Fresh Justice
The homegrown variety is the tastiestby Scott Bessenecker
Hunger and thirst are effective motivators. Even the laziest and most complacent person on earth is moved to action as a result of hunger and thirst. And it is not as though you eat or drink once and are satisfied for the rest of your life. Hours after you’ve filled yourself with food and drink the desire comes back again and again. We are almost continually in a state of hunger and thirst, which is a good thing, because without that feeling all animal life on our planet would die in a matter of days.
Some people feel that same kind of desire – hunger and thirst – to see all things out of alignment with God put back in their right relationship. Jesus called such people fortunate – blessed by God. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." (Matthew 5:6 NRSV). Or, as the New Living Translation puts it, "God blesses those who are hungry and thirsty for justice, for they will receive it in full."
The desire for righteousness and justice is one that needs to be quenched regularly until the day full justice is served. As soon as we see rightness with God accomplished in one place, we are hungry again very soon afterwards when we see injustice or unrighteousness in another place.
Righteousness and justice are foundational to knowing God. Psalm 89 says these are the two qualities that make up the foundation of God’s throne, his place of authority and decision-making. It’s part of what makes him God. Jeremiah 9:23-24 says that people who are wise, powerful and wealthy should not brag about those things. If you want to brag, God says through Jeremiah, brag that you understand how much I delight in love, justice and righteousness.
The Evangelical church in the West is slowly recovering from a 200-year myopia. We have seen rightness with God through a very personal, individualistic lens. We have worked hard to achieve personal holiness while giving spotty attention to what I would call social holiness. We have measured our piety with questions like, “have I prayed and read my Bible today?” and measured our sin with questions like, “did I swear or smoke or get drunk this past week?” But to really measure our godliness with the yardstick of righteousness and justice we must also ask ourselves, “have I resisted the systems which unjustly exclude certain people and favor others?” Or, “did I plunder the poor today in my purchases or business practices?” In many ways reading my Bible or quitting smoking seem easier than pursuing justice.
Certain corners of the church have always kept these questions in the center of their standard for holiness. For instance my Spanish Bible uses the word “justicia,” or justice, in many places that my English Bible uses the word “righteousness,” including Matthew 5:6, giving a broader social dimension to these passages. For the early church in Jerusalem, the distribution of resources to poor widows and the system that ran this food program was pivotal to the proper functioning of the church (Acts 6).
Today, more and more Evangelicals in the West are asking questions about the use of power, wealth and privilege and about the state of the poor and marginalized in relation to their notions of holiness. But what does this look like in the every day? Is the only avenue to pursue justice joining a protest against sweatshop labor or drinking fair trade coffee? It feels overwhelming to me sometimes to investigate every abuse in the world, research companies and governments in order to ferret out the bad ones, and then to live my life writing letters to my senator and avoiding certain stores or labels.
Certainly, we need to be engaged with the global dimensions of justice. I try to look over the world news headlines every day. When presented with a choice of buying fair trade coffee or not I will always choose the fair trade product. I have indeed written letters to my senator on issues of injustice and oppression. These are actually relatively simple things to do. But the tastiest fruit of justice is the stuff that is fresh, and near to us.
I went fishing once with my daughter Hannah, when she was about eleven. We spied a duck not far from the shore that seemed to be swimming in a circle and sporadically flapping one wing. As we watched it became apparent that the duck was distressed. We soon could see that there was fishing line tangled around the creature. “Poor thing,” I thought to myself and went on fishing. Hannah, on the other hand, took off her shoes and socks and waded in up to her ankles. The duck moved further out. After about fifteen minutes of trying to position herself in reach of the duck she finally just plunged in up to her stomach and grabbed the flailing creature. When she brought the duck ashore it was quite an operation to free it. Not only was it wrapped in fishing line a hook had gone through the soft underside of its beak. It was messy, inconvenient work, but it was really satisfying to set the duck free. I didn’t go out and join PETA the next day, but there was something about the Kingdom of God that came in a small way in that act of mercy. Justice in an everyday sort of way.
Another time I was at an airport with my friend Bill Neumann. I was just babbling away about something inconsequential, completely oblivious to the chaos around us, when Bill suddenly excused himself from our conversation and jumped up. Two steps away an elderly couple struggled with their luggage. Airports can be unfriendly places to those in need, but Bill was tuned in to their plight. He helped them to get their heavy pieces of baggage situated onto a cart. It was a small thing, but it fed a thirst for righteousness and justice. It was justice in the everyday.
My friend Jeff has attached himself to a guy who has just gotten out of prison. The gravitational pull back to prison for ex-cons is powerful. It seems like systems are set up to make them return. The halfway houses where newly paroled men stay when they first get released from prison are often in the areas of town where old friends and old habits call them back into a life of crime or drugs. Getting a job, staying clean and eventually getting an apartment are not easy things when you’ve got a record – no matter how sincere or hard you are trying to do right. Nobody seems to want to give you a chance. Jeff has gone out if his way to advocate for this man helping him in getting a job and a place to stay. They are usually simple but inconvenient things, but they matter. They are everyday expressions of justice.
Most of us would rather join a protest than put ourselves in real proximity to people who are on the margins. We like our insulation and we are blind to the struggles of people right in front of us. We stand on the shore of convenience instead of wading into the messy waters to help out in some simple and unprofound way.
Open your eyes to the struggles going on around you. Ask God to show you where things are not lining up with his ideas of love, compassion, kindness, mercy and justice. Put yourself in proximity to people with desperate needs. Don’t think it inconsequential to pick up a piece of litter. Even when engrossed in your fritting to and fro don’t fail to stop and help someone in need. Look for everyday ways to express God’s righteousness and justice. Free the duck in front of you.
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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