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The Spiritual Life

October 2000

The Olympics and Justice

By Rev. Michael Lee Burgess

A couple of weeks ago I was over at mom and dad's working on The House when I went to the basement looking for a tool (I do NOT understand how they move about on their own). While I was down there I saw a color picture of a very pretty young lady gymnast with an article titled "Gymnast Stripped Of Medal". "(AP) Andeena Raducan, the pint-sized Romanian gymnast whose looks and talent remind many of Olympic champion Nadia Comeneci, was stripped of her all-around gold medal Tuesday after testing positive for a banned drug. The Romanian team doctor who gave the 16-year-old Raducan the drug in two cold medicine pills was expelled from the games… Raducan took Nurofen, a common over-the-counter medicine, because she had "a bit of fever and flue," said Prince Alexandre de Merode, IOC drug chief. But the drug contained pseudoephedrine, which is on the IOC’s list of banned stimulants. "We consider it was an accident. The medication was prescribed by the team doctor," de Merode said. "She is not directly responsible. The fault lies with the medical doctor." "But we have rules and we have to apply the rules," he said…. (Associated Press, appearing in the Tuesday, Sept 26 Omaha World-Herald) And from the New York Times, Sept 27, "…And no one is alleging the 4-foot-10, 82-pound Raducan took the drug from any sinister reason. A stimulant like pseudephedrine causes the heart to race, the last thing a gymnast wants when she is about to do aerial somersaults on a balance beam that is 4 inches wide. Even the International Olympic Committee conceded that the team doctor was to blame for this blunder. "She’s certainly not guilty of intentional doping," said Dick Pound, the committee’s vice president and the head of the World Anti-Doping Agencly. But it does not matter, the I.O.C. says. Whatever the circumstances, Raducan tested positive for a banned substance." And from the Sept 28 New York Times "…The three-member panel acknowledged that pseudephrine did not enhance Raducan’s performance, but ruled that the positive drug offense violated the Olympic anti-doping code. ‘A strict liability test must be applied,’ the court said in a brief opinion, ‘the consequence being automatic disqualification as a matter of law and in fairness to all other athletes.’"

Do you feel that there was something wrong with that decision, that somehow you had to be "talked into it" by arguments about law and fairness? There is something wrong with it. I was outraged, here is a young lady who has worked for at least 10 years for one thing and one thing only, to be the best at her sport. And in Romania that would have been her full time job, every day for all those ten years. Now she has to lose her medal because it wasn’t "fair"? A matter of law? We have fallen so far short of justice. Then I realized that many people, even presuming that they believed she was innocent of knowing she was doing anything wrong, would have found nothing wrong with the Court of Arbitration’s argument, and I realized I had found my article for October. (Sometimes God has to hit me on the head with a 2x4)

What do we know about how God uses the word Justice? We already know that Jesus did not like legalism, or replacing the letter of the law with the spirit of the law. An example is in Matthew (12:7) where he defended his disciples for eating grain on the Sabbath in apparent breaking the "law" of no work on the Sabbath.

If you look up Justice in the The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible you will immediately get bounced to the word Righteousness: (pg 80-85, book R-Z) "…righteous is in the OT the fulfillment of the demands of a relationship, whether that relationship be with men or with God… Generally, the righteous man in Israel was the man who preserved the peace and wholeness of the community, because it was he who fulfilled the demands of communal living…. Thus righteousness… is not an impartial decision between two parties, based on a legal norm, such as is known in Western law, but protecting, restoring, helping righteousness, which helps those who have had their right taken from them in the communal relationship to regain it. Righteousness is the fulfillment of the communal demands, and righteous judgments are those which restore community."

And from Compassion by Matthew Fox "The Hebrew idea of justice approaches our notion of holiness, piety, and righteousness… This justice, as the basis of human conduct, must embrace all activity, especially in the relationship of an Israelite with his neighbor." We see works of mercy becoming acts of justice in the Hebrew notion of zedakah, which literally means "righteousness" or "justice" but which is usually translated as "charity." In this kind of charity the action taken is not "a favor to the poor but something to which they have a right, and the donor, an obligation." Thus rabbis teach that "the poor man does more for the householder (in accepting alms) than the householder does for the poor man (by giving him the charity)(pg 11)…. "Lutheran theologian and exegete Krister Stendahl…" "it is important to revive and revitalize the biblical meaning of judgment (krisis) as that establishment of justice which by necessity means mercy for the wronged and loss for those who have too much." The English and German languages are dualistic, he points out, in the distinctions they make between the words "justice" and "righteousness" whereas the Biblical languages of Greek and Hebrew make no such dichotomies. "Righteousness and justice – are the one and only justitia" he declares. "We ought not to be busy about balancing judgment and mercy, for they are much more closely aligned that we had imagined:…" "For what is mercy for the have-nots is judgment for the haves…"(pg 12)

So what does that mean in our modern world? It means we have lost sight of justice and let the letter of the law become an idol with the false promise of "fairness". How did the decision of the IOC restore broken community? Did it leave you feeling good about the Olympics and part of the brotherhood among nations that it professes to promote? Was it "good sportsmanship" and "noble" behavior that inspires us all to be a bit more tolerant and careful of our neighbors as we strive for excellence?

In an earlier era, one of the mayors of one of our great American cities used to occasionally sit as judge on the night court to help keep tabs on his city. A poor man was brought in on charges of vagrancy. After hearing the case he said, "Because it is the law, I fine you $5.00 even though I know you don’t have money to pay. But I will pay your fine for you." Then he turned to the courtroom, the reporters and spectators watching the evening show, "And I fine you all 25 cents each for living in a city where a man can be so poor that though no fault of his own he has to break the law." He took his hat around and collected 25 cents from everyone and gave it to the poor man that he might buy food and no longer be in violation of the law. Though that act did not revolve around the letter of the law, it was Justice as God sees it.

I think that we have lost sight of Justice in our world. We make legal decisions on precedence to such an extent a computer could make our decisions for us. Yet Justice requires individual judgment and a call to more than just law. We are called to a higher law, one that requires that law and mercy be always mixed to create Justice. This is a hard thing to try to live out in our world, but it was no different in Jesus’ day, or the days of the prophets and they all heard God calling them to Justice. We can also hear if we remember to help each other listen.

Help me listen as I help you, and together we will be build the Kingdom of God here where we live.

Your brother-in-Christ, Reverend Michael Lee Burgess

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