Do you believe in karma?
I don’t believe in karma, but I do believe in justice and grace.
I don’t mean justice in a simple, tidy sense where good people are rewarded and bad people eventually get what is coming to them. Life is far messier than that. I have seen good people suffer and I have seen people do terrible things and seem to get away with them. So I don’t believe the universe works like a moral vending machine. But I do believe that what we do matters.
Our actions have consequences. They affect other people, they shape communities and, over time, they shape us as well. I also believe that there is a final accountability before God. We are not simply free to do whatever we like without consequence. That is different from karma.
But that is only half the story. I also believe in grace. Grace means that the past does not have to have the final word. A person can be forgiven. A person can begin again. However badly someone has behaved, however much they regret, however old they are, change is still possible. That does not mean pretending nothing happened. Grace is not about brushing things aside. In fact, grace often begins with telling the truth.
I see this all the time in my work in a university college. Young people live closely together and, inevitably, they sometimes hurt each other. Someone says something cruel. Someone acts selfishly. Someone breaks trust or fails to think about how their behaviour affects others. In those conversations, justice and grace are both present.
Justice asks: What happened? Who was hurt? What responsibility do you need to take?
Grace asks: What happens now? Can you apologise? Can you make something right? Are you willing to live differently?
I don’t want people simply to feel condemned. I want them to understand the impact of what they have done. But I also want them to know that they are not forever defined by their worst moment. Perhaps that is one of the reasons I have spent so much of my life in education. If I did not believe people could change, there would not be much point.
Sometimes people really do not understand the harm they have caused. Part of grace is helping them to see it. Then comes the possibility of repentance, forgiveness, repair and change. Some people call this restorative justice. To me, it lies very close to the heart of the gospel.
Even from the cross Jesus says, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” That sentence has always struck me. Wrong is not denied. Suffering is not minimised. Yet forgiveness is still possible.
Perhaps that is why I don’t believe in karma. I believe in something more demanding and, at the same time, more hopeful: justice that takes what we do seriously, and grace that says we can still become someone different.
Do you believe in karma?
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