Equity VS. Equality (1/7/13)

Shalom,

 

     Please begin by readng Psalm 98:4-9.

 

            Consider with me the legal system of 11^th century England.  English Common Law was clarified through court decisions rather than initial legislation.  The system that came as a result was a monumental achievement.  It eventually became part the basis for our American legal system.  However, it was far from perfect.  As time went on the Common Law became so narrow and strict that it actually denied justice to some.  Unless your case fell within one of its norms, you wouldn’t receive justice.  The magistrate would give a verdict that would be legal, but it could also be unfair.  Such was the problem that Common Law brought to England.

            Suppose you entered into a contract with someone who later defaulted.  Under English Common Law you could sue for damages and the court would impose penalties upon the one breaking the contract.  But you don’t need the money, you need the work done that the contract stipulated.  Unfortunately, the Common Law couldn’t legally enforce the performance of work.  It could only impose penalties for nonperformance.  Therefore, the law wasn’t fair to you, though the judge’s decision was perfectly legal.  This placed justice and fairness at odds with each other.

            As time passed, people began to complain to the king about the unfairness of decisions based on the Common Law.  So the king passed these matters on to his chancellor and gave him the power to adjust it on the basis of fairness.  The chancellor could do this even if his verdict went contrary to a principle of the Common Law.  A new court system came into existence called the “Court of Equity.”  Common Law only dealt with the letter of the law.  The only limit binding the Court of Equity was the limit of conscience.  If a conflict arose between Common Law and Equity, the principle of Equity would win.  Fairness became the final criteria, rather than the narrow letter of the law.

            The Court of Equity mixed mercy with justice.  It provided grace as well as law.  This created an important principle upon which much of our American legal system was built.  Now we can argue for equitable rights and equitable claims.  Now justice and fairness, law and grace, can go hand-in-hand to serve the needs of everyone.

 

            Now let’s consider Psalm 98:9.  “Yahweh comes to judge the earth.  He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.”  This kind of judgment will be made with absolutely right information and in the totality of truth.  Our Creator is both a God of Justice and Mercy.  He upholds both the letter and the spirit of the law.  He can judge us with equity, total fairness, and absolute impartiality.  Many today don’t want him to their final judge.  They don’t want to be judged according to his amazingly fair system, mostly because they know he’s absolutely pure and right.  There’s no advantage to anyone, only pure and righteous judgment based on Yahweh’s standards.

            Look at Satan beside Adam and Eve.  Their sin was of a different nature than Satan’s.  They didn’t know what he knew, so it wouldn’t be fair for Yahweh to judge them on the same basis as the devil.  But this is what the law says, because it’s not allowed to make distinctions.  Yahweh knows each and every heart along with each and every choice we’ve ever made.  He has all the information and no bias in determining our judgment.  Satan had more information than Adam and Eve, having previously lived in the presence of Yahweh.  They would pay for their sin based on their knowledge, and so would the devil.

            This means that the condemnation of Adam and Eve was perfectly legal, but it was far from fair.  So Yahweh established a Court of Equity.  Here the legal limits of the law no longer force our Lord to condemn us.  Now he can also judge on the basis of conscience, fairness, and mercy.  Now he can consider all the factors, including faith and repentance.  While Yahweh’s Ten Commandments present the letter of the Law, Yahweh’s equity reveals the loving spirit behind the law.  When we become extreme legalists, we work hard to enforce the letter of the law.  Our problem with this is we become like the Pharisees and eventually our version of the law is very burdensome because of our micro-managing additions.  We ruin the simplicity of the Law by adding excessive explanations or additional laws to clarify and define things to suit ourselves.

 

            Our world, and especially our American system, is high on equality.  We desire for everyone to be equal, and even said so in our Constitution.  But since we’ve become a nation we’ve constantly had to make adjustments in practice to bring about this equality.  Slavery had to be abolished.  Civil Rights had to be clarified.  Women’s rights had to be defined.  If everyone is created equal, it seems we didn’t really know what that meant when we started.

            Now let’s consider the difference between Equality and Equity.  Equality is the state of being equal.  Equity is the state of being just, fair, and impartial.  As you can clearly see, they are different.  Would you prefer equality or equity to be the standard of measure and judgment?  Considering that most of us have preferred to be graded on the curve, we’re more inclined toward equity.  Our problem with equity is that we all have different understandings of what fair really is.  We often hear, “It’s not fair,” in our day.  Right now we have many people crying out that the rich should pay more taxes because it’s their “fair share.”  But they already pay more taxes.  What definition of fair are people using?  Why, the selfish, greedy human one of course.

            There are two different Hebrew words used for equity.  They both have a primary meaning of uprightness and straightforwardness.  But one also means to do things with integrity, correctly, and can mean simply “a truth.”  Yahweh works with ultimate integrity.  He has no favorites and gives no advantages.  Our heavenly Father works with absolute correctness.  He never makes an error in judgment and always has the truth before him when making his decisions.

            Do you want Yahweh to judge you equally with others, or equitably?  If we’re all the same, with no differences in gifting or ability, equality is fine.  But you must understand that equity is much better.  Why are there mentions of crowns and rewards if they don’t matter?  We’re clearly told in the Scriptures that Yahweh makes distinctions based on our efforts.  As people of our Lord’s Kingdom, equity should be much more important to us than equality.

            Is it just to treat everyone with total equality?  We give lots of advantages and handicaps to help people be more competitive in our world.  And we know for certain that everyone has different talents and abilities, different levels of understanding and capability.  If we know this, don’t you think our Creator does, too?  Is it fair to treat everyone equally?  Fair has different meanings to different people, mostly based on our personal human bias.  How can we be absolutely equal in judging everyone?  If there’s only one standard, there are only a small number of people who are right.  Is it impartial to treat everyone equally?  At least here we can come close to being right.  By being impartial we turn down our personal bias and try to see people for what they are.

            Our Creator God isn’t pro-socialism.  He’s not for democracy either.  He would prefer us all to bow down to him in a theocracy.  But pure socialism tries to put everyone on the same level.  The idea that there are no winners or losers isn’t viable in our world.  I’ve umpired T-Ball games where no one kept score so as not to hurt these little ones fragile psyches.  T-ball is for 6-8 year olds.  The parents think they’re doing a noble thing, but the kids think otherwise.  As they do the obligatory handshake after the game, the players who scored more runs are telling the other team how they beat them.  The idea of grading only on a pass/fail standard is socialistic.  Trying to keep underachievers from feeling bad about not achieving the same level as the straight-A students isn’t helpful.  Competition isn’t harmful to emotionally healthy people.

            An elementary school teacher does this activity with her class.  All the students sit in a circle, and she asks everyone to take off their left shoe and throw it into a pile in the middle.  Once the shoes are all piled up, she begins to redistribute them, one to each student, completely at random.  Then she tells everyone to put on the new shoes.  Inevitably, there are complaints.  “This isn’t my shoe.”  “It’s too big.”  “It’s too small.”  “This doesn’t fit me.”

            Whatever the specific complaints are, very few students are ever happy with their newly mismatched pair of shoes.  What’s wrong with that?  She did everything fairly.  Everyone has two shoes.  But as the children clearly know, they aren’t the correct shoes.  The teacher then explains to them that she was trying to treat them all equally.  She wasn’t trying to give them the best shoe for them individually.  Some children have bigger feet, so if they don’t mix them up like this someone will have more shoe.  Inevitably one of the children will say something like this.  “It doesn’t matter who has more shoe, it matters that we all have the right shoe for us.”

            That is the difference between equity and equality.  Equality means that everyone gets exactly the same outcome.  In this case two shoes, without regard to individual differences in the actual size of their feet.  Equity means everyone gets the same quality of outcome.  They get shoes that fit their individual needs.  Yahweh didn’t make us with a cookie cutter.  He made us as individuals with differences.  He doesn’t give us all the same level of intelligence, talent, or ability.   Trust him to sort out the differences and bless all of us.  Trust him to use all our differences to build a strong body.

            Our God is a God of equity.  He treats us all perfectly.  He’s perfectly just with all of us.  He’s perfectly fair in dealing with us as individuals.  He’s totally impartial and not affected by our different levels of ability.  I don’t know about you, but I definitely prefer the spirit of law to the letter of the law.  If you agree, that means we need equity, not equality.

 

            Blessings & Peace,  Mike