Do Justice

Karen Griffin spoke, two weeks ago, about keeping an undivided heart – to focus first on our relationship to God, and that everything else flows out of this primary focus. Today I want to look at one outworking this focus has had for me, in particular in relation to doing justice.

World trade regulations stack the odds hugely in favour of the already-rich nations and trap the poorest nations in poverty. Billions of people are forced to work inhuman hours in appalling conditions for miserable pay in factories and sweatshops in many countries of the world. Millions of children across the world are exploited for profit. People trafficking and enslavement has reached proportions not seen since the height of the transatlantic slave trade, including here in the UK. Rampant overconsumption of goods in the developed world is leading to serious environmental degradation, threatening not only the survival of animal species but of human populations as well.

I have to warn you up-front that I can get carried away while talking about injustice. I can’t just watch a documentary or read something in the paper about exploitation or environmental destruction and leave it there. I will get worked up about it, without fail, and I will have heated debates in my head with whoever is at fault, and I always win. In fact, as I have told you in other talks, I fantasise sometimes that I could be like the Man with No Name, the tough gunslinger Clint Eastwood used to play in films like “High Plains Drifter” and “Pale Rider”. He comes riding into town with eyes narrowed and mouth slitted, beats the living daylights out of some bad guys and then disappears off into the wilderness again, hardly having spoken a word. Anyone else have that dream? Been victimised by 1980s action flicks?

My obsession means that I do end up talking about injustice quite often, usually at weddings and birthday parties where everyone else is just trying to have a good time. It’s gotten a lot better in recent years, I mean I can now walk past a McDonald’s without getting a gag reflex (other kinds of revolting fast food with no taste are available).

And I do meet often a reluctance in people to talk about this. After all, these forms of injustice we face are so huge that it is natural, and it is perfectly understandable, to feel overwhelmed by them. I feel that quite often – what on earth can I do about the plight of a street kid in India? It’s much easier to get worked up about inappropriate language in a BBC TV documentary.

This sense becomes all the stronger when I look at these injustices only in relation to me and how they affect me. I feel guilt that I can’t do more. I feel resentment that I’m being confronted with suffering that I can’t do anything about – I don’t have  the resources, I don’t have the right connections, I’m not courageous. I feel that it is unfair to expect me to do anything when I don’t understand what is going on anyway, I don’t get politics and history and economics and all this talk about CO2. Surely I’ll only make things worse.

Or I point out how other people have got it wrong. In Mamelodi, the township outside Pretoria where I grew up, there are the ruins still of schools and nurseries that were built by well-meaning Europeans, who brought enough money to build classrooms but forgot to ask whether there was any money to pay teachers to teach in them. And that’s just one example amongst thousands and thousands of similar waste and plain bad planning across the Third World. If you’ll forgive me a brief soapbox moment, misguided European philanthropism has a lot to answer for, particularly in African countries. We haven’t even begun to grasp the full scale of the disasters that many charities have caused by not thinking things through, or by making people dependant on their handouts.

There is a lot of truth to these arguments. It is entirely true that I alone, out of my own strength, can’t do anything about injustice. But the result is that I do nothing. And that doesn’t sit right with me either. More importantly, Jesus was very clear on the fact that justice being done is one of the signs that we are his followers and that we are part of his Kingdom.

Look with me, if you will, at a story Jesus tells about sheep and goats. You’ll find it in the book of Matthew, Chapter 25: 31 – 40:

 When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

  The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

 

Jesus is speaking about the time when he will return to establish his Kingdom, his rule, over all the earth, and when he will finally judge who was right and who was wrong. Jesus re-states here a demand that has been fundamental to the Lord’s interaction with his people from the very beginning – do justice.

And he defines that in the way God has always done – doing justice is not about punishing the perpetrators, and it is not about fairness either, where I get what little you get. Doing justice is about doing what is right for others, in particular those who have no power or wealth or influence of their own, even when doing right by them will cost me. Doing justice is to do what truly benefits others, even when sometimes to benefit others means to say “no”. And that includes doing justice in such thorny and difficult areas as social justice, and poverty, and unfair employment practices, and environmental damage, both here in the UK and abroad. And we have to “do” justice – we actually have to get on and do something.

But there is one vital new dimension that Jesus introduces to his demand to do justice. Jesus is adamant that we will only do justice through surrendering to him. We can’t do justice on our own, out of our own strength. It is only when we surrender to Jesus’ rule, when we follow him and therefore we become his agents in the world, that his Kingdom grows, and justice is extended. Thus, Jesus invites us to shift our position, our point of view, when we look at injustice. Instead of looking at injustice in relation to me and my limited resources, Jesus invites me to look at injustice in relation to him and his unlimited resources and power. And when I do that, the whole picture shifts. I have found that the following four things begin to happen.

First, we will not feel guilty – we will have compassion. I know that the temptation is great whenever we witness injustice, whether in the news or on the street, to be overwhelmed by feelings of guilt. That’s why so many charities manipulate guilt feelings in their fundraising – because it works. But guilt is really the least helpful response – no-one has ever achieved anything useful out of guilt. Guilt saps our will, it drains our energy, and it traps us in the position of powerless witness.

Compassion on the other hand, that is powerful. Just look at what Mother Teresa achieved amongst the most abject people in Kolkata for a demonstration of what love and compassion can accomplish. Compassion energises us, compassion gives us strength and the will to persevere no matter what opposition we face. For the people we love and who we feel compassion for we can go through hell.

And Jesus promises that when we follow Him, we will love our neighbour. He will break our hearts with his compassion for the lost. Let me illustrate that with a story. A good friend of mine now volunteers for an organisation that works with prostitutes. I think it is fair to say that two, three years ago, she wasn’t at all sure about being involved in outreach, in reaching out to people on the margins of society. Then, about a year ago, we went to a conference together where Jay Pathak spoke about doing justice. And Jesus broke her heart with compassion for the lost. She just bawled her eyes out. In fact, there was a while where she couldn’t go to anything resembling a church meeting without ending up in tears, and not the kind of quiet polite crying you can hide behind a tissue, but full-on, snot-pouring-out-of-your-nose, uncontrollable howling. And she had no real idea what it was about until she started volunteering for the charity and met the women it cared for. Suddenly, the compassion Jesus gave her found a focus. She doesn’t burst into tears as much anymore, but she’s getting on with loving women who need it, and it is awesome to watch. We will not feel guilt, but we will feel compassion.

Second, as David pointed out a few weeks ago, we will do justice in everything we do. The way I do my job, the way I relate to my wife, the way I father my children, the way I spend my free time, the things I look at on the internet, as much as how I spend my money – all of it falls under the command to do justice. It’s all of a piece, as Ellie Mumford would say. And an injustice in just one of those aspects of my life renders the whole unjust, no matter how dedicated I am to collecting money for orphans in Romania, or whatever. And again, the more I surrender to Jesus the more he will empower me to act justly. Therefore, we will act more justly in everything.

Third, we will do what we can, no matter how insignificant it may seem. We can’t save the whole world, that is Jesus’ job, but we can get on with making whatever contribution we can offer. We offer money and time to organisations that do something about injustice. We do what we can to ensure that our purchasing power, our money, goes to those producers who trade fairly and employ ethically.

Here are some links to useful websites you can peruse to find fair-trade and ethical suppliers, as well as organisations that tackle things like people trafficking and child labour:

 

Stop the Traffick deals with people trafficking and child exploitation

Collaborative Consumption.com encourages us to share our goods, transport, even homes with each other

The World Fair Trade Organisation lists a wide range of fair-trade and ethical producers of just about every consumer item you can think of.

And yes, fair-trade stuff is more expensive, and our personal budgets are constrained, so we won’t be able to do everything we want to. But to steal back a phrase – every little helps. Even if all you do is buy your coffee fair-trade from an ethical supplier that still helps. We do what we can. And we will hand over our small offering to our Lord, because Jesus will take our small offerings, and he will make them bear fruit far beyond what we are able to dream. We will do what we can.

Fourth, we will pray. Whenever we encounter injustice, in whatever form it takes, we will pray that God will intervene and establish justice. And as we do that, we’ll discover two things. First, we will discover that a burning grows in us to see justice done, and to see God’s just rule established. We will come to the point where we cry out, “Enough, this has to stop! Someone has to do something! God, do something!”

Second, as we cry out, we will discover what millions of people have discovered through the ages – God responds. He will turn to us and say, “I see what you see, and it breaks my heart too.” And then he will add, “This is what I want you to do about it.” When that happens, you had best listen and obey, because that’s when all the bets are off, when anything becomes possible. That’s the time when all heaven will break loose.

Let me offer you a final story. It’s not one of those neat, completed stories that people in my position like to tell, but that is why it might be useful. It might illustrate of how complex this issue of doing justice can be.

Towards the end of last year, I think it was, I was on my way to work, walking past the Unitarian Chapel in town, when I noticed a man slumped over against the little wall in front of the chapel. He was in a really bad way. He was disfigured, he stank, he was clearly barely conscious. I remember a woman ahead of me making a sudden very wide detour when she caught sight of him, and to be fair I wanted to do the same. But Jesus wouldn’t let me. I just felt compassion for him and before I knew what I was doing, I had walked over to the man and said hello.

The man took a moment to realise I was talking to him. When he finally focussed on me, I asked whether he’d had breakfast and whether he could do with a sandwich. He looked at me blearily and said, “To be honest, mate, I need alcohol. I haven’t had anything to drink, and I’m going into withdrawal. Can you buy me some alcohol?”

I thought, Great! I’m here and don’t even know why and now an alcoholic wants me to help him get drunk. But I could see he was telling the truth – the pain he was in was obvious. And alcohol withdrawal, without the proper medical intervention, can be fatal. As I’m weighing up in my mind what to do, I’m overcome with the conviction – do what he asks. It wasn’t like a voice speaking to me, rather just a conviction from outside me that it was the right thing to do.

Now, this isn’t necessarily the recommended procedure for dealing with people addicted to alcohol, but I didn't know what else to do.

So I thought, Great, I’m going to make a bad situation worse.

So I said to him, “Okay, I’ll do you a deal. I’ll buy you alcohol if you also let me buy you a sandwich.” Really tough deal-making that, wasn’t it? Obviously the man wasn’t going to say no.

So I helped him up – I remember his hand was dirty and it was missing the index finger. I walked with him up to the Tescos, and all the way there I had to force myself not to run ahead of him. On the way there, he told me that he’d been an alcoholic for 12 years, ever since he’d been burnt. He’d been sleeping in a garage in Headingly when someone poured petrol over him and set him alight. All the while, inside I’m begging, Oh please, Lord, save him! I don’t know what to do.

I asked him whether he was in contact with the people at St Anne’s, the Primary Care Trust for homeless people, and whether he knew a man I know there, John Walsh, the head of resettlement there. I do that whenever God makes me buy a sandwich for a homeless person. The man says, “Oh, yes, I know John Walsh, I’m supposed to meet him tomorrow. He’s organising to get me on a rehab programme in Scotland; I’m just waiting for a place to open up.”

Anyway, we get to the Tescos, we stop by the sandwiches first and he picks something out. Then he makes a beeline for the alcoholic section and when I ask him what he’d like he picks out the biggest bottle of cider he can find. And, I’m thinking, this is just getting worse. And I’ve never found a sales assistant quite so keen to get me through the tills as that morning. The service was great. Outside, the man turns to me and says, “No-one has ever done that for me. Thank you.”

So, I took his hand, with the mangled fingers, and I looked him straight in the eyes and said, “Now, promise me you’ll make your meeting with John tomorrow, right?” He nodded. I shook his hand, and managed to mumble, “God bless you”, and then scarpered as fast as I could without actually running. And all the way to the office I prayed, “God, do something, make him whole, save him.” The bit I forgot to do was to pray for him right there.

Anyway, a week or so later I saw the man again, again by the Unitarian Chapel, obviously blind drunk. And I thought, @&*%$! Got that one wrong then.

Then he disappeared. I kept on praying for him, whenever I remembered, but essentially I’d given up hope that anything would change. Then, at the beginning of the year, I was walking to my bus stop on The Headrow to catch the bus home, and I saw him again. He was standing by a shop. His clothes were clean, he’d had a shower not too long ago, and he was talking, quite lucidly, to another man. He looked just so much better than the last time I had seen him. I felt the urge to run over and shake his hand and cry, “You’re so-and-so, I bought you alcohol, and thank God you’re okay!” I didn’t, I felt way too awkward for that, but inside I was dancing. I haven’t seen him since.

Now, I have no idea what difference I made. But, I felt compassion. I did what I could, and I did what benefitted him in the circumstances, and I offered what little I could do to my Lord. And I prayed as hard as I could for my Lord to intervene, and to bring about justice.

As a result, the life of a man was saved and maybe a door was opened that enabled him to make his meeting with St Anne’s and be around to go into rehab. I have no idea. But I am certain that my Lord’s ability to do justice can overcome anything, even my dithering and awkwardness and incompetence. The outcome is not in my hands, mine is just to listen, and to obey.

To recap:

When we look at injustice in relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ:

We will not be trapped by guilt, we will feel compassion.

We will do justice in every part of our lives.

We will do what we can.

          And we will pray that the Lord of Heaven and Earth will intervene to establish his just rule.