Many nations have scads of legislation, some for millennia, others for a few centuries, but not one has had the courage to adopt the obvious and logical pattern of justice.  It was Mary, mother of the Nazarene, who saw God administering justice in the simplest terms.  The brilliant minds of Harvard and Oxford law schools are rank idiots compared to the young Jewish girl.  They cannot see judges pulling the mighty down from their seats and exalting the meek.  The truth is that they do not want to see have-nots acquire wealth and property the haves lose their edge. They and a host of political operatives are just fine with the right of ordinary citizens to gun down innocent citizens, just as it was lawful for any kind of vigilante justice to take the life of a Black person.

Mary’s justice trailer

You might think that what Mary saw and sang about is happening often in the world, but that is not the case. Judgments are not pulling down the mighty from their seats and they are not elevating the humble and the meek. Just ask yourself “Why are the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer?”. Quasi-justice is not justified.

52) He has brought down rulers from their thrones, And has exalted those who were humble. 53) He has filled the hungry with good things; And sent away the rich empty-handed.

Luke 1:52-53, NASB

Turntable avengers they are not

The institutions of justice, housing and medicine are still tainted with tribalism and racism.  Neither political slogans nor centuries of tradition have erased the social sins of Rome, the British Empire,  China or Japan.   All of these powers are tinderboxes waiting to burst into flames.  America might have wiped Japan from the map with atomic bombs, but now Japan holds a higher chunk of American debt.  China may be the worst place to live for the lack of  human freedoms and its mushrooming surveillance, but its competition with the United States is clearly not friendly. Justice across the globe is not circular and does not flow smoothly as the winds that circle the planet. Why should they not?

Waiting and watching for justice

Those who are authorized avengers need to be accountable to the people and their representatives, and shown to be equitable. Vigilante justice is a plague for which there seems to be little vaccination. Village justice can be as despicable as state sanctioned executions of innocent persons. Natural justice says “Reverse”, contrived justice says “Manipulate for selective advantage”. Until jurisprudence commits to Mary’s dictum the instructions from Peter and Paul about subjection to civic powers need be taken with a grain of salt and a readiness to protest in protection of the common security.