hope.
Christians really are to be different from the rest. Christians really are the only ones who truly believe in mercy and forgiveness, who do not hold past sins against people, who desperately pray and work for peace in this world. Everyone else wants to be the judge, wants their idea of justice. Everyone else, eventually, pursues the way of violence—the path of justice only—and everyone ends up dead. Christians are different. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. This means that Christians are called to be like God. He sacrificed His own Son for us—for sinners who hate Him and want to be god in His place. But the death of God on the cross is the definition of love. The work of God in the flesh is the very icon of mercy, the image that Christians then reflect in their lives with others.
This is why we baptize our babies, why we learn His Word, why we feed on His body and blood, why we then help the poor, and give witness to His love, and pray for the peace of the world, so that we become more and more like our God—more like His love, more like His mercy, more like the new world He has in store for us in the resurrection—a world created by His mercy, full of His true justice—a world where we all live with Him.
In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.
