In seminary, I learned to love the Bible’s myriad attempts at changing me. Churches roll with this agenda, as they should, spending the majority of their time, energy, and other resources inviting people to be the best version of themselves that they can possibly be.
But, as anyone who’s tried to make these changes can attest, there are barriers – roadblocks that stand between us and a better rendition of us: anxiety, anger, pride, selfishness and a myriad other internal things that rob us of a better, more peaceful, much more hopeful life – the kind that God wants us to live and the kind that’s required if we’re to truly follow Him.
For our purposes this morning, let’s refer to these barriers as “personal injustices.” After all, if I deliberately tried to stand in the way of a better life for you, you’d call foul. Much more so if I stand in my own way. Silly, but we all do it.
As such, let’s refer to the agenda of most churches in America as “The Gospel of Personal Justice.”
You can tell where I’m going with this, but hang with me.
It’s a good agenda to be sure, and what’s more, again, a Biblical one, worthy of our undivided attention, as well as it’s frequent sermon appearances. Rest assured that the churches that pull no punches here are good at what they do, assisting many into the next level of a good life.
Without it, I doubt that I’d still be married, and it’s possible that I wouldn’t be alive.
But the Bible also calls us into the brokenness that exists outside of ourselves – to step into the places where people are hurting and/or being hurt. Human brokenness is everyone’s brokenness, and everyone’s responsibility to engage. Scripture’s focus here is just as repetitive and annoying as it’s focus on personal justice, calling us over and over again to take the healing/peace/hope/justice we’ve experienced on a personal level, and the strength that goes with it, out into the world to bring as much justice into it as God has brought into ourselves.
So again, for our purposes this morning, let’s refer to this as “The Gospel of Social Justice,” though, to many, this is an inflammatory cultural buzzphrase crafted by people of questionable, possibly communist/Marxist/terrorist political leanings – definitely not an agenda any self-respecting Jesus follower should be found supporting.
To the Bible, social justice is a simple concept, calling the people of God to march victoriously into dangerous, frightening arenas where people are treated unfairly; people who don’t have enough, who are in a tough place that they can’t get themselves out of – not because they’re weak, or because they lack power, intellect, or motivation, but because the systems they suffer under have grown too big.
The removal of these requires a mountain of people.
Systems like this were prevalent in Jesus’ day, as in other ancient cultures, where there was a huge gap between those with power and money, and those without. Those without could work their fingers to the bone, armed with all the skill and motivation a person could muster, but never rise above their station. There were systems in place, ensuring that the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich.
Jim Crow America had similar systems, aimed solely at keeping Blacks in their place. Sure, there were a few exceptions where one might manage to rise economically above the mean (those were exhalted by whites as examples of a fair system), but for the most part, the bar was set, and few could rise above it.
I don’t know any white Christians who would argue that these systems of long ago weren’t real, and that, were they to exist today, God’s people should bulldoze them with all the power we possess.
But I do know a ton of white Christians who believe that those systems don’t exist today, that the cries of injustice coming from the Black community aren’t anything that we have to pay attention to. So we find different ways to dismiss their indictments, sometimes villifying them with accusations of laziness, entitlement, and, especially of late, terrorism.
If someone takes our pulpit and tries to convince us that racial injustice actually does exist, we’ll get mad at them too.
This is disturbing as it hearkens back to a problem in the Old Testament that Jesus addressed.
There’s an episode in the life of ancient Israel, according to multiple places in the Old Testament, when there were too many systems, too many barriers for the poor and marginalized, too many ways that kept everyone in their place. So, God sent upstanding, respected, influential people from different communities to send a harsh, direct, in-your-face “knock it off!” message.
Today, we refer to them as prophets.
The most well known of these would be the prophet Isaiah, who warned of the destruction of the entire nation if they didn’t get their act together, specifically with regards to justice on a social scale. Following are a few quotes from his message:
“For I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing.” ~ 61:8-9
“Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong. 17 Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.” ~ 1:16
“Your rulers are rebels, partners with thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow’s case does not come before them.” ~ 1:23
“The Lord takes his place in court; he rises to judge the people. 14 The Lord enters into judgment against the elders and leaders of his people: ‘It is you who have ruined my vineyard; the plunder from the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?’ declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.” ~ 3:13
The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress. ~ 5:7
“Therefore my people will go into exile for lack of understanding.” ~ 5:13
It’s a well documented, historical fact that the nation of Israel, both the Northern and Southern kingdoms, were all but razed to the ground, and its people carted off to live somewhere else, as Isaiah warned. For those of us who believe that the Bible is an accurate representation of the story of God’s people, we’ll have to agree that social injustice makes Him really angry, maybe more so than anything else.
This seems dumb to me. If God cares so much for poor people and/or people who are being treated unjustly, why doesn’t He do something about it Himself? Or, if He wants us to do it, why not just come down as a 20 foot giant with lightening bolts shooting out of his nose, commanding all of humanity, believer or not, with a voice that shakes the mountains?
The other side of my understanding knows that God doesn’t want us operating out of fear, scaring us into submission. He wants the world to operate under the thumb of compassion, mercy, generosity, and the unconditional love of people that He possesses. That doesn’t happen without freedom. And fear is never freedom.
In Isaiah’s case, the people who failed to listen failed to see the injustice he was referring to.
It’s easy to understand why they chose to ignored him.
I imagine that the poor/marginalized/fatherless/widowed crowd heard him loud and clear. They were on the business end of it all. But the people who had the power to change things also had much to lose at the prospect of bulldozing their myriad systems. And, because rich and powerful people tend to segregate themselves from the poor and powerless, the right conversations, and the data points that go with them, where nowhere to be found.
Today, we’re in the same boat. A large number of people living under the thumb of similar systems are crying foul, while a large number of people who a) haven’t experiened the dark side of these systems and b) are too segregated from the people who have, find different, creative ways to dismiss them, many I’m sure resemble the different, creative ways that God’s people dismissed His prophets of long ago.
But if what we’re experiencing today is an analog to what happened back then, shouldn’t there be prophets? Where are they? If such a grave injustice is being perpetrated, and if God hates injustice so much, wouldn’t He send someone to warn us, or at least try to turn us around?
The voices crying “foul!” are spilling over from the Black community, now eminating from white religious leaders, politicians, and activists. Are these our prophets? They seem to fit the mold:
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- ignored and villified by God’s people.
- speaking out about injustices perpetrated against people on the wrong end of a power imbalance.
- making good, otherwise peaceful Christians really angry.
- you don’t have to listen to them if you don’t want to.
This entire ordeal reeks of Isaiah’s situation, compelling us to at least consider the idea that God is initmately involved in America’s current racial justice movement.
So, should we be talking about this from the pulpit?
Many pastors and leaders will take a pass. The “Gospel of Church Growth,” one that needs no introduction, tends to trump everything these days. Who wants to preach a message that’s currently making so many white Christians angry, one that’s sure to clear the pews and impede our progress?
Of course, if this movement does have God behind it, pulling the strings, moving hearts and minds, etc., we have every obligation to join in. And if our people are angry about it, we’re compelled to lead them into a peaceful submission. We were under the same obligation during America’s slavery episode, Jim Crow, etc., but far too many pastors said no, unwittingly involving themselves and their congregations in a counter movement, resisting the very hand of God.
Either way, to relegate the Gospel of Social Justice to the arena of mere politics, or to find other creative ways to excuse ourselves from it, is to ignore the Bible’s focus on justice in general, both personal and social, for there is no personal justice without social justice, and no social justice without personal justice.
As I listen to some of my seminary professors warn us of the evils of the Gospel of Social Justice, as I watch local pastors avoid the issue entirely, or pay a little benign lip service to it, and as I reflect on all the Biblical accounts of God showing up with a message of justice and fairness that His people ignored, I’m compelled to see His hand in this current movement, and the presence of the other guy in its resistance.
And as I consider what God did to his nation for their systems, I’m worried about what He’ll do to us for ours.
And sadly, in Denver, and everywhere else I’ve lived, I have two choices when it comes to church – I can attend one that’s great at personal justice but weak on social justice, or I can attend a church that’s a glorified social justice organization, weak on just about everything else. How did our ecclesiology become so polarized?
Regardless, people flock to personal justice churches because, to them, that’s the gospel that matters most. The same holds true for what attracts people to social justice churches.
We need both.
