The story about settling with an opponent on the way to the magistrate’s court yields advice as sound today as when Jesus first told the story. Although Jesus puts the story in a legal context, he is not talking about legal wrongs. Rather, Jesus is talking about the moral wrongs that arise in our relationships with others. In that sense, the magistrate is a symbol for God, while the idea of going to court symbolizes our journey through life to that day of final reckoning before God. For, everything has a time and a season (Ecc 3:1). This gives the story its spiritual significance.
The advice itself seems clear. As Jesus puts it, if each of us settles our moral wrongs prior to our final reckoning before God, things will go much better for us. If, on the other hand, we refuse to reconcile with our moral opponents and force God to settle the matter, we might not like the final outcome. The better option therefore is to settle with our moral opponents on this side of life, if at all possible. This advice raises some interesting questions.
For one, what counts as a moral wrong, and who are our moral opponents? A moral wrong is any intentional and unjust harm done to others. The greater the harm, the greater the wrong. Our moral opponent, therefore, is anyone we have harmed in that way, or on the other hand, anyone who has harmed us in that way. Sometimes, we need to be forgiven, and sometimes we need to forgive. The story says nothing, however, about what to do if the wounded party declines our attempt at reconciliation. Nor does it say anything about those relationships that ought to be left alone. From a practical standpoint, attempts to reconcile with some persons might not be warranted.
In any case, another question concerns the reason we are on our way to court, to God’s court? Why is that? Because life is a journey to our spiritual home, and sooner or later, each of us will give an account of ourselves before God (Mt. 12:36; Rm 14:12). God has the final say on how well we lived our lives. Apparently, things will not go well for us if we knowingly force God to do our moral dirty work. Thus, Jesus urges us to prepare our best case ahead of time by resolving all moral wrongs before we get to that final court of appeal. Better yet, we ought to avoid getting morally sideways in the first place.
More than once, Jesus revealed the right path to follow in that regard by making the principle of love our sure guide in life. Love one another as I have loved you, he tells his disciples (Jn 13:34). Jesus made the commandment to love God and our neighbor the cornerstone of his life and mission, and therefore, the cornerstone of ours as well. Defining love as an obligation, however, seems inconsistent with an ordinary understanding of love.
Ordinarily, we understand love not as an obligation, but as something we freely give to others, especially to those who most deserve and need our love. Jesus, on the other hand, means that love is our natural state of being. We have a natural ability to love because God loved us first. In fact, God’s love for us is the reason we exist in the first place (Gen 1:26-28; Eph 1:3-5). Because we are made in the image of God, we are therefore made for love. Not that we love everyone in the same way, or to the same degree. The point is, our natural ability to love is a gift from God and the lifeblood of our very being.
It follows that our calling is to imitate Christ in loving service to others (Dt 10:12; Eph 5:1-2). As the Evangelist John tells us, we ought to live just as Jesus lived (1 Jn 5:6). Not only is this the best way to avoid intentional moral wrongs. Loving others in imitation of Christ is also the best way to set the record straight when we go astray (Lk 11:41). We can present our best case to God by loving his children and his creation with all sincerity. This is what matters to God. This is how Christ treated others, both friend and foe. We can do no better than to follow his example.
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