Thankfully, God isn't Fair

Ezekiel 33:7-20

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Humanity is obsessed with fairness. Last Sunday evening, the basketball game between Maryland and Colorado State in the NCAA tournament ended with a last second shot - but did the Maryland player break the rules and travel before he shot the ball? Colorado State fans protest, “That’s not fair!” But you don’t have to go all the way to Colorado for protests about fairness. In every home filled with children, there are constant questions about fairness. Who spent more time with mom and dad? Who got the bigger dessert? Did a sibling or a teammate or a classmate get preferential treatment? When children become adults, the questions about fairness don’t go away, they just get more sophisticated. As April looms, you look at your tax forms for fairness to make sure that you are taxed fairly and don’t give Uncle Sam more than you need to. You make sure your manager at work is doing things equitably so that you don’t miss an opportunity for recognition at work. Sometimes, you apply a balance sheet to relationships, making sure that your friends or your spouse don’t take advantage of you. No matter how old you are or where you look, “That’s not fair!” isn’t too far from your lips.

But this concern isn’t new. God’s Old Testament people had a concern about fairness, too - and they weren’t concerned about referees, parents, bosses, or friends. They had the guts of accusing God of being unfair. They weren’t merely concerned if God were fair, but also if God was just. Does God have the right to treat people the way He does, or is He picking on them? Ezekiel 33:17 charges ““Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.” “Justice” is a hot topic today, concerned about maintaining a standard of correctness by an impartial adjustment of conflicting claims, or assigning appropriate rewards and punishments. When we ask if the government is just, or if this or that law is fair, or if taxes are appropriately dispensed, and the like, the question of “Is God just?” is sometimes asked too.

The people in the days of Ezekiel didn’t think so. They thought that God was hard on them, even threatening condemnation and death on those who broke God’s law, while granting forgiveness and life to those who turned away from their sins. The people of Israel whined that God wasn’t reacting fairly, and that God wasn’t treating them well. They were quick to take their understanding of fairness and equity and justice and accuse God of wrongdoing.

Today, especially in the Church, we are careful not to accuse God of wrongdoing. We aren’t obvious about it, but we do wonder about God’s fairness. “How is it right that God sends blessings on the righteous and on the wicked? Why do Christians get cancer and die, while obvious sinners are blessed with good health and live to old age? Why do Christians get ridiculed for being good, while non-Christians live openly evil lives and nobody bats an eye?” These questions and others swirl through our heads. We desperately want God’s actions to make sense and to be fair and equitable. But when God calls the wicked and the unrighteous to repent with the chance of life while reminding the righteous that if they abandon their righteousness, they will die, you might wonder, “What’s the benefit of faithfulness?” You want God to be fair, and if someone hasn’t been righteous, why should God care for them as much as He cares for the righteous, like you? Like God’s Old Testament people of Israel, you end up offended at God’s patience and kindness toward those who would repent while resenting God for judging you in His righteousness.

You want God to be good to you, but not to those who you don’t like. The wicked, the evil, those who disagree with you, those that you think of as less than you aren’t good enough for God’s goodness. You would like a vote on how God uses His goodness. This sounds much like the parable that Jesus told in Matthew 20 about the vineyard owner who hired people to work in his vineyard and agreed on a wage. Through the day, he went out and hired other workers. When he settled up at the end of the day, paying out each worker, those who were hired first were upset that they got paid what they agreed to for their work. That makes them look foolish, especially since they resented the generosity of the vineyard owner. That parable could have been told in the days of Ezekiel, and it’s something we need to hear too.

“God’s not fair!” is a complaint of Old Testament Israel, and it’s a complaint that we have today, but we are really careful how we say it. It’s a good thing that God isn’t fair to you. Thank God that He isn’t fair! God doesn’t exist to make you happy with His fairness according to your standards. He exists in His righteousness and justice, and He does what is right. It doesn’t matter what you think about it. It’s a gracious and wonderful thing that God doesn’t ask for your opinion or give you an approval survey to see if you appreciate His work as creator and sustainer of all things. You are so consumed by your sinfulness that makes you focus on yourself that your answer is, well, unfair.

That’s what God says through Ezekiel. You complain that God isn’t fair, but it’s you who isn’t fair. And your just and righteous God is patient, calling you to repent and to turn from your wickedness and the iniquity of your sin. God is more patient with you than you deserve so that you aren’t destroyed. When you, like all the sinners before you want to complain that God isn’t fair, you’re right because He doesn’t treat you like your sin deserves. If God were fair, He would destroy you because of your sin. But He doesn’t.

I remember when I was growing up, when my mom wanted me to do something, like do the dishes or clean my room or just get in the car to go to school, she would count. It took me a while to figure it out, but in her counting, she never really wanted to run out of numbers and dispense the punishment my slothful pace deserved. She would say, “I’ll count to 3, then you’ll get punished! Oooone, twooooo, twoooo aaannnd a hafl, twoooo and threeee quarters, twoo and seven eights, twwooooo and fiffffteeeen sixteenths....” (She usually stopped around there because neither of us like fractions that much, and neither of us really wanted me to get into trouble.) While our merciful Lord doesn’t count off, He does warn, exhort, call, and encourage repentance. He does not desire the death of a sinner, so He calls you to turn from your sin and live.

This week, confess your sin. Instead of holding tightly to your sin and living in it, confess it to your merciful God. Turn from your evil way. The Lord is eager to forgive you, and has sent His one and only Son to die for your sinfulness. Look to Jesus who is no mere watchman but the sacrifice for your sin so that you live forever with your patient and merciful God. Amen.