[A sermon preached to Hinckley Unitarians on Sunday 16th of October 2022]
(Readings: A 17th Century Folk Poem: Stealing The Common From The Goose, and Luke 18:1-9)
Justice is a hard concept to think about. Some concepts are relatively easy to think about. Take for example the concept of a domestic cat. All of us can likely picture a cat in our mind’s eye and therefor we all have a concept of what a cat is. If asked by someone were to ask us “what is a cat?” we would likely all give a similar answer, “a cat is a small furry mammal with whiskers and a tail that hunts birds and rodents, makes a ‘meow’ noise, and likes curling up in warm spots.” We might each give slightly different answers depending on what properties of a cat come to our minds but the descriptions we give of a cat would all likely be compatible. We would be unlikely to enter into disagreement over what the fundamental qualities of a cat are.
Justice on the other hand is very different. A cat and a concept of a cat are not the same thing but at least, when thinking about cats conceptually, we can undisputedly point to an existing cat for reference.
Can we point to actually existing justice for reference? Certainly not as easily. Justice tends to be felt by its absence. I’m sure many of us can easily think of something unfair or unjust happening to us but would struggle to think of fairness or justice happening to us.
Also, unlike a cat, justice is not a physical thing. It is not something that we can easily point to and say “look, there is a justice, over there!”.
The closest we can ever come to saying, “look, there is a justice” would probably be if we were in the UK Supreme Court and happened to see one of the court’s judges who are known as justices. Yet I think it would be a mistake to define justice wholly relation to a judge. When people “cry out of justice” it does not necessarily follow that they wish for a day in court!
The concept of a cat will always be a descriptive concept – in this case, a concept we set out in relation to something that exists. Justice is a contested concept – which means that we can not agree on what it means! Ask a panel of politicians from across the political spectrum if they believe in justice and you are likely to get a resounding “yes” from each one. Ask them what they mean by justice and you are likely to get different answers from each one of them. The same would be true of a panel of lawyers, philosophers, or even theologians.
In this confusion it is tempting to think of justice in a straight forward legalistic way. Obeying the law is just, breaking the law is unjust. The problem is that this is not always the case. An example of this can be found in the work of the noble prize wining author Anatole France who wrote in his novel, The Red Lily that, “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” What France is getting at here is that, while the law treats everyone the same, it forgets that the rich have no need to sleep under bridges, beg in the street, or steal bread. Whereas the same society that enacts these laws also enacts an economic system that forces the very poorest to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal bread. France contends that, in targeting the poor for actions resulting from their poverty, these laws do not contribute to justice.
The poem that we heard in our first reading today was created in response to the enclosure acts that made much common land private property of local landowners and it makes a similar point to France’s famous quote. The enclosure acts, although deeply unpopular, were completely legal by the standards of the time. The land was, for want of a better term, “legally stolen” from the people by the wealthy. This created a situation where theft of livestock was a grave offence but theft of the land that the livestock grazed upon as a-ok so long as the proper legal channels of the day were used.
When I was looking for quotes on justice to use in this service I was struck by this one: “Justice is an element of beauty as much as colour and outline on canvas.” Does anyone happen to know who said this?
It was Mary Richardson, a famous suffragette (I won’t talk about her political career after the suffragette cause, it went down hill rather quickly). That quote, “Justice is an element of beauty as much as colour and outline on canvas” formed part of her statement after she was arrested in 1914 for trying to destroy Velazquez’s painting commonly known as the Rokeby Venus that was hung on public display in the national gallery using a chopper. The painting depicts the goddess Venus as a female nude lying on a bed and gazing upon her own reflection in a mirror held by a cupid. Richardson was able to smash the protective glass and inflicted a number of slashes upon the canvas.
Richerdson was not trying to destroy the painting because of what it depicted but in order to draw attention to the treatment of the then imprisoned Emmeline Pankhurst. Richerdson said,
I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government for destroying Mrs Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history. Justice is an element of beauty as much as colour and outline on canvas. Mrs Pankhurst seeks to procure justice for womanhood, and for this she is being slowly murdered by a Government of Iscariot politicians. If there is an outcry against my deed, let every one remember that such an outcry is an hypocrisy so long as they allow the destruction of Mrs Pankhurst and other beautiful living women, and that until the public cease to countenance human destruction the stones cast against me for the destruction of this picture are each an evidence against them of artistic as well as moral and political humbug and hypocrisy.
Mary Richerdson
So, while the press this week might have had you believe that attempting to damage pictures in the national gallery was a tactic devised entirely by young environmentalists this week, whatever one thinks of it as a tactic, it is something of a 100 year old tradition.
Those activists this week who poured tomato soup over Van Goth’s sunflowers may well have been trying to make a similar point to Richardson. These activists will likely be punished for their attempted act of vandalism to the fullest extent of the law. Yet those CEOs of fossil fuel companies who vandalise our planet on a daily basis, will likely never receive a whiff of a fine or a hint at a cell. Instead, they continue to be rewarded with wealth for their wanton destruction.
Yet, having to press hard to see justice in a legal system is evidently not a new thing. In our reading today from Luke, Jesus tells us the parable of the widow and the unjust judge. This story features a poor widow who has to keep badgering a judge in order to finally be granted justice. It is a shame how relatable this story is after 2,000 years. It reminds one of the decades long battle the families of the victims of Hillsborough disaster had with the British legal system in order to finally get some closure after the tragic deaths of their loved ones.
Justice, like so much else in our society, seems to rely on the determination of those effected rather than the efficiency of systems designed to deliver it.
It is telling that Jesus sets up God’s justice in opposition to the systems of justice we are used to on earth. God wants to deliver justice to the people swiftly – to see all people flourishing in right relationship with the world and with each other.
That is a justice we have to aim to build for the future of us all.
Amen.
