The Question of Justice

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We're in the midst of a series in which we are exploring the famous words of the professor of Ecclesiastes. The professor takes an unflinching look at life as it really is and recognizes that there are some questions of life that are absolutely unavoidable. If you're paying attention, if your eyes are open, you simply can't escape these questions. For example, he would ask you, if everything that you've ever achieved and everyone you have ever loved eventually will be swept away by the inexorable passage of time and taken away from you by the inevitability of death, then is there really any lasting meaning to our lives, or is everything completely pointless? The professor refuses to offer trite answers but dares to ask the hard questions in order to get you to think for yourself. But his goal is not to drive you to the depths of despair; rather it’s to point you to the only source of hope.

As we've seen, the professor has engaged in a quest to see if there is anything significant or purposeful about human existence. First, he tries to find if there's any meaning in the pursuit of pleasure. Then secondly, the pursuit of wisdom. And then thirdly, the pursuit of achievement. And all the way along, he's asking questions like: How can I really be happy? Where will I find fulfillment or satisfaction? What should I do with my life? And now, in the passage that is before us today, he raises the question of justice. How do I deal with evil, suffering, and injustice that I see all around me?

Now this question — the question of justice — may be the hardest of them all. One way or another, we're all going to run up against it. Now, you may be young enough so that you can say, “I've lived a charmed life; I haven't really experienced much suffering yet.” Well, don't worry. You will. And the question is, how do we deal with suffering when it comes? Well, let's see what the professor has to say. As we turn to Ecclesiastes 3 and 4, I'd like to consider what the professor tells us about: 1) the ambiguity of time, 2) the inescapability of suffering, and 3) the possibility of justice.

¹For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

²a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

³a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

⁴a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

⁵a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

⁶a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

⁷a time to tear, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

⁸a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace.

⁹What gain has the worker from his toil? ¹⁰I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. ¹¹He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. ¹²I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; ¹³also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man.

¹⁴I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. ¹⁵That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.

¹⁶Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. ¹⁷I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work.

4 ¹Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. ²And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. ³But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.

Ecclesiates 3:1-17; 4:1-3

The Ambiguity of Time

In 1959, Pete Seeger took the first eight verses of Ecclesiastes 3 and set them to music. His only original contribution to the song was the title, “Turn, Turn, Turn” — which also appeared as something of a chorus — and the last six words in the final line. Ecclesiastes says there's a time for war and a time for peace, and Pete Seeger adds, “I swear it's not too late.” He later joked that he really does believe that he deserved the royalties for this song because he introduced those six words at the end, and one word that was repeated three times. Well, believe it or not, this song was adapted by the folk rock band The Birds, and it hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart during the fall of 1965 when it was released. Now there are a lot of different ways in which this poem could be interpreted, but it was received as an appeal for world peace in the midst of the Vietnam War. But it remains notable as one of the very few successful pieces of pop music that is almost entirely based on the Bible — well, except for seven words.

Now on the one hand, Ecclesiastes 3 is a beautiful poem about time; for everything, there is a season. There's a time and a place for everything: birth and death, sorrow and laughter, war and peace. There are seasons to life, and a better part of wisdom is actually knowing what kind of a season you're in. You have to know the times and the seasons in order to be able to live life well. So on the one hand, this is a beautiful poem. But then you realize, wait a minute, this poem may be beautiful, but it is ambiguous, because the professor suggests that as we look down the long corridors of history, what we see is that we're not really moving anywhere. We simply seem to be cycling through time. There's no progress. There's no justice. We seem to just keep coming back to where we were before. We're born, and then we die. We kill, and then we heal. And then the cycle starts all over again. Earlier this week, our pastoral resident, Hansol Kang, reminded me of the words of George Hegel. Hagel once asked the question, well, what do we learn from history? And you know what he said? What we learn from history is that we don't learn from history. We keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again. And you know what? That is a challenge to the secular person.

See, if you're a secular person, if you say, “There is no God; this world is all there is,” then, do you know what that means? It means that the inevitable belief in progress is a myth. The secular belief in progress is an absolute myth. What makes you think that society is inevitably going to get better and better through our advances in knowledge, science, and technology? Why do you assume that? Tell that to anyone who lived in the 20th century, the bloodiest century in human history. The idea that progress is inevitable is an absolute, complete myth. In fact, it's just a secularized version of the Christian doctrine of hope. So we have to open up our eyes. The professor of Ecclesiastes says, there's no pattern here other than perhaps that civilizations rise and then they fall. From our own limited point of view in time, it might seem as if a society is starting to get a little bit better and better, but then they stall out and then set into decline, and the cycle starts all over again. And so the professor asks, if that is true, then what's the point? Verse 9 asks, what do we get? What do we gain from all of our work?

So the professor points us to the deep ambiguity of time, because of its beauty on the one hand and because of our blindness on the other.

Its Beauty

So on the one hand, he says, yes, time is a beautiful thing. Verse 11 says he made everything beautiful in its time. God created time itself. So time is a part of God's wonderful, beautiful creation. There really is a time and a place for everything. God is active and involved in time, and that's what gives each of these seasons of life their meaning and their purpose. And I love how he goes on to say that God has placed eternity in our hearts. I mean, you could spend a lifetime just reflecting on that comment. We as human beings have a sense of the eternal. That's one of the things that sets us apart. Do animals have a sense of eternity? I don't know, but we do, and that sense of the eternal opens up for us all kinds of possibilities. If we can imagine eternity, perhaps that points to its reality. Maybe that points us to the fact that we will live forever. So there's something beautiful about time.

Our Blindness

But on the other hand, the professor points out our blindness when it comes to time. There may be a time and a season for everything, but most of the time, we usually have no idea what kind of a season we're in. So in verse 11, he goes on to say, we cannot fathom what God has done from the beginning to the end. God is the only one who knows the end from the beginning. So he knows the times and the seasons. We don't. We're just flying blind. We can't see much before or beyond time, let alone understand the moment in which we find ourselves living right now. So time is ambiguous.

The Inescapability of Suffering

Then the professor turns from the ambiguity of time to the inescapability of suffering, and he draws out two issues in particular when it comes to the reality of suffering: injustice and oppression. So first, in chapter 3, verse 16, he says, “Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness.” And then in chapter 4, verse 1, he says, again, “Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them!” On the side of their oppressors, there was power and there was no one to comfort them.

Now, given our modern sensibilities, we're probably more attuned to injustice and oppression than any other people who have ever lived in the whole history of the world. And yet, aren't these words so powerfully vivid? We look for justice, and we find wickedness. We look for human flourishing, and we find oppression. This is the tragedy of the human condition. Life just doesn't seem to make sense a lot of the time, and we can't escape the inevitability of suffering. So the question then is, what do we do about it?

Now this is a gross oversimplification. I'm going to start painting with a very, very broad brush, just in order to try to make things simple. But how do we respond to suffering? Well, you could say that the Eastern approach to suffering is to deny it, the Western approach to suffering is to defy it, but the Christian approach to suffering is to endure it.

The Eastern Approach: Deny It

The Eastern approach to suffering is to deny it. Think of the Buddha. The Buddha was raised in a palace in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains. His father was the king; he's a prince. And his father determines that he wants to raise him so that his son can experience a perfect life that is free — not only of suffering, but of anything that is unpleasant. And so he builds high walls that surround the palace so nothing from the outside world is going to make it into his son's home, into his son's life. He spoils his son; he gives him everything he could possibly dream of. There's nothing that he will lack, nothing that he will want. And he's got servants attending to him hand and foot. So as a result of all of this, the prince grows up completely ignorant of the everyday cruelties of life. But here he is, living this life of luxury and opulence. But you know what? He realizes that even though he has everything his heart could desire, it all seems so completely pointless and meaningless.

So what does he do? One night, he sneaks out of the palace. And now, beyond the palace walls, for the very first time he comes face to face with suffering. So first he sees an old man, second he sees a sick man, and then he sees a dead man. Now, can you imagine the shock of experiencing that all at once for the first time, never having been exposed to any of it before? As a result of this, he realizes that there is no escaping suffering. And so he comes up with his own philosophy of life, which he then shares with the world. And he basically says: 1) Life is suffering. It's inescapable, therefore life is suffering. 2) Suffering arises from our desires. And that leads him to conclude that, 3) The only way to eliminate suffering is by eliminating our desires.

So Budda concludes that suffering essentially is an illusion. The problem is simply that you care too much. If you stop caring, well then suffering won't be a problem for you. But the only way to get rid of suffering is to extinguish all your desires and attachments — to eliminate even your very sense of self so that there's no you left to speak of. If you don't care about anything, if you don't feel anything, if you don't love anyone, well then you won't suffer. So that's the Eastern approach to suffering: Deny it. Suffering isn't real. It's just an illusion. If you deny it, you'll be fine.

The Western Approach: Defy It

Well, a secular Western approach would not deny suffering but rather defy suffering. So a secular Western person might say, look, there's no God, there's no design, there's no purpose, there's no meaning to our lives. We're the result of just blind chance. Life emerged out of the accidental collision of atoms and some kind of primordial ooze, and therefore we’re the result of blind natural forces and the replication of DNA. There's nothing beyond that. And if that's true, if this world is directed by nothing more than blind chance, well then that means that all talk about suffering is completely meaningless. These categories of good, evil, right, wrong, just, unjust, they're completely nonsensical. We should expect the strong to devour the weak. If survival of the fittest is all there is, we should expect the weak to get trampled by the strong, and there's no problem with that whatsoever. That's just the way it is.

Richard Dawkins summarized these thoughts cogently when he wrote,

Genes don’t care about suffering, because they don’t care about anything. If Nature were kind, she would at least make the minor concession of anesthetizing caterpillars before they are eaten alive from within.

But Nature is neither kind nor unkind. She is neither against suffering nor for it. Nature is not interested one way or the other in suffering, unless it affects the survival of DNA…In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference…DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.

So do you see what Dawkins is saying? If this world is all there is — if there's nothing more out there other than the survival of DNA — then all of our categories for right and wrong, good and evil, justice and injustice are meaningless.

But of course, no one actually lives that way. So the Eastern approach to suffering is to deny it. The western approach to suffering is to defy it, because the Western person knows that their views are deeply inconsistent. We say there's no design, there's no purpose. We're here as the result of blind chance. None of these categories make any sense, and yet we're going to live as if there really is right and wrong, as if there really is good and evil, as if there really is such a thing as justice, even though we supposedly know that there's not.

The Christian Approach: Endure It

So the Eastern approach is to deny it, the Western approach is to defy it, but the Christian approach to suffering is to endure it. And here's what I mean. On the one hand, Christianity says that suffering is not an illusion. If you put your hand on a hot stove, it's going to burn. It's going to hurt. Suffering is not an illusion. And look, what makes us most human is our ability to care, our ability to feel, our ability to love other people. So Christianity is not asking you to deny that which makes you most human — to love and care for other people. Christianity is not asking you to cut yourself off from everyone and everything you care about in order to avoid pain. On the other hand, Christianity says that suffering is not an artificial construct. It's real. There really is such a thing as right and wrong and good and evil and justice and injustice. Why? Because we're not the result of blind chance. But rather, we're here because there is a good, loving Creator God who made us, and He made us with a purpose. And therefore there really is a way that things are supposed to be. And we know that, intuitively, as human beings, there really is a way that things are supposed to be. And therefore we don't deny the reality of suffering or simply seek to defy it, but rather we’re called to endure it, and we endure it in hope. Because God has promised that one day he is going to come back and he is going to set right everything that once went wrong. He's going to bring true justice. And therefore, we're called to patiently endure suffering now, knowing that this is not the end.

The Possibility of Justice

So the professor of Ecclesiastes acknowledges the ambiguity of time and the inescapability of suffering, but then finally he points us to the possibility of true justice. Even though we may find justice elusive, the fact that we know deep within our bones that there really is such a thing as justice may be pointing us forward to the reality of God. The fact that we feel that there really is such a thing as the right, and that we're willing to fight for that which is good and true and beautiful and just, might point beyond this world to the Creator who designed it.

This was the realization that C.S. Lewis made in his famous book “Mere Christianity.” The Oxford professor C.S. Lewis talks about how, before he came to faith in Jesus, he struggled to believe in God because he assumed that if there was an all-loving God and an all-powerful God, God would not allow evil and suffering to continue. But because we see so much evil and suffering and injustice in the world, then God must not exist. But then he reflected on that further, and he realized, wait a minute, if this life is all there is — if all there is, is the replication of DNA and survival of the fittest — why do I care? Why do I care? So he sums it up like this:

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got 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 a violent reaction against it?...

And you see, that's just it. When we see injustice, when we see oppression, when we see the tears of the oppressed and there's no one to comfort them, we have a violent reaction against it. We know it's wrong. But why do we have that deep sense that it's wrong? Where do we get these ideas of cruel and unjust? It didn't come from this world; it had to have come from beyond it. So that very longing for justice suggests the reality of God and the possibility of true justice. And the professor of Ecclesiastes says that one day God is going to do something about it. He's going to set things right once and for all. In verse 17, he writes, “I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work.” God will judge the earth and make things right.

So let me close by thinking about some of the implications of this, both for a non-believer as well as for a believer. So if you are not yet a Christian, or if you're not yet sure if you're a Christian, you have to realize that the reality of suffering is a problem for everyone, regardless of what their particular worldview might be. It's a problem for you if you're an atheist. If you're an atheist, you have to admit that all this talk about right and wrong, justice and injustice, is meaningless. It doesn't make any sense. If this world is all there is, there's no point in talking about justice. If DNA is all there is, well then DNA doesn't know or care. DNA just is, and we dance to its music.

But at the same time, it's true that the problem of suffering is a real issue for a Christian as well. Because if God is all-loving and all-powerful, then we wonder why God doesn't stop suffering right now. And usually we come to the conclusion that, well, if God is all-loving and all-powerful and he doesn't stop suffering, then that must mean that either he doesn't really love us or he isn't really powerful enough to stop it.

But actually, there is a third option, and the third option may be that God allows evil and suffering to continue only for a time, because he has his reasons. And just because you don't know what those reasons are doesn't mean that there aren’t any. God might have reasons to allow evil and suffering to continue just for a moment, but in the end, he will eradicate it. And just because you don't know what that reason is doesn't mean there isn't one. Now you might ask, well, if that's the case, then what is God waiting for? Why doesn't he stop evil and injustice now? And I don't know.

But one answer may be that he's waiting. He's waiting for you. He's waiting to give you more time to decide whether or not you will put your faith and trust in Him as the ultimate answer to the big questions of life. You see, if you're still undecided, it's a good thing that he didn't come back to judge the world and set things right in 2017 or whenever, because then you would have missed out. It would have been too late for you. You see, there is a time for everything, and perhaps now is the time for you to decide what you're going to do about God. You need to make up your mind for him. As Paul says in Romans 13, now is the time. The ultimate day of salvation is closer to us now than it was five minutes ago. So don't waste another minute. Now is the time to make up your mind.

But if you are already a believer, you also have to realize that it's not going to be like this forever. God has promised that one day he's going to hold the world to account. He's going to bring his justice to bear on this world. He's going to set right everything that once went wrong. He's going to bring his justice. And we might say, yes, absolutely, that's what we want. We don't want to see the world destroyed by evil. We want to see it renewed in the perfect justice and love of God. But do you realize that if you see that it's appropriate for God to bring his judgment on the world to make things right, well then it's also appropriate for God to bring his justice down on you, too, when you deserve it for all of your wrongdoing, for all the things that you have done to mess up the world that he loves. And if that's true, then who of us could actually stand the scrutiny of God? Who of us could stand up in the judgment of God? And that's what brings us to the very heart of the gospel.

See, the message of the gospel is that Jesus not only came to bring God's justice to Earth but also to bear God's justice in our place on the cross as our substitute. See, on the cross Jesus bears the judgment that we deserve, because this is the only way that God can condemn sin, evil, and injustice without having to condemn you or me. Jesus is the just judge who is judged in our place. He not only brings God's judgment, but he bears God's judgment for us as a gift of His grace. And so we need to lay hold of that promise so that we might know that we will not come into judgment because Jesus was judged for us.

But that's also the hope that inspires us to pursue justice in this world. A number of years ago, Nick Wolterstorff, who taught philosophy and theology at Yale, gave a lecture here at Central on justice, beauty, and love. And afterwards, during the Q& A session, there was a young woman in our congregation who asked him a question about the pursuit of justice. You see, this was a person who's passionate about justice. She'd committed her whole life to it. This is what she'd given her life's work to. But like many people who work for justice, she found that the closer she got to the work of justice, the more she witnessed all the pain and the injustice that we human beings can inflict upon one another, the more discouraged she became. And she began to despair of the very pursuit of justice itself. And so she asked the question of the professor of Ecclesiastes: What's the point? What's the point of even trying? What's the point of praying for justice? What's the point of acting for justice, of pursuing God's justice in the world? Why do we even bother?

And I'll never forget Nick Wolterstorff’s response, because he used this analogy. He said a great master painter like Rembrandt would have had a studio filled with artists who would have helped him complete his major, large-scale composition. So he might have set a couple artists to work on one part of the canvas and another set of artists to work on another. And sometimes the work that they did was right in line with the artist's vision; it was right in line with what Rembrandt wanted, and maybe it just needed to be touched up a little bit here or there. And then there were other parts of the canvas that were a complete disaster, and they didn't go according to plan at all, and the whole section had to be reworked by the master. But either way, no problem. Rembrandt comes in. He either touches it up or he reworks the whole section, and he makes it perfect, and then he signs his name to it.

In a similar way, in our pursuit of justice, it's ultimately God's work, not our own. And as we pray for justice, and as we pursue God's justice in the world, there might be places where we're successful, where we're able to accomplish something that's in line with the great Artist's vision, and maybe it just needs to be touched up a little bit. And then there's other places where it is a complete and utter disaster. It needs to be completely reworked. But no worries, because one day the Master is going to come, and he'll take that brush in his hand, and he'll touch up what needs to be touched up, and he'll rework whatever is a mess. And in the end, he's going to make it perfect. And he'll sign his name to it: Soli, Deo, Gloria. To God alone, be the glory.

Let me pray for us.

Father, we acknowledge the ambiguity of time. There's something so beautiful about time as part of your good, wonderful creation. There's a time and a season for everything, and yet, most of the time we're blind to the season that we're in. We don't know the end from the beginning like you do. And we acknowledge the inescapability of suffering. It's unavoidable. But we pray that you would help us not to deny it or to defy it, but to patiently endure it in hope, knowing that one day you will bring your true justice to bear on this world. And therefore, we pray that you would help us to cling to you in faith, knowing that Jesus is the one who bore the judgment in our place so that we might not be condemned. We thank you that he is the one who not only brings justice but bears it. And therefore, because he is the true justice-bringer, we pray that you would help us to anticipate that promised future now through both our prayers and our actions, knowing that you will take our weak, feeble efforts, and in the end, you'll make them perfect and sign your name to it. We ask all this in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen.

Sermons

Ecclesiastes: The Enigma of Life Under the Sun: The Question of Justice

Related Resources

The Ambiguity of Time

The Inescapability of Suffering

The Possibility of Justice