beauty in justice –renewal (of our minds, hearts, and souls)
beauty in justice – part one (renewal)
We hear this phrase quite often in our society now. This phrase divides people. This phrase has been used to force people into action. This phrase has been used to guilt people into writing a check. This phrase has been used by the government, businesses, non-profits, and the Church. This phrase has been defined in multiple ways to meet the context in which one wants to use it. This phrase is: social justice.
[lcf] believes in being a community that is active locally and globally. We want to be a community that hears the cries of people like God hears them. We want to be a community where our heart breaks like God’s heart breaks for people. We want to be a community that speaks love and truth to people. We believe that justice is so much deeper than just social. Justice needs to be addressed emotionally, physically, politically, socially, mentally, and spiritually. If justice only ever becomes social then all we are doing is inviting socialism into our community. We want to invite the Creator of the Universe into our community through multiple venues.
For many of us in this room we fall into one of three categories:
1) we hear this idea of justice and we get really excited about getting involved
2) we hear idea and we automatically begin to put up walls because people both in and outside the church have misused this concept and as a result you stay as far away as possible from this kind of stuff.
3) We hear this idea and we nod our head like we know what’s going on, but in reality no one has ever actually taken the time and explained this concept to us biblically and practically.
In response to all three of these groups of people I believe that we need to define it clearly and correctly as a community. This will allow us to make sure we are on the same page from day one. Justice is now understand, agreed upon, and acted on because we all come together with the same purpose and definition.
A great theologian and writer in England said it best in a book he wrote title, Simply Christian. The ironic part about this definition he gives is that he wasn’t actually trying to give this definition directly to justice. However, I believe that the way N.T. Wright words this cannot be more perfect for a common definition. He defines it this way: helping to put the world to rights.
This is a great definition of what we are called to do as Christ followers. If we are not actively moving to help to put the world to rights then we aren’t actively moving as a Christian anyways. If all we ever do is meet on Sundays, and meet throughout week, and work on our personal growth through spiritual rhythms then I can say rather definitively that God is not impressed.
Over the summer I began to really read a lot, and research a lot about what God has to say about this concept. I began to see rather quickly that this concept of justice is not a New Testament idea, it isn’t an early church idea, it is a God idea. From the very beginning in Genesis God began to call out people when they were not helping those around them. Woven all throughout Scripture, both in the Hebrew Scripture and in the New Testament God has been on a mission. That mission has been and is still today centered on helping those around us.
There is a man named Jim Wallis who started a non-profit called Sojourners. This non-profit is 100% centered on justice according to how God sees it. Jim does a lot of speaking at conferences, churches, and seminars, and whenever he goes he takes with him an old King James Bible. This Bible rather beat up, not only because it is old, but also because Jim and his buddy cut up practically the whole thing. Jim had this idea in order to prove a point that he would cut out of his Bible every passage that had anything to do with justice and helping others. The final result was that Jim was left with very little Bible, and a lot of torn up pages and empty space. He took this with him to prove a point. His point was simply, if you are not willing to do your part as a Christ follower to help out around the world locally and globally then why even bother picking up a Bible and claiming to be a Christian.
This idea of justice is so central to God’s heart that if you remove it from the Bible you might as well not read it at all.
So, now that we have established some common ground on how we define justice and on how important this is in God’s eyes we can actually begin to dive in and look at exactly what God says in His Word.
Turn with me if you have your bibles to the book of Isaiah. Isaiah is a large book right after Psalms.
We are going to be looking at two different passages from Isaiah this morning. The first passage is in Chapter 1, verses 16 through 17. Before we read this though I want us to look at the context of this chapter first.
The opening words and verses from the chapter make it rather obvious to see what God is trying to say here. Basically God is telling the Israelites through His prophet Isaiah that He is sick and tired of all their traditions and rituals. He is tired of their meaningless actions. Because their heart is not it, it means nothing to Him. This same concept can be said of us going to church today, or doing any other “Christian” ritual out of obligation or tradition. God doesn’t want these actions just for the sake of doing them. He wants your heart. Here is what he says in response to how they can get their lives and their nation back to order.
Isaiah 1.16-17
16 Wash yourselves and be clean!
Get your sins out of my sight.
Give up your evil ways.
17 Learn to do good.
Seek justice.
Help the oppressed.
Defend the cause of orphans.
Fight for the rights of widows.
I love this. It is simple, to the point, and you understand exactly what God is trying to do here. He is telling them to treat others around them with love and compassion. He wants them to understand that he wants their hearts not in rituals, but in actions that change and transform lives such as justice.
These final four phrases in this passage are profound. If you take these and highlight them, circle them, print them off and stick it somewhere in your room so that you can be reminded of what the heart of God is actually after.
God is interested in bringing His Kingdom to earth. I wish I could talk more about this now, but we are definitely going to dive into it this semester. God wants us to live our lives in such a way that His heavenly kingdom begins to break forth like the dawn here on earth. The only way that happens is when you and I stand up and began to do what Isaiah is saying here in Chapter 1.
Jesus came to earth not only to die, but also to resurrect. If Jesus didn’t resurrect then he would just be another dead guy in the ground. I love this quote by N.T. Wright:
“The point of the resurrection…is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die…What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it…What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether (as the hymn so mistakenly puts it…). They are part of what we may call building for God’s kingdom.”
— N.T. Wright
(video clip from I am Legend – light up the darkness)
Isaiah 58.6-10 (NLT)
6 “No, this is the kind of fasting I want:
Free those who are wrongly imprisoned;
lighten the burden of those who work for you.
Let the oppressed go free,
and remove the chains that bind people.
7 Share your food with the hungry,
and give shelter to the homeless.
Light up the darkness.
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