Thinking about justice...

NOTE: Here are my notes and reflections for this Sunday, January 11th 2009 - Part Two in a series re: a proposed mission/vision statement. Join us if you can.

Churches are funny places: a gathering of sinners who sometimes think they are saints – and vice versa; a collection of strangers aching to be community; people of different histories exploring the common denominator of God’s love for the world in Jesus Christ; and adults and children who have been invited into a new way of living that asks us to stand in bold contrast to consumerism, violence, utilitarian ethics or bottom-line thinking.

Like Jesus himself in this morning’s text, the Church has been called by God to humbly kneel in the waters of ordinary life, receive the assurance of God’s living presence within and among us and then head out to be the evidence of God’s healing and life-giving love. The gospel puts it like this: Jesus came from Nazareth to Galilee to be baptized in the Jordan River by John. And the very moment he came out of the water, he saw the sky split open and God's Spirit, looking like a dove, come down on him… saying: "You are my Beloved, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life." And immediately afterwards, this same Spirit sent him out into the wilderness. (Mark 1: 9-12)

Today, in my second reflection on the mission/vision statement our Church Council would like you to adopt at our up-coming annual meeting, I’m going to look at why Council insists upon using the word justice as an essential building block of our mission. You may recall that the proposed statement reads: In community with God and each other we gather to reflect on our Christian faith, to do justice and to act with compassion. What I want to underscore is why it is crucial for us to be a community of God’s love doing justice in the real world.

+ So, first let me remind you of a theological truth that is often left out of the conversation when it comes to justice.

+ And second let’s look at four biblical texts that inform a commitment to justice from within the insights of our tradition.

One of the great interpreter’s of God’s call to justice and peace in the 20th century was the late William Sloan Coffin, once chaplain to Yale University and later Senior Minister of the Riverside Church in NYC. And Bill liked to remind us all that:

There are those who prefer certainty to truth, those in the church who put the purity of dogma ahead of the integrity of love. And what a distortion of the gospel this is to have – and listen carefully – limited sympathies and unlimited certainties, when the very reverse – to have limited certainties and unlimited sympathies – is not only more loving and tolerant but far more Christ-like… No wonder the biggest stumbling block for most sensitive nonbelievers is not Christ but Christians, not God but suffering and the fact that the church in its hour of prosperity has worked so little for its alleviation.

Oh St. William – where are you when we need you most? Makes me think of St. Paul Simon singing, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio our nation turns its lonely eyes to you…” What both saints are getting at is the fundamental connection between grace and justice – and let’s be clear about this because everything else is built upon it.

Once, when I was getting ready to lead a group from the National Council of Churches in Ohio to the former Soviet Union to study and celebrate the Millennium of Christianity in that place, I was walking with a Russian Orthodox priest who asked me, “Why do you American Christians always insist upon a God of justice? Why not grace? After all, who do you want to meet when your time on earth is over: the Lord of justice or the Heart of mercy?”

And for a long, long time I thought this monk got it right because let’s face it, I don’t know about you but when my days are over I KNOW I want to be embraced by the God of mercy and NOT justice! There is simply NO question. But…

My Russian friend’s pastoral insight is a false dichotomy because grace and justice – mercy and fairness – are just two sides of the same coin as our Jewish fore bearers teach us over and over again.

+ Think of Zechariah 7: "This is what the Lord Almighty says: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another.”

+ Think of Exodus 3: the Lord said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.”

Or think about my favorite Psalm 85: Mercy and Truth meet in the street, Right Living and Whole Living embrace and kiss! Truth sprouts green from the ground, right Living pours down from the skies! Oh yes! God gives Goodness and Beauty; our land responds with Bounty and Blessing. Right Living strides out before him and clears a path for his passage.

This is the first biblical text we really need to own for it tells us that while grace is an inward and spiritual blessing, there is also an outward and social expression to this very same blessing called justice. Listen to the way the Psalmist shares this time-tested insight:

+ Hesed – compassion or mercy – ‘emeth – truth – meet on Main Street – that is, in the middle of our real lives.

+ Tsedeq – right relations or social justice – and shalom – complete safety and social well being – nashaq – embrace and connect with intimacy.

Are you with me? In a poetic and spiritual way we are being told that the will of the Living God is for all creation to know the blessings of grace inwardly and outwardly: in our hearts and in our nation – in our prayers and in our politics – in our private places and on Main Street. Because grace and justice are entwined like lovers – embracing and intimate – alive and passionate.

You see, our way of doing church and religion is not obsessed with questions of life after death. In fact, we’re more interested in finding out whether there can be true life before death. We are not Gnostics who fear and hate what is material and long for only spiritual truth. No, we celebrate the integration of spirit and flesh. We honor compassion, truth, justice and peace embracing us in a cohesive whole – within each person but also within our community and world – for we trust, like Jesus at his baptism, that we are God’s beloved sent into the world.

And that brings me to our second biblical text: Micah 6:8. You might even be able to say this out loud with me. “What does the Lord require? To do justice, to love mercy and to walk in humility with your God” Again there is an integration of grace and justice, mercy and right relations between real people in the real world and between individuals and the Lord. What does the Lord require?

+ To do justice – that is, to actively accomplish mishpat – the Hebrew word for making a fair judgment between aggrieved parties. One of the best teachers in our tradition, Walter Breuggemann, tells us that our Jewish ancestors understood fair judgment in a way we have forgotten. Not only is this fairness designed to bring life into balance, it is also dedicated to discovering what has been taken from another and restoring it.

+ We’re talking about restorative justice here – finding out what has been taken away and returning it – be it land, or dignity or hope or even forgiveness. First we are required – not asked or invited – we are required to be people of restoration.

Second, this justice is to be bathed in hesed – that same word from Psalm 85 – which is better translated compassion than mercy. And compassion has to do with sharing another’s burden, taking away their shame and making the hope of grace visible. It has nothing to do with pity and everything to do with solidarity.

And third, the call is to walk – yalak – which means to travel and accompany the Lord with humility – tsana – close to the earth – not puffed up.

Three qualities and commitments – three calls to action – that teach us about justice: restoring what has been taken away, bathing our acts in compassion and doing so throughout our whole life so that it is a humble journey with God. Do you see how different the Hebrew notion of justice is from what we ordinarily get on “Law and Order?” As much as I like that TV show – or Jack Bauer on “24” – the call is for mercy and healing as the way to bring hope and restoration to our broken world. How did Gandhi put it? “If everyone practiced an eye for an eye justice, the whole world would be blind!”

Let me give you two other important texts to round out our study: Matthew 11. This chapter of Matthew’s gospel ends with my favorite verse in all of scripture – Jesus teaching us about the unforced rhythms of grace – but it begins with an equally satisfying story. Here’s the set up: John the Baptist has performed a ritual cleansing on Jesus in the Jordan River and sent him out to be a sign of God’s coming kingdom.

+ But there’s a problem: Jesus isn’t acting like John thinks the Messiah should act. He isn’t judgmental but hospitable; he doesn’t separate out the clean from the sinners, he has supper with everybody. In fact, he is acting so scandalously that John is wondering whether he baptized the wrong person.

+ So Jesus answers him – gives a very clear testimony based on the poetry of the prophet Isaiah about the Messiah – making it clear that he has been spending his time so that: The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the wretched of the earth learn that God is on their side."Is this what you were expecting,” he asks John and those allied with him? “If, so, then count yourselves most blessed!"

Do you see the restorative work involved in Christ’s actions? Do you see how they are bathed in mishpat and shalom – hesed and humility? The words we heard earlier from the poetic prophet Isaiah are yet another way of saying this same thing:

The Spirit of God, the Master, is on me because God anointed me. God sent me to preach good news to the poor, heal the heartbroken, announce freedom to all the captives, pardon all prisoners. God sent me to announce the year of his grace— a celebration of God's destruction of our enemies— and to comfort all who mourn, to care for the needs of all who mourn in Zion, give them bouquets of roses instead of ashes, messages of joy instead of news of doom, a praising heart instead of a languid spirit.

There is an integration here of message and the messenger – hope and blessing – compassion and justice. And this type of justice is not only restorative, it is attractive. People want to be around those who share this kind of justice. Sometimes justice people of the left or the right get preachy – self-righteous – a total pain in the butt, right? You’ve met them; we see them on the news all the time. At their worst they become terrorists who kill for peace, who destroy as they try to celebrate life, who wound and divide rather than heal and rebuild. They act like John the Baptist and not Jesus – which is why, of course, the old man was perplexed.

So what does this type of justice look like? I’ve given you three examples – two from the Hebrew text and one from the ministry of Jesus – let’s wrap up with St. Paul in Romans 12. Last week I urged you to consider the beginning of Romans 12 and its challenge to think differently about life as the start of our mission and vision. Today let me give you the conclusion as a practical guide for getting our kind of justice right:

If you preach, just preach God's Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don't take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy; if you're put in charge, don't manipulate; if you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face. Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.

Don't burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don't quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality. Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they're happy; share tears when they're down. Get along with each other; don't be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don't be the great somebody. Don't hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you've got it in you, get along with everybody.

Don't insist on getting even; that's not for you to do. "I'll do the judging," says God. "I'll take care of it." Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he's thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don't let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.

These very clear guidelines about justice are embedded in the work your Church Council did in crafting this proposed mission and vision statement. A mission and vision statement, you see, not only speaks of how we understand God calling us into action at this moment in time, it also tells us who we want to be as disciples of Christ. That is, it articulates our hopes and dreams for this church.

I give thanks to the humble servants of this congregation who worked very hard to craft this call to action. I pray that it will help us become our best selves and guide us into a new way of being Christ’s beloved in the world.