God's Unfairness 1

Father, I am puzzled. Many are the times in which You or others speaking on Your behalf, extoll Your justice. You seem to delight in claiming to be just. Along with love and mercy, it is right up there at the top of attributes Your followers claim about You. Just so we’re on the same page, my definition of justice includes legal justice: making a right decision in a courtroom; business justice in which contracts are honored, proper weights used and fair prices charge and mostly, being fair. Fairness in my book is being treated equally well. When I look around, I do not see Your fairness. I see some of Your children with billions of dollars, others without two nickels to rub together. Some are super-geniuses and some cannot spell their own name. Some play their musical instrument or sing in Carnegie Hall or rise to the top 40 charts repeatedly; others can’t carry a tune. A few are Michael Jordans and some, like me, can’t throw a basketball straight. Some dance, perform on a high wire or perform graceful feats of acrobatics and gymnastics, others, like me, are total klutzes. Some live in safe gated communities with security patrols on top of public safety; others live in war-torn countries or ghettos where gunfire no longer startles. Some live in verdant gardens; others in arid deserts. Some live in high-rise penthouses while their fellow humans live in the streets, under bridges or in their cars. Some eat caviar; others the offscourings of their luxurious meals. Some of us are beautiful; others seeming polar opposite. Some live long, productive lives; some die in their teens, before they enter school or are aborted or sacrificed as an unused fertilized ova in a bid to cure infertility. Some steal billions and go scott-free; others steal a loaf of bread and are shot in the attempt. Some live in lands of peace; others are murdered because of skin color, the wrong tribal name or because they wear glasses and are therefore considered to be intellectuals and non-productive members of society. Some are free; others enslaved-often by the free. Some live Christian lives, some live in heathen, godless lands, some in starkly religious lands without love or mercy, some live as atheists. Which brings me to my biggest point of all. How fair is it that You kill or, worse, throw into a burning pit forever, those who do not accept You? How fair, how just is that? In particular, I question Your justice when You annihilate or roast forever people who had little or no chance to know You. How can I, born into a privileged society, with training in Your scriptures, having You intervene in my life to point me to salvation when people I know, with none of these advantages, will die or burn forever? This is not a straw-man question. If You are like this, in truth, then You are more like Adolph Hitler than Mother Theresa and I can’t see spending eternity with you joyfully. Maybe I don’t want to be there at all. I suppose this means I love my family more than I do You, but it also means You love my family less than I do. You must have some other way, some better plan to make all things just, to make equity reign. You must know something that we haven’t discovered or that we have forgotten or ignored. I cannot believe that a God Who created all things good and perfect, Who claims Justice as a naming attribute would not have a plan for righting the wrongs of this life and find a way to make the future a beautiful one for all of us, not just the favored few. Now I hear You say, “You’re right. This blink-of-an-eye time you call life is not fair. You, the privileged, have more than others in many ways. They have less. But in the end, the very end when it really matters, My judgments will be fair, my decisions equitable and just. You will both agree and be satisfied. I make all things new and in that re-creation, all is in balance; all is in harmony; all comes out right” And I reply, “You are truly Just and righteous O Lord. Be it done to us even as You will, for we shall be content. Be Thou our contentment in the here and now.” 12/9/13