Mary and I from time to time, not too often, but from time to time get scolded for our persistent preaching about matters of social justice, which is kind of an all inclusive rubric that covers economic and political justice as well. Glenn Beck of Fox News fame went so far to say within the last year that if your preacher used the term “social justice” don’t just walk away, but run….that lets me know we must be on the right track. A few years ago Mary and I had a running joke between us that in order not to offend, instead of using the term social justice, we would use the code word “chicken salad.” So each week at staff meetings in which we read the scripture for the upcoming Sunday, we would invariably say…oops, there it is again: chicken salad! Indeed if we were to scour the whole of Hebrew scripture and the New Testament substituting our silly code for matters of justice…the Bible would be teeming with…yes…you’ve got it:…chicken salad.
If one studies the philosophical and theological history of the ancient world, not just Hebrew writings and New Testament literature, but the writings of Confucius and Lao Tzu….the teachings of Buddhism…and the moral imperatives of the Hindu Vedas, the writings of Plato and Aristotle (Islam came along much later but the Quran speaks clearly about matters of justice) one would find that the principal theme in each is the concern of how we humans live together in which the whole of the community is edified….loving our neighbors as ourselves quite simply and quite profoundly. Our post modern world’s leadership lacks sadly that ethos.
In our modern western culture I think we tend to think of the term justice as retributive justice…punishment for wrong doing…but the Greek word Dike is much richer, often translated in English as righteousness (right-being), It places much more emphasis on distributive justice….the egalitarian ideal for God’s gracious realm on earth in which the abundance that exists on this planet is shared equally for the good of the whole…the writer of Luke makes no bones about it arguing not so tactfully for a reversal of the socio-economic order….Read the Magnificat in Luke (Lk. 1; 46-56). It is nothing short of revolutionary….but perhaps the better translation of Dike, is restorative justice…. restorative justice, a means of setting things right the way they were intended in the first place. This notion of justice has profound implications for our vocation as people of faith. It makes us participants in the Creation enterprise itself…restoring our world to the way God intended it, envisioned it from the beginning…It makes us social, economic and political critics…It makes us environmentalists…It calls us out of the illusory torpor of self-interest into an imaginative and productive life of living for the whole…a vocation of raising up the things that are cast down…bearing the new as the old passes away….restoring well being and dignity where there is abasement and oppression…this is work that is local and global…and it is full time work….this vocation of restoration, of re-creation…of setting things right.
I wouldn’t harp on this so much if Jesus, and the prophets before him didn’t harp on it as well. I heard a preacher once say that all one had to remember about the gospels is just three things: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus (whatever that means)….but I want to say that the gospels are about what Jesus was about in his life and ministry and that is: justice, justice, justice….calling to account things that are amiss; that shared resources and shared empowerment, a sense of destiny for all is the way God would order this world, and we vital agents of this work in progress; restoring the right, the just, where there is wrong, and injustice….socially, economically, politically*…It is the only thing for us dear people of God, the only thing we live for….the rest is just chicken salad.
* By now you know that when I refer to the “political” I don’t mean partisan politics….I am refering to politics in the Platonic sense (which the gospel writers have in mind) as the way and order by which we humans live together.
Great post, Jim.
This is where a well-developed understanding of the powers and principalities, their characteristics and their workings upon every aspect of our being, can help the Church overcome its reluctance to speak of justice in its biblical and theological sense.
Along with the Bible and the BCP we should read the works of William Stringfellow. For those interested in reading Stringfellow start with My People is the Enemy, then read Free in Obedience, and then read An Ethic For Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land. Then call me and let’s talk.
The Beginning of Knowledge
1 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel:
2 To know wisdom and instruction,
To perceive the words of understanding,
3 To receive the instruction of wisdom,
Justice, judgment, and equity;
4 To give prudence to the simple,
To the young man knowledge and discretion—
5 A wise man will hear and increase learning,
And a man of understanding will attain wise counsel,
6 To understand a proverb and an enigma,
The words of the wise and their riddles.
7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,
But fools despise wisdom and instruction.
I read your articles on Dr. Gray’s facebook page. Keep doing what you’re doing.