Doing Justice

One of the most exciting (and terrifying) things that I am wrestling with right now has to do with doing justice.  With gratitude to Christopher Wright’s understanding of Church Mission, I have realized that I need to become more aware of how I “fit” in God’s story of redemption.  In other words, how is my personal salvation linked to the big picture of redemption history?  

I am coming to appreciate all of Scripture more and more because the different parts (narrative, prophetic, epistles, etc) each provide concentrated themes that don’t seem to be emphasized as clearly in other parts.  For example, the Old Testament narratives are pretty great at repeatedly describing the fallen condition of man’s heart, God’s exceedingly great patience, and the judgment on sin that is inevitable apart from God’s mercy.  

With recognition of my weak understanding of the prophetic literature, I set out to read all of the prophetic books of the Old Testament back in February.  I’m nearing the end of Jeremiah and finished Isaiah a few weeks ago, so I’m making progress!  One of the things I’ve really tried keeping an eye out for is God’s perspective on justice, because an air-tight case can be made that to be a disciple of Jesus means to do justice.  Being an advocate for social justice, the morality of society and the like is not an optional endeavor, it is a non-negotiable of Christian discipleship.  To neglect these concerns is the equivalent of the priest crossing the street to avoid the badly beaten, naked man who the Samaritan nursed back to health.  

Now, I certainly wouldn’t have said that I was the priest in the story before a few months ago.  But I am undone now when I think about it.  I not only want to walk by on the other side of the road, but my desire is to never traverse the roads where those types of needs are found.  “Out of sight, out of mind” was my functioning response to the needs around me.  Without much conscious effort most of the time, I reasoned that if I didn’t know of the problems, then I wasn’t responsible for doing anything about them.  

I’m now convinced that such an opinion doesn’t fly with our dust-breathing Savior, Jesus.  He was a man who constantly sought out the injustice in his society and spoke against it. Yet, he didn’t let the marginalized off the hook either.  “Go and sin no more” was still his charge to them in the midst of healing and acceptance.  

I believe that a much better mindset is this: since sin has entered the world, we can be confident that injustice is all around us.  If we aren’t aware of it, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t present.  It means we are blind and deaf to it.  I can no longer accept this as a disciple of Jesus, and my hope is that more and more of us would stand together in confronting our ignorance and/or indifference to the needs of our neighbors.  

What does the Lord require of you but to do justice?  Pure and undefiled religion is to visit widows and orphans in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.  Jesus calling tax collectors, zealots, prostitutes, adulterers, blind, lepers, and every other social outcast and marginalized member of society to be his disciples.  God has spoken so clearly to this in his word.  

So here’s my dilemma.  I fear man.  I worry what people will think of me when I sit down to talk with them and learn about their lives.  I fear that I will run out of questions.  I fear that I won’t be able to boldly speak to them about the new life in Christ.  I fear that my agonizing efforts won’t make any difference.  Often I don’t know where to begin with so many issues confronting me.  

But I’m grateful to God, because i can no longer sit on the sidelines due to indifference or ignorance.  I must go to Jesus where he is outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.  I must find Jesus where he is to be found, among the least of these.  Where might the Gospel shine more brightly and win more souls for Christ than among those living in undeniable darkness?  Hopelessness in the midst of homelessness?  Enslaved by addiction?  Apathy from repeatedly being trampled over by the powerful?  Despairing of being alone?  

There are great needs all around me.  God has given me a position of abundant resources with the Good News of Jesus Christ being the greatest of them all.  What am I going to do to enter into the mess of people’s lives and act on behalf of the voiceless?  I am in the midst of joyfully coming to terms with these questions.  

I’m grateful to God and I’m grateful for the Gospel of my Lord that calls me to live in light of the greatest news ever proclaimed.  Jesus was rich yet he became poor for my sake so that through his poverty I might become rich…and O how rich I am in Christ!  My life is not my own, it has been bought with the precious blood of Christ.  

So here is the next step of discipleship for me.  To count my comfortable and safe, middle-class existence as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  I tremble to think about what it means to work out my salvation in doing justice, but even more, I trust God for the grace to meet every need and still my fearful heart.  

The God who calls us to be a priesthood of believers and his ambassadors on earth will surely supply everything we need to engage the injustice in the world winsomely and victoriously.  Nothing convinces me more of this than the truth that God’s own heart is towards the outcasts, and he hears the voice of the oppressed and answers their cry.  He uses the church to answer these cries.  He uses timid people like me to answer these cries.  

His grace is sufficient.

So I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses for when I am weak then I am strong.