God's Fairness

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and His only Son Jesus Christ, Amen.

        A few Sundays past, God charged Ezekiel with the task of warning the people of Israel of their own wickedness. If they disregarded the warning, the results would be on their own head. But, if Ezekiel did not warn them, the responsibility would be on the prophet’s head.

      Now God is refuting a proverb by which the Israelites have been living. This proverb was possibly a false use of a doctrine of inherited guilt (perhaps based on a false understanding of Ex 20:5; “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation”). That is what is meant by the phrase:

 ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
      And the children’s teeth are set on edge’

      The Israelites believed that they were being punished because of the sins of their fathers. They were in captivity in Babylon with no hope of seeing the promise of their own land that God had made them. Now God has sent them the prophet Ezekiel telling them to repent. The people of Israel were saying it wasn’t their fault. What follows is his description of three men, standing for three generations, who break the three/four-generation pattern.

      Have you ever had a bad reputation? Or, have you ever heard of someone’s reputation before you met them? How about the saying, “Your reputation precedes you”? Even a family name can carry a reputation either revered or scorned.

      The father of a friend of mine committed a scandalous crime. Now his name is a liability to him in almost every interaction with the community. His father had eaten sour grapes; and now the son must live with the shame—his teeth are set on edge every time his name is connected with the actions of his father.

      Sometimes we make assumptions that are not right. As if these types of actions were not bad enough, we compound our misconceptions by putting the responsibility of wrong-doing on others. For instance, we may not wish to see someone we love get hurt so, in denial, we blame someone else. “It’s not the child’s fault; it’s the parent’s fault.” “He’s not a bad boy he just hangs out with a bad crowd.” This is what the people of Israel were offering up as an excuse to God. “It’s not our fault that we are in captivity or that we worship false idols; it’s our parent’s fault. We were born into it. We were forced to live this way.”

      As parents, you may have heard these complaints from your children, “How was I supposed to know? No one told me.” “I was just doing what everyone else was doing.” “So-and-so did the same thing and she never got in trouble for it.” And when rejoined with the parental answer of, “It doesn’t matter, you should have known better.” We then often hear the reply, “That’s not fair!”

      We are responsible and accountable for our actions, not only to our fellow man, but also to God. We cannot excuse our actions by blaming someone else. The excuse of, “Everyone does it” is no excuse in the eyes of God. The lament of “It’s not fair!” does not relieve us of our responsibilities for our actions.

This is what God was saying to the people of Israel:

Ez 18:25 “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ Hear now, O house of Israel, is it not My way which is fair, and your ways which are not fair?

      There are many types of ‘fair’. Living in a broken world where no one is perfect, we try our best to define our equity in all aspects of our lives. In many instances, it takes more than one judge, more than one referee or even a committee to decide what is truly fair. We see this easily in our courtrooms where we decide the laws by which we are governed and the justice we serve to one another. We have judges, attorneys and juries. We see it in our play as well. We rely on the referees and umpires to make sure the game is played fair.

      It takes quite a bit of effort to define what is truly fair to all concerned. Everyone has their own opinion on what is fair. I would say that determining fairness is a very difficult task and if you asked someone what fair is, they would probably have trouble defining it.

      However, everyone can be specific when they think something is unfair. It seems that people spend more time looking out for what is not fair than what is fair. How many times have you watched a football game where a call has been challenged and requires the input from the ref, the ump and the line judges? Or how many times have we seen a baseball game where the manager enthusiastically challenges the call of the umpire as they stand toe to toe, yelling at each other and kicking dirt on each other’s shoes?

      When I was stationed at the Naval Training Command in Great Lakes, Il., the sailors that were there for training in their specific jobs they would perform, all lived in barracks. Each room in the barracks was about 10 feet wide and 20 feet long. Four sailors were in each room. We each had a bed, or ‘rack’ as we called them, a desk and a small closet to hang our uniforms. We would have regular weekly inspections of our rooms by an officer and senior enlisted personnel. If you received three consecutive ‘outstanding’ ratings on your room and uniform, you would get 72 hours liberty.

      I already had two outstanding marks and was shooting for that 3-day pass. Three new sailors had been recently assigned to my room. This was a common occurrence as the men and women finished training and were deployed the living assignments were rotated. I had worked hard all week, waxing and buffing the floor so that it shone like glass. I had carefully ironed and pressed all my uniforms. I had cleaned the dust and dirt from every nook and cranny in that room. I even hung my other uniforms in the closet so precisely that every hanger was equally and evenly spaced with the sleeves all hanging the exact same way.

      The inspection came and the Chief Petty officer with his clipboard, ran his fingers along the surfaces, peered into the corners, and opened all the closets and all the drawers. I could tell that he was impressed. My roommates and I stood at attention when he announced our grade. “Satisfactory”. I must have shown some sort of disappointment because the Chief walked up to me and asked me if I thought his pronouncement was unfair. I knew better than to argue or complain so I replied with a firm “Negative, Chief!”

      As in many of these types of situations, the Chief decided he was going to explain his reasons to me anyway. He told me that all of my gear and the room was squared away, but that my three new roommate’s uniforms and storage areas were unsatisfactory. He told me that I obviously knew how to do things properly but I didn’t help out my shipmates and correct their errors.

      Losing my 3 day pass sure didn’t seem fair; but my definition of fair and my chain of command’s definition of fair were not the same. I was held responsible for my own actions and held responsible for the actions of the others with whom I lived. Does this sound familiar? How about what Paul wrote to the Philippians 2:3-4:

“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.”

      It seems to me that as Christians, what is fair is to be responsible not only for our own well-being but for that of others as well. It is not enough that we only pay attention to our own needs, wants and desires. God was telling His people that they cannot blame someone else for their own state of sin. Now we are being told to also be responsible for our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ.

      Before we start yelling ‘foul’ or saying ‘that’s unfair’, take a look at God’s kind of fairness. Knowing that we could never perfectly follow all of His statutes and commands, God sent His Son to us to live as one of us. Jesus Christ was not only sent to be an example of how to live as God intends us to live, but to also take the sins of each and every one of us and claim them as his own, and with this burden, Christ became responsible for all of our transgressions. He took this all to the grave. As Paul wrote, “He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”

      Now, does that sound fair? How many of us would willingly take on the blame for every wrong-doing of our neighbors? If such a task were thrust upon us, how many of us would cry out, “That’s not fair!” How many of us would willingly die for our neighbor? To purposefully put ourselves in harm’s way for those that we hold in contempt?

      Brothers and sisters in Christ, if you only remember one thing from this sermon today remember this: our Savior’s death and resurrection, His victory over the grave, His victory over sin and the devil, and His gift of life everlasting is God’s definition of ‘fair’.

      It is God’s grace, mercy and love that is given to us so that we may be holy, so that we may be ‘perfect’ in the eyes of God. It is by His grace He makes us members of his family when we are baptized. It is by His love that we are able to partake in the body and blood of our Savior to be one in the body of Christ; and it is by His mercy that we are forgiven all of our sins.

      Our Lord Jesus Christ paid our debt of sin so that we “may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom we shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that we may rejoice in the day of Christ.” [Phil 2:15]

      Yes, God has given us fair warning, fair and impartial judgment, and has treated us fairly. We need not worry about death because we are all raised again in Christ. By being baptized into the family of God, we all receive God’s fair share. Because of Christ’s victory over the devil, we are no longer fair game. As God tells us in Ez 18:4

“ Behold, all souls are Mine;
      The soul of the father
      As well as the soul of the son is Mine”

       Therefore we can take consolation in Christ, the comfort of love, fellowship of the Spirit, have affection and mercy for one another, being like-minded, being of one accord. [Phil 2:1-2]

For truly, as Christ has shown us… all is fair in love.

Amen.