The Social Justice Stream: How Broad Is The Kingdom Of God
February 19, 2006
Intro:
How broad is the Kingdom of God? Over the past 6 weeks, we have looked at the Evangelical stream, which calls us to know God through His Word. We have looked at the Charismatic stream, which calls us to live in the power of the Holy Spirit. We have looked at the Contemplative stream, which calls us to live in prayer. And we have looked at the Holiness stream, which calls us to live obedient and virtuous lives.
This morning we look at the Social Justice stream, also known as the Compassionate life. And as the Holiness stream calls us to look inwardly, into the depths of our own souls so that we might see the sin that is there and deal with it, the Social Justice stream calls us to look outwardly, into the places in our world where sin exists and deal with it.
A Few Brief Stories:
People have always found ways to be exceedingly cruel to other people. The very first family saw jealously and hatred lead quickly to murder, the story of Cain and Abel. Most of human history is told in terms of conflict, of war, of any one group of people using whatever power they have to exploit another group of people. Of course each story is unique in terms of the people involved and the specifics of the conflict, but underneath it all is the same ugly traits of unredeemed humanity – greed, power, lust, insecurity, and selfishness.
Alongside those ugly traits are another whole set of stories, and many of them come from people who have experienced the forgiveness of God which sets them free from slavery to those ugly traits and then compels them to action on behalf of other people. William Wilberforce, the evangelical in 19th century England who worked tirelessly to end the evil of slavery. Emily Murphy, the Edmontonian woman who in 1929 – only one generation ago – finally was successful in having the government recognize that women are “persons” in the eyes of the law – she was an Anglican minister’s wife. Within our generation, Martin Luther King Jr. and the US Civil Rights Movement acted out of their convictions from Scripture and their experience of God’s grace and power to work for equality and justice regardless of race. Likewise, Mother Theresa of Calcutta, Albert Schweitzer, Jean Vanier, all people of faith who took brave stands against the evils of injustice. All well known people who made a substantial difference in our world because of their Christian faith. And those stories are not just limited to the “famous” people – our own Randy Loewen spends his life counseling men in Edmonton trying to beat addictions, 2 or 3 times a year our church provides meals to people in Edmonton’s inner city, and our denomination helps pay to rent a room in the middle of a brothel in Victoria so that women caught in prostitution can have a safe place with a Christian woman when they need to escape. As the founder of that ministry said powerfully, “In God’s eyes, there are no throw away people”.
Jesus:
Jesus was a social revolutionary. Do any of you remember my sermon from 4 years ago, March 17, 2002? It was called, “Jesus the Social Revolutionary”. You can probably guess the text, even if you don’t remember the sermon - the cleansing of the temple from Matt 21, where Jesus gets angry at the injustice of the sellers, the willing participation of the buyers, and the whole scale corruption of God’s desire for His temple to be “A house of prayer for all nations”, and for His people to be people of justice who stood beside and on behalf of the poor and the oppressed. While I won’t preach that same sermon, I do want to read the story (Matt 21:12-16):
12Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13"It is written," he said to them, " ’My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ’den of robbers.’"
14The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. 15But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, "Hosanna to the Son of David," they were indignant.
16"Do you hear what these children are saying?" they asked him.
"Yes," replied Jesus, "have you never read,
" ’From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise’?"
Jesus the next in a long line
As a social revolutionary, Jesus was the next in a long line of people God had sent with strikingly similar messages.
Quick quiz:
1. Why did God destroy Soddom and Gommorah? Not just their sexual sin, but their unjust treatment of the poor. Ezek 16:49 “’Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”
2. In the times of the prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, etc…) what was God’s condemnation of His people? Not just their idolatry, but their unjust treatment of the poor. For example, Is 1:17. After deeply condemning Israel for their meaningless worship, God says: “17 learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.”
3. How does James, the brother of Jesus, define “pure religion”? Not just in personal holiness, but in just treatment of the poor. James 1:27 “to look after orphans and widows in their distress”
The Social Justice Stream confronts the “neglected side of sin”:
I want to do a little experiment… I’ve said that the Social Justice Stream is about confronting the sin we see in our world, so let’s brainstorm for a moment what some of those sins might be, and I’ll write them down. (on one side of flip chart, list all that are sins of “commission”. On the opposite, list all that are sins of “omission”. My assumption is that there will be nothing on the “omission” side, which will lead into the next point.)
Let me give you a definition of sin. I could plumb the great depths of my theological library to find some esoteric quote, but instead let me give you a definition of sin from “Christianity for Dummies” (http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesArticle/id-2440.html):
“Sin is any deliberate action, attitude, or thought that goes against God… Sin includes both things you shouldn’t have done, but did (sins of commission) and things you should’ve done, but didn’t (sins of omission).”
(relate that definition back to our examples; highlighting which are which).
One part of the Social Justice stream’s great contribution to the rest of the Christian community is the continued prophetic cry for us to be what God has called us to be in our world. While the Holiness stream calls us to go away into the quiet so that God can search our hearts through prayer, the Social Justice stream calls us to come back into our world so that we can stop being a part of sinful societal realities and begin to be a part of working for justice, especially for the poor and vulnerable.
Mishpat, Hesed, Shalom
This call to engage the problems of our world with a redemptive voice arises from three main themes, which we can trace throughout Scripture. Richard Foster introduces these by teaching us three Hebrew words, which I’d like to share briefly.
The first is “mishpat”. Most simply, it is translated “justice” or “judgment”, but like all three of these words it is a much deeper concept. It is about God’s standard, in all areas of life including social, ethical, religious, and in how people treat one another. It is close to the word for “righteous”, and is all encompassing and richly nuanced. The Social Justice stream brings a deep understanding of this concept, sees the injustices, and feels how those offend God and humanity.
The second is “hesed”. This is one that translators have a very hard time bringing into another language, again because it is a deep concept. In our Bibles, it is often translated “loving kindness” or “steadfast love”, but it is far more than that. It is about the basis of God’s relationship to us, His people, it comes from the covenant promises that God has made to us to love and remain and show compassion. It reminds us of God’s unwavering, His faithfulness, His mercy, His compassion. When the Social Justice Stream is working properly, this concept becomes the prime motivation for action and the prime determinate for what types of action will be taken – they must always be characterized by this type of love and compassion.
The third is one that is familiar: “shalom”. We know it as “peace”, but again it is far richer. It is about harmony, balance, unity, and wholeness. It is about a world that exists as God intended it to, all people and nations and all creation in unity and wholeness. This is the ideal to which people moved by the Social Justice stream are moved.
Streams And Pathways:
As we look at this corporate “stream”, two individual spiritual pathways emerge as the ones most at home in this stream. The first one is fairly obvious – the “activist” personality who worships and meets God in fighting against things that are wrong finds a home in the Social Justice stream. The second might not be so obvious, especially since the personality traits are sort of on the other end of the spectrum – the “caregiver”. The Social Justice stream is packed with caregivers, who gladly get involved in the lives of those who are poor and oppressed, they tangibly side with the weak and helpless, and by doing so embody Jesus’ words, “whatever you have done to the least of these…”
The Social Justice Stream: a personal reflection
I’d like to conclude this morning on a personal note. This particular stream resonates very, very deep within me. I believe it is something that God has formed in me over time, and when I looked at my “spiritual pathways” or temperaments, both caregiver and activist were in my top 4. As I study Scripture, I see again and again God’s call to justice, God’s preferential treatment for the poor, God’s Kingdom not just including most of what our world dismisses but actually exalting it. And I see those things at the critical moments in Biblical history – the calling of Abraham, the sending of the nation of Israel into exile, Jesus’ announcing the purpose of His ministry (“to bring sight to the blind, to bring freedom to the captives, etc…).
In my ministry, I have emphasized and led “Social Justice” types of things. I was fascinated at how Foster identifies Jesus summing up of all the law into two commands (“love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength… love your neighbour as yourself”) as the main driving text for the Social Justice stream – that is a passage you have heard very often from me! I have taught Adult Bible Studies on the book of Amos, and one on a book called “Rich Christians In An Age of Hunger”. I wrote a Lenten devotional guide called “Stepping Out Your Front Door: Becoming A World Christian” just marching through 40 of these Biblical texts on justice for the poor. I am the chairman of our church missions committee.
Let me tell you why: I grew up in poverty. Now, when I look globally, I freely admit that I really don’t know what it means to be poor – we always had food, we always had a roof over our head, we always had medical care. But I did grow up as a modern version of the Biblical “orphan”, since I didn’t have a father. We lived off of welfare. We never played ice hockey because we couldn’t afford skates; in fact one year when our sticks broke we made a ringette ring out of a clothes hanger, some old socks, and electrical tape and played “street ringette”. I never had any musical lessons because they were too expensive. Pretty much every time my father promised to come for a visit he stood us up.
But that is not the whole story… because of the strength of this stream of Christianity. I was surrounded by Christians who literally were “a father to the fatherless.” Every year my little home church in Calgary made sure there was enough money for us to go to Gull Lake Baptist Camp. I remember a great uncle at a family funeral giving my mom $100 and telling her to use it to buy my brother and I some ice skates.
And now, I am rich beyond my wildest childhood dreams. Because God, through His goodness and through the obedience of His people, caught me up in this stream of social justice and saved me. I have seen first hand what happens when God’s people engage their world – engage children and families and individuals – with the redemptive message of God’s love.
I hope, I pray, and I try to live so that others like me will one day be able to say the same thing: I know of the mishpat of God because I have seen His people fighting for me to have justice; I know of the hesed of God because I felt it in His people’s every action towards me; and now I know shalom.
“To whom much has been given, much will be required.”
