justice

Hope Justly

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Readings: Psalms 33; 146, Amos 3:1-11, 2 Peter 1:12-21, Matthew 21:23-32

The Old Testament contains over a dozen books named for prophets. Most of them contain the same message for the people of God: repent and embrace the justice God requires of you or the consequences of your actions will destroy you. God seems to have no desire to punish his people — why else provide them so many warnings? — yet when we read the words of the prophets we can’t help but feel the inevitably of their self-destruction.

Amos tells us “the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets” and says the people hear the lion roar yet do not fear. Rather, they content themselves with fulfilling the letter of the law while ignoring its purpose: to bring justice to God’s people. Nearly 800 years later, Jesus was the roaring lion the people chose to ignore. His message to the leadership of the time could have come from Amos: while paying lip service to the Lord, you are ignoring holy truths. When faced with the question of Jesus’s authority, they feigned ignorance rather than risk losing their grip on the people by telling the truth.

To what prophetic cries for holy justice do we turn a deaf ear today? In what ways are we trading the demands of justice for personal convenience? What groups of people do we allow to be vilified or victimized for political or financial expedience? In this age of information overload, any failure to recognize the voices which cry out for an end to poverty, racism, sexism, exploitation, and countless other ills requires a willful ignorance rivaling the pharisees. We are being warned. Will we be as hard-hearted as those who denied Amos and Jesus?

It’s not too late. Whether Christ returns tomorrow or a million years from now, today we can choose to be a people whose actions court blessing rather than wrath. Advent is a time to say: “I hear you. I see you. I long for the justice denied you, and tremble before God that I have been party to it.” Advent is the time to roar like a prophet.

Comfort: Christ comes into the world to deliver justice to the persecuted.

Challenge: Read about human trafficking and the seafood industry. Think about how you can value justice as part of the price for goods and services.

Prayer: Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm. (Psalm 33:8-9)

Discussion: Who does it seem God might be warning today? Through whom is God speaking?

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Hope Cautiously

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Readings: Psalms 24, 150; Amos 1:1-5, 1:13-2:8; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; Luke 21:5-19

Advent is the season when we prepare for the arrival of Christ. This arrival has a dual nature, as we celebrate his birth and Bethlehem and anticipate his eventual return. Every year it is a cycle within a cycle.

The history of injustice similarly repeats itself. Ethnic tensions, disregard and abuse of the poor, corrupted court systems, war crimes, and other ills have existed throughout all of human history. Whether or not we like to admit it, no nation or people is immune. When the formerly oppressed gain power they may take their turn to become the oppressor, and are blind to it because they still think themselves righteous.

Such was the case with Israel when farmer-turned-prophet Amos spoke to them. Israel had struggled long and hard to become a prosperous nation, but Amos told them they were no better than the wicked nations surrounding them. Amos accused the Israelites of “selling the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals […] trampling the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and pushing the afflicted out of the way.” The leadership of Israel declared themselves righteous because they followed the rules of sacrifice and ritual, but they were indifferent to God’s greater demands of love and justice.

The theme for this first week of Advent is Hope. The flip side of hope is recognition that the world can be bleak, for why would we hope if we didn’t long for things to be better? Amos reminds us part of that recognition needs to be an examination of our own hearts, actions, and inactions. It’s human nature to believe our actions are justified … and to provide justification when we aren’t sure. We don’t always want to face ourselves when we’ve been part of an injustice or we’ve been willfully ignorant about our own contribution to societal problems. If in reading that last sentence you assumed it was accusing you of something specific … it wasn’t but maybe your consciences is. Maybe start there.

The good news of Advent is that we don’t end “there.” In the weeks ahead, we will live into the promise of Hope.

Comfort: Hope is promised to everyone.

Challenge: This Advent season, begin an examination of your conscience and begin owning up to the things that get in the way of hope.

Prayer: For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, “Peace be within you.” For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good (Psalm 122:8-9)

Discussion: There are countless things to hope for. Which is most pressing to you right now?

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Last Man Standing

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 116; 147:12-20, Zephaniah 3:1-13, 1 Peter 2:11-25, Matthew 20:1-16

Jesus told a parable about a landowner who hired some men to work in his vineyard. He hired one group in the morning, another group around noon, and a third group late in the afternoon. Each of them agreed to the same payment of one denarius, an average day’s wages. The first group grumbled when they were not paid more than those who had worked only an hour, but the landowner reminded them they had agreed to a sum, and he was free to be generous with his money as he saw fit.

This parable is about how God’s grace is not something earned, but something given freely and equally. There’s a short bit in the middle that might deserve a little more attention than it usually gets. When the landowner asks the late shift why they stood idle all day, they answered “Because no one has hired us.”

There’s no indication they were less worthy of being hired. It seems the landowner himself had passed them over without notice earlier in the day. We don’t know why they were left waiting. The fact that they were demonstrates something we tend to minimize: not everyone is treated the same. It’s tempting to start rationalizing why they might not have been hired – what it was they might have done differently – but why is that? We are attracted to the prospect of getting what we deserve. Random unfairness offends us; it jars us when people who work less hard get more (though we’re less bothered by people who work harder and get less).

We assume idling is laziness, but the truth is many people through no fault of their own are left standing in life’s line while others are invited to skip ahead of them to participate more fully in life’s bounty. This line jumping is not always random; the invitations are extended by other people, and people are not without bias. Throughout history through the present day, ethnicity, gender, ability, and social standing have influenced who gets an invitation, but we’ve always wrapped those biases in a veneer of merit.  Any given individual might be an exception, but the trend holds.

When for decades upon decades bias has consistently left entire communities standing until late in the day, it is not just in a Biblical sense to insist they figure out on their own how to make do with a fraction of what others have had many more generation’s opportunity to earn. When real-world equivalents of the landowner seek to offer them what is just in the long term instead of what we seems fair in the short term, those among us who were hired early in the day (as individuals or as members of a community that’s been making the selections) ought not grumble like we’re the ones who’ve been cheated out of wages.

A full measure of grace is extended to all who show up to accept it. If we are to conform our hearts to Christ’s heart, shouldn’t we learn the first person hired is not more deserving of generosity than the one left to wait?

Comfort: Whether you are first or last in line, God offers the same grace.

Challenge: When you assume someone is lazy or undeserving, challenge your own assumptions. about their life experiences.

Prayer: I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my supplications. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live. (Psalm 116:1-2)

Discussion: When has someone made incorrect assumptions about you? What were the consequences? Did you correct them?

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Cowards Pass the Mustard

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 97; 147:12-20, Ezra 7:(1-10) 11-26, Revelation 14:1-13, Matthew 14:1-12

Batman famously characterizes criminals as a “superstitious and cowardly lot.” After reading Matthew’s account of the execution of John the Baptist, we may be inclined to agree.

When Herod Antipas heard about Jesus, he was convinced John the Baptist had been raised from the dead with terrifying new powers. Was he superstitious? Definitely. But the unjust circumstances of John’s death had Herod looking over his shoulder out of guilt as much as superstition. Cowardly? Yes again. Herod condemned John to death because he was afraid to break an unwise oath to Salome (the daughter of Herodias who was Herod’s sister-in-law, niece and lover) in front of his guests. Herodias had Salome request John’s head on a platter, because John protested her incestuous relationship with Herod. Herod himself had no taste for John’s particularly gruesome execution, but he valued social standing and power above justice. Herod shows us dictators and their ilk are paranoid for a reason: the evil deeds required to secure power will come back to haunt you. Jesus may not have been John the Super-Zombie Baptist, but he was everything Herod feared.

In the previous chapter of Matthew, Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed. In his day, wild mustard was a weed farmers tried to keep off their lands, but it always came back. Keeping it in check required constant vigilance, or it became a great nuisance that choked out the crops. That is what the inhabitants of the Kingdom of God are to the unjust: a constant threat that keeps popping up in unexpected places. When unjust dictators rise to power, they nearly always kill, imprison or otherwise silence those who cry for justice, but doesn’t there always seem to be a new mustard crop springing up?

Great evil is rarely born fully formed, but is built from an accumulation of casually unjust acts; at any point Herod could have stopped the chain of events that led from his relationship with Herodias to John’s execution. Similarly, the Kingdom of God sprouts from tiny, persistent seeds. Let love and justice grow wildly in our hearts until they choke out evil.

Comfort: If we don’t cut love back, it just keeps growing.

Challenge: Pay attention to your small acts; they build the larger you.

Prayer: Teach me, Lord, to act justly, even when it’s not convenient.

Discussion: What small acts of kindness have kept you from despair?

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Class War and Class Peace

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 103; 150, Nehemiah 5:1-9, Acts 20:7-12, Luke 12:22-31

“Class warfare” is a term left over from the Marxist rhetoric of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Over time its frequency of use has shifted away from leftist thinkers who embraced Marx’s idea that “the history of all society up to now is the history of class struggles” which they felt the lower economic classes were losing, toward the right who interpret “struggle” as “warfare” and generally use it to describe what they feel are political and economic socialist attacks – usually in the form of wealth redistribution – against the rich.

The cultures of Europe and Asia have long been class conscious and it shapes much of their history and societal expectations. In the United States we pride ourselves on class mobility. The American Dream, after all, is for each generation to work hard and succeed beyond the previous one. Anyone with ambition, so the legend goes, ought to be able to rise to whatever level of society they like. Ignoring class barriers promotes the story that we rise and fall on our merits. It also makes it easier to ignore our responsibilities because we can explain away the less fortunate as less deserving. If we are indeed exceptional it’s not because we have risen above class structure, but because we have done our best to deny it.

Jesus did not ignore class divisions. Claiming the first would be last and the last would be first was a direct acknowledgment of them. Some were economic, some were religious, and others were tribal. His answer was not to pretend they would go away, but to help us understand how they hurt people on both sides of a given divide. When he told the rich young man he needed to give everything away, it wasn’t an endorsement of forced wealth redistribution, but an indictment of what the young man valued. He doesn’t tell any of us we have a right to take what others have earned, but he does tell us we ultimately don’t have a right to what we’ve earned either – because it all comes from God, and should be used to God’s glory.

In the Book of Nehemiah, the prophet chastises the rich who would ignore and even benefit from the plight of the poor. The rich became richer by accepting children of their less fortunate (that is, starving) fellow Jews into slavery and charging interest on people’s debts – a practice forbidden under Mosaic law. We may not be religiously forbidden to charge interest, but we are the home of a payday loan economy designed to charge the highest interest to those who can least afford it (and justify it with the supposedly moral neutral concept of “risk”). Our poorest children are not (generally) sold into slavery, but they are much more likely to die or be wounded in the service of a nation which asks relatively little of its wealthiest citizens. The wealthy aren’t even the ones who bear the brunt of the waste they disproportionately generate; landfills and toxic dumps aren’t set up in suburbs full of millionaires.

Marxism isn’t the answer of course. Neither is free market capitalism. Nor is any worldly ideology. Jesus calls us to look at the world around us as it is – classes and all – and make the sacrifices necessary to make it more just – which in the kingdom means to put the last first – whether we are legally required to or not. We shouldn’t need the government to tell us how to redistribute our wealth; Jesus already has. Are we willing to do it?

Further Reading: For thoughts on today’s passage from Acts, see The Ledge.

Comfort: Whatever our class, we are the same before God.

Challenge: Don’t ignore the reality of class divides. Try to approach them as Christ did.

Prayer: The LORD works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed. (Psalm 103:6)

Discussion: Do you think there is a class system in the United States?

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Not so Nice

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 67; 150, 1 Samuel 10:1-16, Romans 4:13-25, Matthew 21:23-32

When the chief priests asked Jesus by what and whose authority he acted, he declined to answer. Instead, he offered a parable about two brothers whose father told them to work in the vineyard. The first refused, but then went; the second said yes, but didn’t follow through. Which, Jesus asked, did the will of his father? Then he said:

Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.

Tax collectors and prostitutes were not considered “nice” people. Chief priests, the wealthy, and the other usual suspects  were (are?) considered polite society.  Even today we reward people more for blind obedience to the rules than for confronting unjust conditions. We would have more sympathy for refugees “if they followed the rules” though they flee the same types of horrors as did our ancestors who had far fewer rules to contend with. We wouldn’t dismiss protesters “if they were more polite” even though the times they make us uncomfortable are the only times we choose to listen to them. We insist on courtesy from the oppressed before we will acknowledge – let alone help relieve – their suffering.

Then we have the nerve to wear WWJD* t-shirts. Did the pharisees think Jesus was a “nice” guy?

An insistence on niceness always favors the powerful – because nice people don’t challenge the status quo. Jesus didn’t seem too keen on enabling the powerful status quo. So what did Jesus do?

He spoke up for the underdog.
He fraternized with all the “wrong” people.
He named hypocrisy when and where he saw it.
He cared more about people’s stories than their status.
He spoke the truth even when it made “nice” people uncomfortable.

Nice is easy. Kindness is complicated. Nice is cheap. Justice costs us. Nice is love in theory. Discipleship is love in practice.

* What Would Jesus Do?

Comfort: When you are unjustly persecuted, God is with you.

Challenge: When someone’s method of delivering a message makes you uncomfortable, make an effort to listen for content, not emotion.

Prayer: May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, that your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among all nations (Psalm 67:1-2).

Discussion: Valuing authenticity over niceness does not mean having free reign to be deliberately unkind just because we feel like it. When is the last time you were unnecessarily unkind?

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Why did the Christian cross the road?

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 89:1-18; 147:1-11, 1 Samuel 2:12-26, Acts 2:1-21, Luke 20:27-40

Most comedians try to follow the rule “don’t punch down.” In other words, no cheap shots at the expense of people whose circumstances put them at a disadvantage relative to yourself. For instance, able-bodied people making jokes about people with disabilities (which differs from crafting humor in solidarity) is not appropriate. “Don’t punch down” is a good rule to follow for everyone. Generally speaking, our gains should not place unwelcome financial, physical, or emotional burdens on those who are less fortunate.

The sons of Eli, the head priest at the temple of Shiloh, didn’t seem to get that memo. They also served as priests, but abused their authority terribly. They stole for their own tables the best portions of the meat their fellow Israelites brought for sacrifice. They forced themselves on women who served the temple. Sadly they got away with these things because their supposed moral authority intimidated those they were meant to serve.

When we find ourselves at the wrong end of a punchline, we may be tempted to play the victim. At those times it’s important to learn to take a joke, unpack it, and accept the sting of any truth it contains. We don’t always realize who or how we exploit until someone points it out to us.

Like good comedy, good religion doesn’t punch down. It doesn’t increase the bounty of the already well-to-do – particularly clergy – at the financial expense of the poor or the social expense of the marginalized. This might seem like common sense, but too many religious leaders have grown rich and pews full by exploiting the vulnerable. A popular (but debatable) notion says that in ages past the court jester could use humor to speak truth to power without suffering the same consequences as would more political members of the court. Shaming common sinners takes neither courage nor conviction; confronting a hypocritical and corrupt establishment requires both and more. If, as Paul says, we are to be fools for Christ, let us be the type of fool who shines a light on abuses of power and gives voice to the voiceless.

Read more on today’s passage from Luke in Puzzling It Out.

Comfort: Christ opens his arms wide to those who are foolish for him.

Challenge: Learn to laugh at yourself.

Prayer: God, give me the courage to seek justice, and the humor to survive it. Amen.

Discussion: What’s your favorite joke?

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Justice isn’t blind yet.

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 143; 147:12-20, Deuteronomy 16:18-20, 17:14-20, 2 Corinthians 8:1-16, Luke 18:1-8

As the Jewish people prepared to settle into the promised land, God laid down some rules about who might be their king. The king could be rich, but not too rich. He could have wives, but not many wives. And quite specifically, he could have horses, but not too many horses, especially if he had to get them from Egypt, where the people were forbidden to return. These conditions were meant to keep the king focused on God and to prevent him from “exalting himself above other members of the community.”

The wealthy and powerful have always lived by different rules than others, not only because they can afford to buy their way out of consequences for their actions, but because we make different assumptions about the wealthy and the poor. And since we have not yet untangled our nation’s historical relationship between race and poverty, that disparity becomes even more pronounced across racial divides. Add to that mix the prosperity gospel which teaches God financially rewards the faithful – and conversely implies the poor are lacking faith and morality – and the down-on-their-luck are perceived as unworthy of luck. Outcomes of the supposedly blind justice system are more predictable by economic status and race than by similarity of crime. From health care to education to housing loans, many systems are designed – often through lack of understanding but sometimes intentionally – to give further advantage to the already advantaged, and more insidiously to make us believe that’s just and fair.

What’s the remedy for this? In 2 Corinthians, Paul tells the church a “fair balance” is not based on what you’ve earned, but on what needs you can help relieve. He reminds them, “It was written, ‘The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little.’” Moving money around is relatively easy. Moving social capital around is more difficult, is more time-consuming, and requires more intentional education, effort, and sacrifice. Jesus invites us to develop a deeper sense of justice more concerned with who we can serve than with what we deserve.

Comfort: We are all equal before God.

Challenge: Read this article about racial disparities in criminal sentencing.

Prayer: Merciful God, may Your justice transform our land and lives. Amen.

Discussion: What can you do to promote justice in your community?

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Downstream

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 96; 148, Ezekiel 34:17-31, Hebrews 8:1-13, Luke 10:38-42

When God spoke through Ezekiel, he compared the corrupt and powerful who exploited the poor to sheep who bullied other members of the flock:

Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet? And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have fouled with your feet? …[Y]ou pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide.

God promised to judge between the overfed and the starving – and it’s no surprise which side he favored. We can read this as a metaphor for spiritual corruption, but in a land where religion and government were the same, corruption and neglect left people starving in many ways.

Are we even aware when our daily activities foul the waters? How often do we look downstream to see how actions impact the people living there? The further upstream we are – in terms of wealth or status, or sometimes literally – the deeper our effect. The waste we generate goes somewhere, and it’s not landing in affluent suburbs.  The money we save by insisting on the lowest possible prices comes out of someone’s wages, but probably not the CEOs.  Luxuries like cell phones and electric cars include materials from mining processes that endanger children and poison the air and water of unprotected lands around the globe. Neither the pasture we trod and the stream we foul, nor the dignity and mercy God asks us to show each other, stop at state, national, or continental boundaries.

Ezekiel tells us God is not concerned with whether the overfed sheep feel they’ve been treated fairly, but with how brutally they wield their flanks and horns to fill their bellies. We’re all upstream of someone. Through conscious effort we can make more justice-oriented decisions about how we live so that those downstream have cleaner, more plentiful water. Less is more.

Comfort: If you are in need, God is on your side.

Challenge: Read this article on how wealthy nations are dumping toxic waste in poorer nations.

Prayer: Merciful God, forgive me for those I have harmed downstream. Grant me the wisdom and strength to do better. Amen.

Discussion: Do you know what happens with the hazardous trash generated by your community?

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The Letter Kills

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 103; 150, Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14, 2 Corinthians 3:1-9, John 12:27-36a

Victor Hugo’s novel (and popular musical) Les Miserables opens as hero Jean Valjean completes a 19-year prison sentence that began with stealing a loaf of bread for his starving sister. The yellow letter he must carry impairs his ability to rebuild his life, until a merciful encounter propels him into a new identity. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne has a child out of wedlock. She and her daughter are forever outcast because of the scarlet “A” (for adultery) she must wear as a constant declaration of her sin.

In both stories, the heroes committed the original crimes, yet we root for them. We feel the injustice of their disproportionate and lifelong punishments. Yet somehow as a society our fictional compassion is divorced from our compassion for real people. We recognize the unjust legalism of the yellow and scarlet, but don’t quite make the connection to modern equivalents.

In most states job applications include a question about felony convictions. Honesty dramatically reduces the chances a former felon will even get an interview. “But wait,” you may think, “don’t employers have a right to know?” Maybe that’s too small a question. Of course child molesters shouldn’t be hired by a daycare, but if the system is meant to rehabilitate, why does it heap obstacles in front of a forty year old person who was foolish at twenty, has done their penance, and now seeks gainful employment? What separates them from Jean and Hester? Motivation? A catchy tune?

Forgiveness and relentless punishment are incompatible. If we argue it’s a civil matter and outside religious purview, then we have no business introducing Christian values into other civil matters. If we argue it’s a matter of risk, we have lost sight that following Christ always invites risk. We are meant to be outsiders, challenging the status quo of the empire. As Paul told the Corinthians: “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

In all matters, let us seek the life-giving Spirit. Justice seeks more than punishment – it seeks to heal the starving and the outcast before punishment appears on the page.

Comfort: No matter who seeks to punish you, Christ seeks to forgive you.

Challenge: Read this short article about removing the “felony checkbox” in Minnesota. If it raises questions, search for more to read.

Prayer: Spirit of God, I will seek life in you for myself and others. Amen.

Discussion: The “felony box” is just on example of how our penal system is at odds with mercy and rehabilitation. Can you think of others?

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