An Officer, a Fugitive, and Biblical Justice
In Belated Honor of World Refugee Day
For the last six weeks, I’ve become deeply acquainted with two complicated middle-aged men.
In his working days, one man was an officer of the law, hunting criminals for a living. His life’s work was confounded by a particularly elusive ex-con—a man who took on false identities to evade the shame of his past.
The other man I’ve come to know is the ex-con himself, who lived life as the hunted, in violation of his parole. Decades before, when food was lean, he stole a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s starving children. His five-year prison sentence swelled to nineteen after failed attempts at escape. Once released, he forged a new identity, got falsely identifying papers, disappeared from view of his parole officer, and managed to earn the respect of his community, contribute to the welfare of the poor, and seek to protect the most vulnerable under his influence, including a single mother and her child. When the officer of the law finally closed in on him, Jean Valjean sequestered himself behind the walls of a convent.
It’s possible you know these men, too. Their stories are set in pre-revolutionary France, where the [self-proclaimed] righteous hurry past and cannot seem to hear the little one’s crying. Where winter is coming on fast, ready to kill. The men of Les Miserables sing me their songs, and I fumble to accompany them at the antique, ivory-keyed piano in my sunroom.
Tracking down and arresting Valjean became Javert’s obsession, believing himself an agent of divine justice against the criminal, but Javert’s definition of justice has only to do with punishment under the letter of the law.
Valjean, on the other hand, has his finger on the pulse of what the prophet Isaiah describes as God’s brand of justice: “Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow."1 At great risk and expense, Valjean takes up the cause of the orphan Cosette.
Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, biblical justice isn’t wholly about retribution, punishment, or vengeance. And it’s not about “law and order.” Biblical justice includes the reversal of wrongs. It (biblical justice) often takes a half-empty cup of humanitarian aid and fills it back up to the top, like the overflowing oil in the widow’s jars.2 Often, it includes reversals of social marginalization and economic vulnerability.
For this reason, God is on the side of the Biblical Israelite who must sell his land and indenture himself to another in order to feed his family. One day, in the year of Jubilee, that man’s descendant’s will receive his land back in full.3
God is on the side of the single mother and the orphan,4 and wags a finger at the Israelites, Don’t you dare even think about mistreating them.5
God is on the side of the bleeding woman who spent all she had on health care and continues to “pollute” every person she touches.6 The great reversal performed by Jesus is not just a stopping of the flow of blood, but a pronouncement of her inclusion in the family of God.7
God is for Cities of Refuge for the Israelite who doesn’t deserve death and yet his enemies seek to kill him.
God is on the side of the concubine and refugee, afraid of dying with her child in the desert.8
God is on the side of abused children.9
God is on the side of hungry children.10
God is on the side of refugee children.11
And, I dare say God is on the side of refugee parents, fleeing gang violence, sweating their way through jungles with children on their backs and blisters on their feet, who are turned away at the border or, later, separated from their families and forced onto a plane headed for a high-security prison in El Salvador.
These parents often leave their home country because there is no justice to be found in the forms of economic security, food security, and safety from violence. So they cross a border in order to keep their children alive for one more day. They steal the emblematic loaf of bread.
Back to Javert and Valjean.
One man follows the laws of the land as if they are God’s laws. One man follows the laws of God at whatever cost.
Javert, the eighteenth-century ICE agent, is sure that he, like those who follow the path of the righteous, shall have their reward. But, if they fall as Lucifer fell, well then: the flame, the sword! (CECOT!)12
His self-righteousness is ebullient: Stars be my witness, I never shall yield….He [Valjean] knows his way in the dark, but mine is the way of the Lord.
I know Javert can’t hear it, but when he sings, I hear a harmonic line from the Pharisee in Luke 18: Thank God I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.
Valjean, who cannot bear the possibility that another should suffer unjustly. Valjean, when faced with a dilemma to lose his freedom or send an innocent man to prison in his place, speaks up to spare the innocent man. How can he so bravely step into this self-sacrifice? He sings:
My soul belongs to God, I know. I made this bargain long ago.
He gave me hope when hope was gone. He gave me strength to journey on.
In Valjean’s moment of decision to choose justice for another over his own safety, he mulls over the question, Who am I? I cannot help but think he asks it in light of who he now knows God to be. Perhaps he has memorized Isaiah 11:
but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.13
It stands to reason that if God is just in his dealings toward the world, then Valjean must be so, too. Who is God? He is just. Who is Valjean? He is God’s.
These days, I’m seeing a lot of copy-and-pastes of Romans 13:1-7 on social media. The passage reminds Christians not to stir up trouble with the authorities. Their new Jesus-allegiance is not to lead them to revolt or rebellion against governing authorities, and it seems the apostle Paul wanted them to recognize that, however broken the system, human government can be God’s tool for deterring wrongdoing, safeguarding society, and preventing the rule of evil.
But we can’t pretend that human government is perfectly just. We know that even on its good days, some “ruler” somewhere is benefiting from their position at the cost of the vulnerable. And, on some very bad days (and weeks and years and decades), some rulers embrace demonic ideologies of oppression that allow evil to thrive and wreak havoc on the lives of the poor.
A law is not just simply by virtue of being codified into law. Nor is a lawmaker just by virtue of being elected, appointed, or descended from a king.
Valjean’s song reminds me of the God of justice. The one who sees, the one who, ultimately, will “give decisions for the poor of the earth” and will hold nations to account for their unresponsiveness to the poor, the prisoner, the stranger, the hungry and the sick.14
His song bears resonance with the knowledge embedded in the prayers for migrants and refugees in the World Relief Prayer Guide.15
I leave you with the words of pastor and activist Sandra Maria Van Opstal:
God of our ancestors, God who journeys with us,
We come to you as a people who have been pressed but not crushed,
Displaced but never without a home in you….16
Thanks for reading. I’m a book-obsessed pastor, seminarian, podcaster, and author. For essays and podcasts that come straight to your inbox, subscribe to this Dear Exiles newsletter in the subscription box above. Fun fact: I’m also the author of Dear Boy:, An Epistolary Memoir and the host of the Your Pastor Reads Books podcast.
Isaiah
2 Kings 4
Leviticus 25
James 1:27, Psalm 68:5-6
Exodus 22:22
Luke 8:43-48
Mark 5:34
Genesis 16:13
Matthew 18:6
Matthew 7:9-11
Genesis 16:3
Isaiah 11:4-5
Matthew 25:31-46
page 12, World Relief Prayer Guide