Scripture texts: Genesis 4:8-16 , Micah 6:6-8, John 9:1-7
Why Justice? Why are we talking about this? Our question for the day is “How does our faith call us to the work of social justice?" All of these are the same question, just formatted differently, than the question I have argued is the central question of Christianity. That question being “What now?”
You see, we Christians believe that God so loved the world that he send Jesus into it to show us his love. And he did so with miracles of healing and lessons of life, stories of a compassionate kingdom God seeks to create. And, of course, as the ultimate demonstration of that love, he went to the cross, died, and then rose again to grant us the ultimate gift of love, which is life.
The whole salvation thing, we Lutherans in particular among Christians believe is something that’s already been taken care of. Once we are baptized, we’re in. We’re good. All is taken care of. God’s chosen you to be among the elect who will live forever in his kingdom. Debate continues about what God will do with those outside our faith, but even there one thing that is not in question is that it will ultimately be God’s choice and decision on what happens. Salvation is a done deal. It is, as Jesus himself said, finished.
Now, between now and then, we have the whole course of our lives and there emerges that question. “What now?” What are we to do with ourselves? Answering that question is, I believe, one of the central tasks of our Scriptures. And that answer that it provides is “justice.”
I chose today’s texts to illustrate that truth. We begin at the beginning and the famous story of the first murder between Cain and Abel. The question Cain asks of God is the very first question any human asks of God in our Scriptures. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” That’s not coincidental, because I believe it is the question the whole of the Bible spends most of its energy on. Are we our brother’s keeper? Absolutely.
All throughout the Old Testament, you see this. From God’s gift of Torah to the ancient Hebrews with its emphasis on care for “the orphan, the widow, and the stranger in your midst” to continuous call of the prophets to remember the poor and needy, the outcast and rejected. Micah is but one example of that emphasis. “What is it that we are to do?” He essentially asks of God. “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.” comes the reply.
Jesus takes that and runs with it in his own teachings and behavior. He heals the sick, embraces the outcast, makes the blind to see and the lame to walk, and he teaches the disciples to do likewise. To love the neighbor, to care for them, to do good to them. The early Church likewise takes this and runs with it and much of the New Testament, like the Old, is centered on how to “do justice” with our neighbors.
Two thousand years later, that calling hasn’t changed one whit. We are still meant to do justice for our neighbors in Christ’s name. But somewhere along the line we’ve lost that piece. The church has become a bastion of the established order, regardless of whether that establishment is one that strives for justice or not. Care for the poor and needy has become secondary to the need to maintain buildings, to enforce proper doctrine and dogma within its membership, and to fight the culture wars’ battles across society. What happened?
The answer is simple. We took our eyes off Jesus and made it all about us. Focus on adiaphora (unnecessary things) has become central. Fear has replaced faith in our hearts. False teachings have crept into our midst unexamined, even welcomed. And one of the worst of those is the very one Jesus addresses directly in our Gospel lesson today.
I would argue this one of the most insidious foes to our calling for justice, the idea that the life we are given is the life we deserve. All wrapped up nicely for us in the disciples’ question of Jesus, “Whose sin caused this man to be born blind?”
Because, of course, this man had to deserve it somehow. He’s gotten what he’s merited. His blindness is the obvious punishment for what he or those closest to him have done wrong. Just as my own wealth, health, and success in life is proof positive that I’m getting all that I deserve for being such a good and righteous person.
My mocking tone is intentional, but the sad truth is this is everywhere. Why is there poverty? Because people choose to be poor. Because they’re lazy or in some other way degenerate or morally inferior. Why were Trevon Martin or Tamir Rice or Walter Scott shot? Because they clearly did something to deserve it. They wore a hoodie or they ran or they played with a toy gun in the wrong place. Clearly those are all capital crimes, deserving of death. Well, they are if you’re black.
And wealth and power and success? Clearly those people who have such things are worthy of it. But how many of them truly came by it honestly? And how many swindled, cheated, broke laws, hurt people, and found every loophole they could exploit to expand their wealth and power? Far more than we care to admit.
This isn’t justice.
Whose sin caused this man to be born blind? The question, on its face, is farcical and it’s meant to be. Because the point of our lives isn’t to affix blame, it’s to provide an answer to injustice. And that’s precisely what Jesus does. He doesn’t tell the disciples whose sin is at fault here; He goes over and he heals the man born blind. He does something about it. He fixes the problem.
So what are we going to do? That’s the challenge our faith presents us. There’s injustice all over this world. People are hungry. People are without shelter. People are sick. People are oppressed under various tyrannies. People are treated unfairly because of their skin color, their language, their economic status, their religion, their sexual orientation, and just about every other category you can think of. The rich have too much and the poor have too little. The strong bully the weak (sometimes from behind a badge or some other symbol of authority).
We are Christians. We are the beloved of God, called to be the disciples of Jesus. What are WE going to do about all that? God (and the world) is waiting for our answer. Amen.
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