Longing for Justice

 

When I was in undergraduate school I took a class in Political Philosophy. One question we discussed was, “Is there really any such thing as justice?” Some don’t believe in a separate thing called, “Justice.” They believe that the only thing that really exists is power. Later, in law school, I trained to be an officer of the court system, which theoretically seeks justice. Interestingly, we never, ever had a single discussion about the subject of justice. We were training to win cases, and we just assumed that justice was something that happened if we all played by the Rules of Civil Procedure. Later on, every so often  I would wonder, “Is there really anything called ‘justice’ or is ‘justice’ just the name we give to the opinions of whoever wins in a social or legal conflict?” [1]

imgres-2Then, we had children. The subject of justice never came up so long as we had one child, the apple of our eyes and of the eyes of her grandparents. Our lucky first child got pretty much whatever she wanted. Then came our second child; and when they got old enough, we would hear one or the other claim, “That is not fair. _____ got more than I did.” By the time we had four children, we heard this a lot. For a time, we tried to be fair about everything, but no matter what we did someone would think that someone else got a better present, a bigger room, or whatever.

At some point every parent has experienced the claim that what he or she is doing is not fair. What interests me about the claim is not whether it is true or false, but the fact that children and adults have a natural idea of justice and fairness,  We complain when we are not treated as we believe we deserve or when we feel that we have not received what we deserve. In other words, the idea of justice seems to be an innate part of human nature.

We human beings do not necessarily agree about what justice is in any particular situation, but we long for justice. We want ourselves, our people, our family, our religion, and our friends to be treated fairly. People have always had such a longing. This longing for justice alerts us that there may be (and almost certainly is) something called “justice” out there for which we long. Similarly, our longing for God is an indication that God exists and has implanted this longing within our hearts.

A Day for Which We Long.

Injustice is a fact of human existence. The Jews have always possessed a heightened sense of injustice. The history of the Jewish people is filled with instances of great injustice. After being invited to enter Egypt, they were enslaved for over 400 years. After they escaped that captivity, they were frequently attacked by neighboring tribes and nations. After the kingdom of David divided, the ten northern tribes were subjected to dispersion and terrible treatment by the Assyrians. After Judea was captured, it was subjected to captivity by the Babylonians. The Jews were mistreated by the Greeks and Romans. Throughout history, anti-Semitism has been a terrible problem. The Jews have been mistreated in the 20th century, especially in Germany under Hitler.

images-1The prophet Isaiah longed for a just society. A major theme of Isaiah is the theme of justice and injustice. Isaiah believed that the punishment of God was coming upon Judah partially because of social injustice (See Isaiah 1:21 and 59:4-8). Repeatedly, the prophet speaks of the injustice of Jewish society. The prophet also looks foreward to a day in which there will be justice for all.  Our text this morning comes from Isaiah, chapter 32, verses one through eight. Hear the Word of God to us this morning from the Prophet Isaiah:

See, a king will reign in righteousness and rulers will rule with justice. Each one will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land. Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed, and the ears of those who hear will listen. The fearful heart will know and understand, and the stammering tongue will be fluent and clear. No longer will the fool be called noble nor the scoundrel be highly respected. For fools speak folly, their hearts are bent on evil: They practice ungodliness and spread error concerning the Lord; the hungry they leave empty and from the thirsty they withhold water. Scoundrels use wicked methods, they make up evil schemes to destroy the poor with lies, even when the plea of the needy is just. But the noble make noble plans, and by noble deeds they stand (Isaiah 32:1-8).

God of Justice and Mercy: Grant us the eyes to see the world as you see the world and the desire to bring justice to our world, just as you desire to bring your justice, and did bring it through Jesus Christ, in whose Name we pray…. 

A Cold and Unjust World.

imagesSeveral years ago, our church’s Christmas season was themed after movies made from C. S. Lewis’s Narnia novels. [2] In the first book, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, four children, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie are magically transported into the world of Narnia. When the children arrive, Narnia is ruled by an evil witch, who has arranged for Narnia to be perpetually frozen in winter. In her Narnia, it is always winter and never spring, and Christmas never comes. The witch is cruel and powerful, and everyone who opposes her is immediately frozen by her magic wand. There is no justice in Narnia.

Of course, Narnia is meant to be a magical rendition of the Planet Earth. Just as Narnia is under the rule of the White Witch, our world is often under the domination of an evil king—that spiritual reality or person we sometimes call “Satan.” Just as the White Witch has made of Narnia a cold place, so also our world is not as God intended it to be. Just as there is no justice in Narnia, there is a lot of injustice in our world. There is social injustice, racial injustice, prejudice against all sorts of people, including Christians and Jews, laws that discriminate, judges that do not do justice, and a host of other kinds of injustices. None of this makes God happy.

The same thing was true in the time of Isaiah. Here is how he describes his own day and time:

No one calls for justice; no one pleads a case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments, they utter lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil. They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs will die, and when one is broken, an adder is hatched. Their cobwebs are useless for clothing; they cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their deeds are evil deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands. Their feet rush into sin; they are swift to shed innocent blood. They pursue evil schemes; acts of violence mark their ways. The way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths (Isaiah 59:4-8).

The situation as Isaiah saw it was just as difficult as the situation we often see around us. And, just as our own prophets foresee trouble if we do not change our national ways, Isaiah foresaw suffering if the Jews did not change their national behavior. Sin, it seems, has consequences—something we sometimes forget.

Our world is a place in which injustice too often occurs. This is not “just the way things are.” Instead, as Lewis would have us see, it is a sign that there is something deeply wrong with our world. We live in cold place and we need the warmth of justice and of the Spirit of God so that we can be freed from this cold world of injustice and enjoy the justice for which we were created.

The World We Long For.

In the Narnia books, the true King of Narnia, Aslan—who is a Christ figure—is coming. One indication that Aslan is coming is that the long Narnia winter is slowly ending, and spring is coming at last. (Even Santa Claus arrives on scene to give the children gifts before spring arrives!) In Isaiah, the prophet also uses an image of nature being changed because of what the Messiah will do when the Messiah comes as a symbol of the spiritual healing of the land of his people (see, Isaiah 35). In Isaiah 11, after speaking of the supernatural justice of the expected Anointed One, the prophet has the following vision:

Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist. The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the cobra’s den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11: 5-9).

The idea is that nature is impacted by justice and by injustice. Human beings and human life are changed for the better when we seek justice and live peacefully with others. [3] Isaiah sees a spiritual and moral spring arriving when the Messiah comes, ushering in a time of peace and plenty as old antagonisms and alienations are overcome.

imgres-1Whether or not we visualize the future in poetic terms, we all long for a just world and we all believe that a just world would be different and happier than the world we live in. Unfortunately, most all of us also desire for our injustice to remain in that world. We want the injustice that impacts us to be removed, but we do not feel so strongly about the injustice we inflict on others. God will not have it this way. God wants to get rid of all injustice, the injustice of the rich and the poor, of the powerful and of the powerless, of the insiders and of the outsiders. God desires a perfectly just world.

This week, my facebook post was as follows:

Human nature is paradoxical. We long for things to stay the same as to things we like, but we also long for a day in which the things we don’t like change. Too often, we forget that we cannot eliminate the injustice of others while holding fast to our own. Our longing for a day of universal justice requires a New Heaven and a New Earth filled with the wisdom, love, and justice of God.

We long for justice, but too often we long only for the justice that will benefit ourselves and those like us. Unfortunately, that is not what God intends. God intends justice for everyone.

The Work We Must Do in the Meantime.

Of course, we are not going to have a perfectly just world, at least not for the foreseeable future. Our world will always imperfect. Just as the Bible gives us a humanly unreachable standard for leadership, the Bible also gives us an unreachable standard for justice. We are not God, and we are not gods and goddesses. Therefore, on this earth we will never have a perfectly just world or society. This does not mean we should not work towards one. [4]

imgresNot so many years ago, Kathy and I had the opportunity to meet the singer Sarah Groves. She sang for a retreat we were on. I learned that she donates a bit of her time to an organization called, “International Justice Mission” or “IJM.” IJM is an international justice mission dedicated to eradicating slavery worldwide. We do not like to think about it, but there are more slaves today than ever before in history. In particular, many women are essentially enslaved in the prostitution industry. Some of these women are kidnapped, drugged, and sold into the trade. In poorer countries, families may sell one member into slavery to provide for the rest of the family. IJM attempts to expose, halt, and assist in the prosecution of this kind of slavery.

Not so many years ago, one of our elders, Georgia Smith, and some other people from our denomination, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, went to Cambodia to study and learn about the problem of sex trafficking in that nation and in the Far East. They spent twelve days or so learning about this serious problem and ministering to those who were escaping this injustice. As they learned more and as they helped and served the women who had been enslaved, they served both Christ and the cause of justice.

We had an Adventurers’ luncheon Thursday, and Kathy talked about Casa Mami, an orphanage we support in Mexico. At least some of the girls Casa Mami helps would otherwise be on the streets of Reynosa and other cities of Mexico. We help in a lot of ways. We help with operation ID downtown. Many people cannot get basic social services help unless they have an ID. By helping the homeless get ID’s we are helping them find a justice in our city.

There are so many examples of injustice in our world that this blog could consist of nothing but examples of injustice. Right now, however,  I want to point out some things we can all do to bring justice into the world as we await the time in which God will act to fully and finally bring justice upon a “New Heaven and New Earth.” Each of us in our hearts know of some area in which there is an injustice that we would like to overcome or help others to overcome. None of us can do everything, but each of us can do something. Here are some ideas:

  • Invite the Risen Lord into the situation. We can pray that God will intervene and that God’s wisdom and love will come into situations of injustice.
  • Resist the temptation to defeatism and negativity. It is easy to complain. It is hard to do something positive.
  • Study the Bible and the specific injustice you are interested. Gaining a Godly perspective and a worldly understanding is a part of learning to overcome injustice.
  • Act. For a long time, we have been talking about Worship, Grow, and Serve as three pegs of the Christian life. Doing something is part of serving.
  • Be patient. No problem, and especially no serious problem, is quickly or painlessly overcome. We should hang in there.

It is a strength of Christianity that we look forward to God’s help in overcoming injustice. We need to hold onto our need for God’s help. Nevertheless, we cannot give up on working for justice, because that is what God would have us do in the meantime.

The One Hope We Have.

This week at staff meeting we were talking about the human search for justice. We were, of course, noting that we cannot possibly be completely sure of what justice is in this world. We also cannot know completely that our actions are bringing about justice. Often in liberal churches sight is lost of the fact that we cannot bring the Kingdom of God upon the earth solely by our own actions. Conversely,  in conservative churches we sometimes forget that God has created his church upon the earth to assist God in bringing in the kingdom until Christ returns.

imgresThe cross is the great reminder of the reality that God suffers injustice with everyone who suffers injustice. Christ was arrested unjustly, tried unjustly, and crucified unjustly. God knows and understands the reality and power of injustice. The cross is where the mercy and justice of God collide—and it is a reminder that God is with us when we suffer injustice. The resurrection is a reminder that God will have an ultimate victory over injustice. The king has come. Our moral winter may not be entirely over, but spring is coming.

Amen

Copyright 2016, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] One major issue in modern (what I would call the decadent phase of modern society is the pervasive loss of belief in invisible and spiritual realities, of which justice is one. This is not the place for a philosophical analysis, but a loss of faith in the reality of justice inevitably reduces political and legal disputes to power plays and power politics. Such a development is not consistent with the requirements for a free and just society and ultimately leads to injustice and suffering on a massive scale. See, G. Christopher Scruggs, Path of Life: The Way of Wisdom for Christ Followers (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2012014). My analysis is as always reliant upon the critical realistic work of Michael Polanyi (see Footnote 4 below) and others. ‘Justice’ is real and the search for justice, when fairly and consistently engaged in, progressively reveals an ever deeper and inexhaustible content to human beings. Justice’s reality is shown in its power to create a better world as it is progressively revealed to those who believe in it and seek it diligently. Justice is “real,” though its reality is different in kind from physical reality. Its reality is intellectual and spiritual and must be known according to its character by faith, diligent inquiry, and constant revision of our ideas. See, Tomas F. Torrance, The Ground and Grammar of Theology (New York, NY: T&T Clarke, 1980).

[2] The Chronicles of Narnia are published by Harper Trophy, A Division of Harper Collins, New York, New York. The first book in the series is, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

[3] I have more than once noted in the past that I think we modern people too often discount and fail to recognize the impact of sin on the world we inhabit and its consequences even upon those with whom we have no direct impact. Just as in the physical world there can be “spooky action at a distance” in the subatomic world, in the macro world I am convinced that spiritual realities “act at a distance.” As a pastor, for example, I have noted that when our nation is at war there is a level of anger and violence among those whom we counsel that is absent in times of peace. As our society has deteriorated, there is not question but what we have seen more crime, more dysfunction, and more anxiety among people.

[4] Last week I made mention of the fact that some philosophers, like Michael Polanyi, critique conservative Christianity because its unreachable moral ideal often results in a kind of fanaticism. This fanaticism is especially dangerous when it emerges in its secular form unrelated to the love and mercy of God, as it does in Communism and other secular movements. This is Polanyi’s concern. This danger is ameliorated if we remember that our world will always be characterized by some degree of injustice. We cannot even by our best efforts eliminate all injustice, and those who try often engage in the most serious forms of injustice imaginable, as Stalin and Lenin demonstrated. The unattainability of our goals to perfect society should not keep us from seeking that better world. See Michael Polanyi, Science, Faith, and Society (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1946) and Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (Chicago, Il. University of Chicago Press, 1958).