One Drop At A Time - Justice
Monday, August 2, 2010 at 1:40PM Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,
Today we are continuing our series One Drop At A Time. In this series we are looking at the character of God, the very thing as Christ followers we are to imitate. Last week we look at God’s character of compassion. Today we are going to look at God’s character of justice. Isaiah 58:5-10 (p. 518 in your Bible’s – let’s read it together).
There are a lot of things that are hard for us to comprehend sitting in Milwaukee, WI. – like human trafficking. According to UNICEF there are more slaves now than ever before. Do you realize that human trafficking is a 32 billion dollar a year industry. It is actually on track to overtake drugs and arms dealing. There are at least 27 million slaves worldwide, half of them are children. The best guess is that 1 million children are taken into slavery every year and forced into prostitution. This is a true story: A pastor from the US went to Africa to better understand the HIV/AIDS pandemic. He and has guide got in a taxi and the guide told the taxi driver to take them to the most dangerous part of the city. The driver said, “that’s not a good idea.” The guide replied, “Please take us to the most dangerous part of the city.” So they were taken deep into the city. Fires along the side of the road were the only light on this and every dark night. The guide said to the driver, “Let us off here. And drive ahead a block and we will meet you there.” The driver said, “This is not a good idea.” And he repeated himself. The pastor the guide got out of the taxi and began to walk. Soon young girls, 15 and 16 years old come running out of the shadows. And they are whispering something. The pastor said to the guide, “what are they whispering?” The guide responded, “They are whispering a dollar value. In American dollars they are offering themselves to you for the night for about 25 cents.” The guide continued on, “You have to understand for most of them, their parents died of AIDS, and so they are left to care for the family. And since they didn’t make enough money during the day to take care of their little brothers and sisters, they have come out here tonight to offer themselves up to get a little more money to provide the basics of life.” This happens every day while we get stuck in traffic. This happens every day we complain about work, gas prices, the turkey that cut us off etc., This happens every day as when we go to the Brewer game or buy a new shirt. This happens every day like clockwork.
Justice is in the fabric and DNA of God. To understand how important justice is to God all that we need to do is to navigate our way through the parts of the Bible – the Law, the Psalms, Proverbs, Prophets, Gospels, Epistles and it is there. Not only do we get a sense of how passionate God is for justice by the frequency by which the concept appears but we also get a sense of how passionate God is for justice by looking at the language. Proverbs 29:7 says, “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked has no such concern.” As we look at Isaiah 58 God basically is saying this: Sweet worship. Great music. Great prayer meetings. Cool bible studies. Really meaningful programs. But it means nothing to me if your love and your faith don’t go public in the form of justice. So what is this justice that God is so passionate about?
For us to understand justice that God is talking about we need look back and to look forward. We have to look back at something to understand the meaning of justice and the need for justice and we have to look forward to something to get the power and the hope to do justice. Let’s look at Is. 58:6-8 again: . . . There is an assumption here that says there are some people who have power and then there are some people who have no power. There are some people with money and there are some people with no money. There are some people with food, and there are some people with no food. There are some people with shelter and there are some people with no shelter. There are some people with clothing and some people with no clothing. The people with power, food, money, clothes and shelter are hoarding up their resources and not distributing them generously for the benefit of the community. God has a problem with this. There is an expectation from God of His people that those who have also have a social responsibility to those who have not. The reason for God’s expectation is found in the word Shalom.
Shalom is a word that we translate peace but it means so much more. It is richer and deeper than that. It is more powerful than that. Shalom has to do with the design of God. When God created the world, he created a world that was intricately woven together. In fact, one of the psalmist’s likens creation to a garment or fabric. What makes a fabric as opposed to a pile of threads is that the threads of a fabric are interwoven with each other. There are thousands upon thousands of interdependencies. Each thread has to touch go over and under and over and under every other thread. That is exactly how we are made. That is how we are meant to be. All the entities of the world are interwoven together to make this beautiful, harmonious, interdependent relationship. That is shalom. That is far different than our western idea of justice. Our idea of justice is gravitates toward individual rights. Justice is freeing the individual from the constraints of the group. But Biblical justice means deep community, deep interwoven-ness, deep interdependence.
Shalom is the way things ought to be, the way God created the world to be. No sickness, no hungry babies, no death, no homelessness, no war, no oppression, no people trafficking, no injustice – just garden, paradise – shalom. Tim Keller, author of The Prodigal God and pastor in NYC says, “To do justice in the context of biblical shalom means to go to places where the fabric is broken, where the weaker members of society are falling through, they are just falling through and then take the threads of your life, your emotions, your time, your body, your presence, your stuff, your resources, your money and just plunge it . . . plunge it into the lives of other people through thousands and thousands of involvements.” To do justice means to use the resources God has given you to reweave and repair shalom.
The biblical worldview gives us context to take seriously the reality of human dignity, and to give us a basis to speak out against injustice. It also gives us a context of hope in the midst of injustice because if you want to do justice, you have to have hope. You have to have hope and you have to have power or you will get overwhelmed by the suffering. So where can we find hope. You get by looking forward to something. My Bible reading has been taking me through the book of Isaiah and what we find there is that God’s people are to be the establishers of justice and light of hope. But the tension is they just never get it right. There is unfulfilled expectation. There is anticipation. What will God do to set things right?
About 700 years later, a Jewish rabbi by the name of Jesus walks into the temple and unrolls a scroll to read, The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 18"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Jesus puts down the scroll and says to the crowd. Today is the day this is fulfilled. You don’t have to wait any longer. And then he goes out preaches the good news, heals the sick, feeds the hungry, raises the dead. Even in the miracles of Jesus you hear Shalom. People are not meant to be sick, so he heals them. People are not meant to be blind, so he lets them see. People are not meant to be hungry, so he feeds them. People are not to die, so he raises from the dead.
A German theologian (Jurgen Moltmann) says, “Jesus miracles are not a suspension of natural order, they’re a restoration of the natural order. He’s bringing the kingdom. He’s restoring shalom. Here is the irony of history though . . . it’s the great irony of history. The bringer of justice, this restorer of shalom becomes the ultimate victim of injustice. His friend sells him out for 30 silver coins. He’s arrested without cause in the middle of the night. He is beaten throughout his interrogation. He was given no defense. Everything about his trial was a miscarriage of justice, and eventually he is crucified on a cross next to two criminals. The single most unjust event in the history of the world was this execution of a sinless, perfect, innocent carpenter from Nazareth.”
That’s powerful and hopeful. God uses the single most unjust event in the history of the world to bring about his ultimate redemption and restoration. The darkest moment in history becomes the greatest light. The instrument of death, the cross, becomes an agent of life. And when Jesus rose from the dead that meant that was the death of death and the beginning of true hope because we know with conviction God wins. Sin, God wins. Death, God wins. Injustice, God wins. And the truth of radical love and grace, powered by hope and the truth of Jesus resurrection changes the world. Do you remember what Jesus said? He said, “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”
Doesn’t that blow your mind? Isn’t that nuts? God says not only can we participate in the kingdom in the victory, in the ripples of this Jesus movement, but also we can do greater things that he did.
Justice must be carried out. People don’t need staccato responses to justice. Justice needs our long term faithfulness because justice is a process and not an event. The first step in the process is education. Learn what is going on in our world. Keep your compassionate eyes open and learn. The second step is exploration. Go and visit ijm.org and notforsalecampaign.org visit the websites and look for practical ways for to get involved. Locally you can check out redcross.org. The third step is engagement, and this maybe where you can not only give and but also go. It seems that a part of the university education system studying abroad in the global world is key. So while you are there you might as well make a difference “one drop of justice at a time,” and somewhere, either on this side of heaven or on other side, you will see the ripple effect. Amen.