Sowing Justice
Prov. 22:8-9,22-23; Jas. 2:1-10; Mk. 7:24-37[1]
As a white male, born into a relatively
comfortable middle-class family, I didn't have much experience with the systemic injustice in our culture as I was growing up. Not personal experience at
least. I did have a run-in with a
Texas Christian University Campus Cop who had quite an attitude and cornered me
in my car over a parking ticket. But
otherwise, I really can’t say I suffered injustice. In fact, I’m quite sure I benefitted from
the systemic injustice of our culture indirectly at least—whether I knew it or
not, I had certain advantages that others did not. It seems to me that justice is like that—you
have to have experienced injustice personally to have much concern for it. Most
people like us these days don’t seem to have much interest in justice. We are worried about our jobs, or about our
kids, or about where our culture and society are headed. Come to think of it, maybe we are interested
in justice after all.
Justice is a
concept that is at the heart of the Hebrew Bible.[2] The very essence of what God expects from the
people who claim to practice faith is to “do justly and love mercy and walk
humbly with our God” (Mic 6:8). I’m not
sure we know what to do with that. We
think of justice in terms of crime and punishment. It’s hard for us to reconcile justice with
mercy, because in our minds they seem to be opposites. But in the Hebrew Bible, nothing could be
further from the truth. The practice of
justice and the practice of mercy are one and the same. They go hand-in-hand, like faith and hope and
love. The Hebrew Bible makes it clear
over and over again that justice is about ensuring well-being, or shalom, for everyone.[3] It’s about a way of life that makes it
possible to everyone to thrive, not just the privileged few.
If you look at
key passages in the Hebrew Bible, you’ll find that justice is about lifting up
those who have been beaten down. It’s a
way of life defined by compassion and generosity (Prov. 22:9).[4] As we saw last week, the Bible gets very
specific about this—justice means taking care of orphans and widows, who have
no one else to take care of them. It
means welcoming immigrants, not hunting them down and chasing them out. It means feeding the hungry, not blaming
their bad choices for their lot in life.
It’s about supporting the sick with a compassionate presence, and
comforting those who are grieving. It is
mercy in action.[5]
One reason we
Christians are so unfamiliar with the concept of justice is because the New
Testament doesn’t speak the same language the Hebrew Bible does. For that reason, it’s easy to get confused
and think that the Hebrew Bible is a book of Law and commandments and obedience
and judgment. We much prefer the New
Testament as a book of grace and compassion.
But that kind of understanding is a vast misunderstanding. The Hebrew Bible is just as much a book of
grace and love and mercy as the New Testament, and the New Testament is just as
much a book of obedience and justice.
They just use different words to talk about it.
It seems to me
that the way the New Testament talks about “doing justly” is “you shall love
your neighbor as yourself” (Jas. 2:8).
Jesus said this was the heart of God’s command. And, in fact, in this Jesus is following the
Law, the Torah, of the Hebrew Bible,
because he is quoting from one of the Books of the Law, the book of
Leviticus. If we were to take the time
to look at Leviticus 19, where this command comes from, we would find that loving
your neighbor is defined in very down-to-earth terms.[6] For example, loving your neighbor is about leaving
the gleanings from your field for the poor (Lev. 19:9-10). It’s about dealing honestly with others (Lev.
19: 13). It’s about honoring the
handicapped (Lev. 19:14). It’s about not
slandering others, not hating them, and not seeking revenge (Lev. 19:16-18). Sounds like justice to me.[7]
When you look at
our world, it feels like things are out of kilter. From the workplace to the schoolhouse to the
courtroom to the home, it feels like things aren’t quite the way they’re
supposed to be. It certainly doesn’t
feel like we’re thriving. Perhaps we are
in this situation not in spite of all that we’re doing, but precisely because
of what we’re doing. If you take a close
look at our way of life, I think it’s hard not to conclude that we as a people
are sowing injustice. We ought not be so
surprised, then, when we reap the calamity that goes with injustice (Prov.
22:8).
How do we change
things? What can we do to make a
difference? What would it look like for
us to sow justice in our land instead of injustice? Well, it may sound trite, but I think we
won’t go far astray if we follow Jesus’ example. It seems to me that Jesus’ whole life was one
of sowing justice—whether it meant healing a gentile woman’s daughter, even
though both of them would have been despised by most of the Jewish people of
their day. Or whether it meant caring
for a deaf mute, who would have been very easy to overlook and ignore. As in the two examples from our Gospel lesson
for today, Jesus’ life was dedicated to caring for those who were the least and
the left out and the passed over and the shut out. This made him not so popular with the “job
creators” of his day and time, but he did it because he was following the
Biblical mandate to love your neighbor as yourself. As we follow his example, we will sow
justice, and hopefully bring healing to ourselves and to those around us.
[1] © 2012
Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 9/9/12 at First
Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior
Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.
[2] Cf.
Gerhard Von Rad, Old Testament Theology
I:370, where he says that there is no concept in the Hebrew Bible with so
central a significance.
[3] Cf. James
L. Mays, Psalms, 311,
“Righteousness is the rightness that makes for life and shalom; justice is
found in decisions and actions according to righteousness,” Cf. also Jürgen
Moltmann,The Way of Jesus Christ,
121: “God’s justice and righteousness brings shalom to both his people and land.” Cf. also J. Moltmann, The Church
in the Power of the Spirit, 163-96; Hans Küng, The Christian Challenge: A
Shortened Version of On Being
A Christian, 293-312.
[4] Cf. R.
E. Murphy, Proverbs, 167: “riches do not
entitle one to establish class distinctions since God created all, both rich
and poor.” Cf. also ibid., 261 where goes further: “both rich and
poor were created by God, so that mockery of the poor is a blasphemy.” Cf. also Raymond C. Van Leeuwen, “Book of
Proverbs,” in New Interpreters Bible
V:200.
[5] Cf. Von
Rad, Old Testament Theology I:374. Cf. Robert W. Wall, “Where Wisdom is Found,” Christian Ethics 2009, 31: “The
care of poor and powerless believers is a hallmark of God’s covenant-keeping
people.” Cf. also Robert W. Wall, The Community of the Wise, 114: “God
stands on the side of those the powerful of this world exploit and the people
of God ignore.”
[6]Cf.
similarly Luke Timothy Johnson, “The Letter of James,” New Interpreters Bible XII:195, where he says that the actions
specified by Lev. 19 (and in the Letter of James) are “incompatible with love.” Cf. also J. Milgrom, Leviticus, 226; Karl Barth, Church
Dogmatics 4.2:804.
[7]Cf. J. E.
Hartley, Leviticus, 322-24, where he
explains that Lev. 19 is a call to holy living, and that “Holiness finds
tangible expression in loving,” especially in the ways spelled out in this
chapter. Cf. also Milgrom, Leviticus, 235-36.
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