What Makes God, God? His Justice: Luke 7:47
There have been great outcries for justice in our country. We have seen marches in the street to protest the mistreatment of people. We have witnessed the looting of our communities' businesses. Family members have cried out for justice from our legal system and government when their loved ones have been mistreated by those in authority.
Many of these emotions represent deep-rooted feelings that motivate crowds and galvanize communities to demand retribution, accountability, and justice. I believe many of the emotions are historically contextualized from within our nation's darkest moments. As a general rule, what one of us who perceives that we or someone we love have been wronged would not voice a similar cry for justice and accountability?
However, our common response to injustice regardless of lifestyle, race, or gender harbors an inherent fallacy. We view justice from a limited, narrow, and human point of view. Our ideas for justice are often motivated by revenge, retribution, and pain. While our cries for accountability are valid, when justice is served according to our expectations, the inherent problem that prompted the original act of injustice is never solved. We earned retribution, but we failed to win systemic, organic change in the heart of an individual or culture.
It is important to look at complex ideas like justice from God's vantage point because His ways are perfect, accomplishing both accountability for the original act of injustice and transformation on a systemic level deep rooted in the hearts of culture.
Therefore, the question we are seeking to answer is this: "How does God view justice?"
The key verse for this devotion begs the question why I chose this passage to illustrate God's perspective of justice. Why not Hebrews 9:27? We in the church love to quote that verse when we describe the impending end for those who do not accept Christ. Do we so boldly declare, "just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgement..." because this verse sounds so familiar to our present-day Christian notions of justice for retribution, accountability, and judgement?
We're not going to spend the time or space to exegete this Hebrews passage, but suffice it to say that our treatment of verses like that one stands in stark contrast to how Jesus applied justice. Our key verse comes from a story that appears in some form in all four gospels (Matthew 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9; John 12:1-8). Each writer offers different details indicating to some that there was more than one instance when Jesus was anointed by a woman. I chose to use Luke's account because it offers details that can help us think of justice the way God applies it for those who deserve accountability.
Before you read this exposition, read the Lukan account of this encounter in its entirety (Luke 7:36-50). So the question we are considering is how does God perceive justice?
The Story of Jesus' Anointing
As the story goes, Jesus received an invitation for dinner from a local religious leader. He cordially accepted the invitation from a Pharisee named Simon (Luke 7:40), even though we know that the Savior reserved some of His harshest criticisms for that religious crowd (Matthew 23; Luke 20:45-47). Upon entering, Jesus joined the Pharisee and apparently some other guests (Luke 7:49) at the table for dinner.
It wouldn't take long before a local woman with a reputation heard that Jesus had joined Simon at his table. She couldn't miss her chance to join them. We are not told her name because it didn't matter. All that matters is that we know that she was considered a sinful woman in the eyes of the community. As Luke used the word, hamartolos, to describe her as a sinner, apparently Simon was aware of her reputation (Luke 7:39).
What motivated the woman to take this risk for ridicule, banishment, or shame? People came to Jesus for many reasons. Some came for healing (Matthew 9:27ff; Mark 2:1-5; Luke 5:12; John 5:1-6). Some followed to learn (Matthew 5:1ff; Luke 10:38ff; John 6:5). Still others came to accuse (Matthew 22:23-28ff; Mark 11:27-33; Luke 11:16ff; John 6:41ff).
But something else motivated this woman. When she entered the room, His mere presence evoked tears to flow down her cheeks. We don't know why she cried. Presumably the moment was more than she could handle. There were no words to speak. She simply fell at His feet. When she saw her tear drops pooling at the Savior's feet, she wiped His feet with her hair and anointed them with perfume.
From Simon's perspective, he thought, who is this sinful woman that she would have the audacity to invade a sacred dinner of invited guests as notable as this prophet named Jesus (Luke 7:39). She has no right to be there. She received no invitation. She will eat none of the food, because her reputation does precede her.
Maybe they could see her hard lifestyle by how she carried herself. Maybe they could imagine the many sleepless nights in her weary eyes. Could they assume her public shame from her sloped posture and downtrodden eyes? I would imagine so. Even so, she had no business keeping company with a notable prophet and a known religious leader in this town.
This woman's response demonstrated the greatness of God's love for the very ones who are marginalized and banished from the presence of Jesus by the religious in-crowd. Her tearful response expressed the extent of love like the sun's rays pierce the depths of the ocean's darkness. She realized her scandalous life required a peculiar forgiveness from an even more extravagant love, which she could never possibly fathom. She could give nothing less than unbridled love in return with dampened hair by her own tears and the scented sacrifice of precious perfume in response to His mere presence. Moments later, Jesus concluded, "I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven-as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little" (Luke 7:47).
In contrast, it was not the woman who would feel the sting of justice from Jesus. It was Simon. Jesus indicted the religious leader as someone who believed he owed God less than this woman's insurmountable debt that she would never possibly be able to repay. Jesus quizzed Simon at the end of His short parable, "which of them will love him more?" The one who is forgiven less or more?
In the end, Simon's rebukes were silenced by the memorialized love that evoked the tears of a sinful woman who merely wanted to be in the presence of a man who would treat her with the dignity and respect by which God gives regard, regardless of what the community, particularly the religious community, thought about her.
Implications for Justice
What does this encounter with the Son of God have to do with justice? Justice can either grant freedom or rescind it. In this case, this woman's lifestyle and status in the society removed her right to share the space with such notable guests.
If we are wronged, we want justice, meaning we want the perpetrator's freedom to be revoked on some level. We desire retribution to equalize a situation for whatever has been taken away, as if justice can really accomplish such a feat. A life for a life. Financial retribution to provoke pain. The scrutiny of a community to spawn embarrassment.
God views justice much different than us. If God levied justice the way we desire it, Simon's discriminatory spirit, harsh and judgmental critique, and merciless shame heaped upon this disreputable woman would be justified. I mean by all accounts everything he said was true. But God gives regard to people who don't deserve the right to it.
What Simon did not understand was that even though the law could have legitimately bolted the door shut to prevent this woman from sitting at the table with Jesus, the Savior swung the door wide open through love's universal invitation to dine with the One who gives regard to people others may reject.
Accountability or retribution can never make something really wrong really right. The loss is always gone. And the pain will always linger. But love will always equalize that which has been knocked out of balance.
Life Application
How can justice be achieved then? If we look at justice the way God sees it, we will see the cross standing in the foreground with justice looming in its shadow against the incandescent hope generated by unfathomable love. At the cross of Jesus, God's perfect justice and His amazing grace intersected. He judged the sin that stole our place at His table with a harsh, violent, repulsive judgement when He laid all of our wrongdoing on the One who did not deserve it. Jesus, the Lamb of God, crawled on an altar one day so that this woman and those of us like her could have an audience with a King.
If left to our own devices, the door would never open for us. Dinner at a king's table could never be expected without the cross. This woman's lifestyle demanded justice. Against the law, she deserved ridicule. She earned banishment. But Jesus gave her an audience. Jesus opened the door. He cleansed her guilt. Her Savior healed her shame.
So what does all this mean for the world in which we live? There is a human element to what we are experiencing in our world today. When a loved one is shamefully and wrongfully taken from us by someone in authority or anyone else, the law does demand accountability.
However, for Christians this woman represents the far-reaching arms of grace and mercy. The cross's shadow extends far and wide. While the legal system may right a wrong, it cannot transform the hearts of those who cry out for justice nor those who have broken the law.
I fear that we in the church have become so comfortable in our pews that we don't even realize that we sound and look a lot like Simon. When the reality is, we're really the sinful woman in the story. We are that abuser of power who harms the powerless. We are the wrongdoer. That is what Simon did not get. I believe that is what we have lost in the church today.
There is nothing about us that deserves an audience with such a notable guest as Jesus. We all have a reputation. We all have a past. There are no reasons why God should give us any regard. Except the cross changed all of that. Our cries for justice may be normal and deserved, but there is a longing for all who are impacted by our own wrongdoing to find an audience with the only prophet in town who can heal the pain and cleanse the shame.
The church's message must point people to the love of God rather than the law that we believe they have violated. That means the verses we use in our descriptions of God may change. We may not use Hebrews 9:27. We may use Luke 7:47 because while it is the true that we all will die once and then face judgement, today we live because He first died. That is what our world needs to hear. That is what our neighbors need to see from us.
- The church needs to stop marginalizing people whose lifestyles don't fit what we believe God expects.
- Rather we need to start giving them an audience with our King.
- Let them sit at the feet of the only One who can forgive.
- Let them respond to Jesus from their points of brokenness by pouring out everything they have and all that they are so that they too can find what we have found at His feet!
- Let's open our doors to the only Prophet in town who deserves their worship.
- Let's demonstrate God's transforming love to those who have been isolated outside the doors of the church because of our harsh critiques and judgmental attitudes.
Only God's love that proved perfectly just can transform the heart of man and the soul of society. Let it begin in the church!
Scriptures for further study
Read Luke 7:36-50
Who can you identify with in this story?
Can you identify with the tears of this woman?
Why do you think she cried?
Do you believe Simon needs to change how he viewed this woman?
If so, how do you think Simon could change his attitude?
What do you think this story teaches you about Jesus? About yourself?
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