The Rev. Maureen R. Frescott
The Congregational Church of
Amherst, UCC
January 27, 2019 – Third
Sunday after Epiphany
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-9; Luke 4:14-21
“Jesus
Justice”
What
does the Lord require of us?
According
to the prophet Micah, we are to love kindness, do justice,
and
walk humbly with our God.
Micah
echoes the words of Isaiah.
Isaiah
speaks of a God who LOVES justice, and compels us to love it as well.
But
what does it mean to love justice?
What
does it mean to do justice?
What
is it that comes to your mind when you hear the word justice?
Language
can be a tricky thing.
The
same word can have several different meanings depending on the context.
The
context in which it is used, the context in which it is heard,
and
the context that we all bring with us given our varied backgrounds and biases,
experiences and expectations.
There
are numerous words in our English language that mean different things depending
on the context.
The
word “present” is just one example.
As in: “There
is no time like the present to present a friend with a present.”
Words
can also shift in meaning over time.
The
word “awful” used to mean worthy of awe.
The
word “silly” used to mean lucky or blessed.
And
the word “nice” used to mean foolish or simple minded.
Which gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, "Have a nice day!"
Culture
and location also play a role.
If
you walked into a super market in England looking for chips, biscuits, and
crackers, your shopping cart would look very different than if you took the
same list into a market here in America.
In
the UK, chips are fries, a biscuit is a cookie, and a cracker is something you
pull apart at Christmas dinner, and find a paper hat and a joke inside.
This
same word, different meaning trickiness applies to adjectives as well.
One
of my favorite British TV shows is “Escape to the Country.”
It’s
like a British version of House Hunters, where people looking to move to the
country tour several homes and share what they like and dislike about each
one.
During
the first few episodes I watched, it took me by surprise whenever someone walked
into a room and exclaimed,
“Oh
I love this – it’s so homely.”
Apparently
in the UK, “homely” is a good thing.
It
means cozy or comfortable – or “homey” as we might say.
So
the next time someone calls your decorating style homely – you can say, “Why,
thank you!”
Justice
is one of those words that can shift in meaning depending on the context.
It
can refer to retribution, restitution, or restoration.
Its
motivating impulse could be a desire to enact judgment and punishment for a
crime.
Or it
can come from a desire to right a wrong, through reciprocal offerings of
remorse and forgiveness.
Or it
may be rooted in a desire to create balance where there is imbalance, equity
where there is inequity.
When
we link the name of God with the word justice,
with
all the varied understandings of each that we bring to the mix,
we
muddy the waters of meaning even further still.
Ask
any Christian what they think of when they hear the phrase “God loves justice”
and you may get very different answers.
Is
the God who loves justice one who wishes to punish sinners for their transgressions
by enacting eternal judgment,
while
also rewarding those who’ve demonstrated righteousness and repentance?
Is
the God who loves justice one who commands us to seek harmony and fairness in
our relationships, to treat others as we wish to be treated, and offer one
another mercy, grace, and forgiveness when we are wronged?
Is
the God who loves justice one who weeps over the injustice in our world –
economic injustice, racial injustice, social injustice – any imbalance or
inequity created and perpetuated by systems that favor the rich over the poor,
the privileged over the oppressed, the powerful over the powerless?
What
comes to mind for you when you hear Isaiah speak about our God who loves
justice?
Isaiah
speaks of a God who brings a message of hope to those who lacked hope – to the
poor, the oppressed, the imprisoned, and the brokenhearted.
And
Jesus uses those same words to describe his mission in this world:
“The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to
the poor.
He
has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the
blind, to let the oppressed go free.”
This
is the heart of the gospel.
Of
all the texts that Jesus could have read from the Hebrew scriptures to launch
his ministry, he chose the one centered on liberation, healing, and justice.
He
chose the one that inspired his mother Mary to sing about their God who would
bring down the powerful and the proud and
lift up the lowly and the meek.
In
the first few centuries of the church formed in Jesus’ name this was the
mission Christians followed, this was the gospel they preached.
As
Christian historian Diane Butler Bass writes:
“Throughout the first five centuries people
understood Christianity primarily as a way of life in the present, not as a
doctrinal system, esoteric belief, or promise of eternal salvation. By followers enacting Jesus’ teachings, Christianity
changed and improved the lives of its adherents.”
One
of the prominent voices in the early church, Justin Martyr, argued that
following the way of Christ “mended lives."
He
wrote:
We who formerly . . . valued above all things the
acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common
stock, and communicate to everyone in need; we who hated and destroyed one
another, and on account of their different manners would not live with men of a
different tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live with them as if they
were family, and we pray for our enemies.”
Sharing
wealth, caring for everyone in need,
living
as if tribal boundaries no longer existed,
praying
for enemies rather than destroying them.
That’s
a radical understanding of the gospel right there.
And
it may not quite sit right with our modern understanding of personal liberty, responsibility,
and fairness.
It
didn’t sit right with Justin Martyr’s second century contemporaries,
which
is why he was killed for refusing to play by the rules of the empire.
It
didn’t sit right with Jesus’ first century followers either.
Which
is why so many walked away from him when he said the poor and the meek will be
the first to enter God’s Kingdom, while the wealthy and mighty will be last.
What
is it about this understanding of justice that makes us so uneasy?
For
centuries, the Catholic Church has been one of the biggest proponents of
justice for the poor, the oppressed, and the imprisoned –
from
St. Francis of Assisi to the Jesuits and Franciscans to the modern day Nuns on
the Bus who travel the country speaking out about social inequalities, to the
official Catechism of the Catholic Church - which has an entire section
labeled “Social Justice” which states:
“The equal dignity of human persons (as created by God) requires the effort to reduce excessive social and economic inequalities (and) gives urgency to the elimination of such sinful inequities.”
Now
I just said something there that brings us back to the subject of language, and
context, and changing meanings over time.
I
used the phrase “social justice” – which has in recent years been politicized
and been used to drive a wedge between opposing ideologies in the political
arena and in the church.
In
fact, one prominent political pundit warned his followers that if you find the
term “social justice” or "economic justice" on your church website,
run as fast as you can, because it’s a code word for socialism and Marxism.
That
would include just about every Catholic parish, as the Church and numerous Popes
have been using both terms for over a century.
Most of the mainline Christian churches would be found guilty as well,
including Congregationalists, who have historically been on the forefront of
justice movements such as the abolition of slavery, the plight of the poor,
women’s suffrage, and the recognition of civil rights for all.
But
mainline Christians and Catholics are not the only ones lamenting that issues
relating to injustice in our social systems have become politicized and
polarized.
Lamar
Vest, a Pentecostal Pastor, noted Evangelical leader, and former President of
the conservative leaning American Bible Society, recently appeared on The 700
Club to discuss the new Poverty and Justice Bible—a Bible that highlights more
than 2000 verses that talk about poverty and justice.
Vest
described a survey in which people were asked to identify the sources of
several quotes that talked about the Christian responsibility to care for the
poor and address issues of social injustice.
All
of the quotes were from the Bible.
Several
were from Jesus himself.
Yet
54 percent of the respondents attributed the quotes to Hollywood celebrities or
liberal politicians.
Only
13 percent recognized them as being from the Bible.
This
says as much about Biblical literacy as it does about our current political
climate.
But
given this shift in understanding of what it means to address issues of
inequality and justice in our society from a position of faith,
perhaps we should stop calling it social justice
and
start calling it Jesus Justice.
To
make it clear who it is God anointed to bring good news to poor,
to
proclaim release to the captives, to set the oppressed free.
And
who it is that commissioned us to follow in his footsteps and do the same.
Which
brings us back to our original question.
What
does it mean to LOVE justice and DO justice?
We
may disagree on how we DO justice.
We
may believe charity begins at home, and it’s the responsibility of individuals
or the church to care for the least among us.
Or
we may believe it’s the responsibility of the people as a whole, and that we
can’t truly address social injustice without reforming the systems that produce
and perpetuate it.
The
reality is, we may never agree on how to best DO justice.
But
what we can do is DO JUSTICE in whatever way rings true for us.
Whether
it’s volunteering our time at a community supper,
supporting
our church’s mission work through charitable giving,
or
working within the system or pushing from outside the system to enact reform
and change people’s lives for the better.
The
important thing is that we LOVE justice, as God LOVES justice.
That
we are not hesitant or ashamed to admit that the good news of Jesus Christ was
meant to liberate us all –
because
as long as some of us are held captive by poverty, oppression, and extreme
imbalances of privilege and power,
none
of us is truly free.
what Good News shall we bring to those who are joyously waiting to hear it?
Thanks be to God, and Amen
