I have always had a strong sense of justice. 

I didn’t cultivate it intentionally, but it’s always been there. When people do the right thing, I want them to be rewarded. When they hurt other people, or violate the “rules,” I want them to be punished. Or at least reeducated. 

On the one hand, I know that my longing for justice reflects the heart of God. On the other hand, I often struggle with extending grace to people. In other words, it’s easy for me to assume the worst of others when they don’t conform to my own standards for how they should act.

Last weekend, my wife and I were traveling home from vacation. If you’ve flown very much in the past few years, you know that delays and cancellations have become routine. Nearly every flight is delayed by at least a few minutes, if not a few hours. 

Our flight home ended up delayed by nearly 16 hours. We were scheduled to depart from Seattle at 1:55 PM on a Saturday. After a series of delays due to mechanical problems, air traffic control, and staff timeouts, we finally left Seattle at 5:30 AM on Sunday. 

It was the first time we’d ever spent the night in an airport. By the time we landed in Chicago on Sunday (around 11:30), we were exhausted and dirty and really, really ready to be home. 

My injustice meter was reading high numbers, and I found myself internally looking for someone to punish for all of this. I’m not saying I’m proud of that feeling, but there it is. 

The problem, of course, is that giant corporations like airlines tend to be relatively impervious to punishment. If sternly worded emails or complaints could change them, they’d have changed already. 

Since I couldn’t effectively punish the airline, or the Chicago airport, I was carrying around this unmet need to make the world right again. 

When we landed in Chicago and pulled up to the gate, everyone on the plane was anxiously waiting for that little chime that lets the passengers know they can stand up and gather their belongings to exit the aircraft. Everyone was tired, everyone was ready to get home. 

When the chime sounded, a toddler yelled, “YAY!” “Yay is correct,” I said, and his mother laughed. 

Then, another passenger shoved his way past me. He pushed his way past everyone else, to stand at the very front of the airplane. He wanted to exit first. He didn’t say, “Excuse me.” He didn’t even apologize for shoving me out of the way in his apparently mad frenzy to leave the plane 13 seconds before everyone else. 

“Bro,” I quietly whispered. “Bro.” (Not eloquent, but I’d been without sleep for a long time at this point.” 

Suddenly my quest for justice found a target. How dare he? HOW. DARE. HE. 

At first, I told myself that he might have had a close connection to make. But it became apparent that he didn’t when I spotted him standing at the baggage claim with everyone else, waiting to pick up his luggage. Shoving to the front didn’t even save him any time. He apparently just liked to be first. Like Diotrophes (3 John 9). 

I complained to my wife. I stewed. I had an internal vision of confronting him, just ask him why. “Why? What was so important that you had to shove us to get to the front?” Perhaps if he had to explain himself, he would see the error of his ways and repent. He would go home wiser, telling his wife how glad he was that a stranger at the airport called him out. “I needed that,” he would say. “What a fool I was.” 

In the end, of course, I didn’t say anything to him. And honestly, that in itself was a sort of small victory. 

Later in the day, though, I was thinking about how my longing for justice can lead me astray. Certainly, we all want wrongs to be righted, sin to be punished, and righteousness to prevail in the world. Or at least we should. The Scriptures tell us over and over again that God is just. “

“The Lord loves justice and righteousness,” the Psalmist tells us (Psalm 33:5). As His image-bearers, we’re called to do what is just and right. If it’s in our power to nudge our world toward justice, we should do so. 

But if I’m honest, my desire to confront that man had nothing to do with the justice of God. I was just feeling angry, self-righteous, and judgmental. It’s easy in such moments to convince ourselves that we’re acting on God’s behalf when we’re only acting on our own behalf. 

At the end of the day, I was simply looking to control my circumstances when so many things were out of my control. 

That guy was trying to take control of his own circumstances by pushing his way to the front. My temptation was to try to reclaim control by “reeducating” him about the right way to act. But over the years I’ve learned that when people act selfishly, it’s rarely because they’ve never been told otherwise. It’s because they’re sinners and they want their own way. 

And the hard reality is, so do I. 

The older I get, the more it seems like basic manners and civility are in shorter supply than they used to be. People are angrier and more selfish. They don’t say, “Please,” or “Thank you.” Patience is a rarer and rare virtue. American culture seems like it’s reached peak individualism. It’s become every man for himself, and the results are ugly. 

As a result, you and I have to decide how to respond. For me, as a Jesus follower, I have to resist the urge to retaliate every time somebody offends me, or violates what I perceive to be my own personal rights. I certainly don’t condone selfishness, and I definitely shouldn’t stand by while other people are abused or harmed. But I have to ask myself whether I’ll choose to follow the cultural milieu, and just shove my own way back to the front of the line, or if I’ll model a better way. 

The question at hand is, “Will I model the way of Jesus in a world where nearly everyone is constantly fighting to be at the front of the line?” What if I willingly took the place at the back of the line? Not because I’m less important than anyone else, but because I’m following Jesus, 

“Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!” 
(Philippians 2:6-8, NIV).

When I’m feeling self-righteous, it’s not usually justice that I’m seeking, but esteem. The good news is that God’s justice is perfect. I don’t have to fix the world. But also, He offers me unconditional love, which is so much better than momentary respect or esteem. 

So I can relax. I can pray. I can be an agent of justice where it really matters, while letting go of my own need to be right about everything all the time. I have a dear friend who sometimes says that following Jesus means that we “give up the right to be right,” and I think he’s right. If I know the power and love of Christ, I don’t always have to prove myself, or assert myself, or correct those who undervalue me. Instead I can trust that I’m known and loved by the only One who is truly in control and who is truly capable of bringing perfect justice and grace into the world. 

Meanwhile, I can bring my own small measure of grace into a world that’s increasingly ungracious, kindness to a civilization that’s disturbingly unkind, and selflessness into a culture of unrelenting selfishness. 

I can refuse retaliation. I can stand at the back of the line. 

In short, I can reflect the way of Jesus.