Justice is Social

"And in His name all oppression shall cease…"

The Column of Justice by Tadda stands in  Piazza SantaTrìnita in Florence, Italy. This  granite column from Rome's Baths of  Caracalla  was the gift of Pope Pius IV in 1560  to the first Grand Duke of Florence.

My friend Célestin lost six family members, including his brother, in the Rwandan genocide. One day a man came to Célestin to be baptized wearing a shirt my friend recognized as having belonged to his deceased brother. When Célestin asked about it, the man said his relative killed the guy who wore it. Célestin wanted to drown this person instead of baptizing him. But he remembered that Jesus had died for them both.

Today Célestin and that man he baptized—the brother of his own brother’s murderer—serve together as ministry partners. Célestin went on to write his doctoral dissertation on forgiveness, coauthoring the book Forgiving As We’ve Been Forgiven: Community Practices for Making Peace, and to found ALARM—African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministry.

People often take social justice to mean the social gospel, which for many evokes connotations of all good works and no God. Certainly we can add nothing to the work done for us on the cross by Jesus Christ. But the good news from on high actually does have social ramifications. When we follow God, it should make us different, not so we can earn his favor (one who knows Christ already has that) but to reflect that the Spirit has set us free and controls us.

Through the prophet Malachi, God told the ancient Israelites that their righteousness needed to have certain characteristics. He wanted his people to be faithful to him, faithful to spouses, faithful to keep promises, fair to their workers, merciful to widows and orphans, and committed to helping immigrants (Mal. 3:5).

In the Old Testament, righteousness and justice are often the same word. And the sort of justice connected with righteousness is not about simply doling out a punishment someone deserves. It’s about making right the wrong, which goes far beyond making the punishment fit the crime. It has an element of restoration.

That is why the term I prefer for this sort of whole-person approach is "restorative justice." It requires more than punitive action such as a jail sentence. It requires restitution and reconciliation—a genuine demonstration of remorse with an apology and attempts to right wrongs.

Each of us should be living out such justice, as it sets free both oppressed and oppressor. As I once heard author Shane Claiborne say, in addition to loving the poor, God also “loves the 1 percent rich who are suffering, though not suffering in the same ways as the poor, but they have high rates of loneliness, depression, and suicide.” We are to emulate the one who preached “good news to the poor; set free the captives” (Luke 4:18), which by implication also includes the oppressors, who live in bondage to self. The Spirit frees both oppressed and oppressor.

Have you been completely faithful to God? Have you always affirmed marriage? Have you kept all your promises? Been completely unbiased with workers? Shown mercy to widows and orphans? Reached out to help immigrants? If not, repent and receive his grace. With his power you can be the kind of person who models the kind of righteousness God desires.

Have you suffered from injustice? Has someone broken promises to you? Has your spouse failed to uphold his vows? Has an employer mistreated you? Are you a widow or orphan or immigrant, lacking social power? Have you had to watch as someone you love endured a great injustice? If so, know that the just God, the one who rules over all, will someday right every wrong you’ve endured and make all things new.

© Sandra Glahn, 2013. Adapted from Chai with Malachi. Thanks to Ed Cyzewski for running this post on his blog this month. You can read responses there. Merry Christmas!

Time to Take Inventory?

My Tapestry post for this week: 

Imagine you’ve invited all your relatives and neighbors to a banquet. Instead of serving turkey or ham with pie for dessert, what would happen if you emptied the garbage onto the table where the platter of meat goes? And after that, what if you told your guests to “dig in”? Think they’d like it? Think they’d say, “What a fine feast—let’s invite the president next year”? What would your actions say about how much you regarded your guests?

We wouldn’t think of treating other humans that way, yet these actions come close to those of the children of Israel during the prophet Malachi’s lifetime. They offered their wilted stuff to God. Leftovers. Garbage. And God objected to their bringing “what is stolen, lame, or sick” as an offering. He asked, “Should I accept this from you?”

Their gifts revealed how little they regarded the recipient. So Malachi had a message from the Lord for the people: You’ve given fourth-class gifts to a first-class God. “I have loved you!” but “You have robbed Me!"

I grew up in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, a fertile plain, with a river running through it. We had plenty of water and good soil. Dad worked a government job, but to help support his wife and five kids, he had a one-acre garden in addition to a pear orchard and a Christmas tree farm. He was good at it, too. Every year he would set aside the largest, most exquisitely formed pears and exhibit them in the Oregon State Fair. Sometimes his rhubarb was good enough to enter, too. Or a mammoth squash would make it all the way to the judges’ booth. For his display, Dad chose only the biggest and the best—the choicest fruit. And afterward he lined his walls with award ribbons.

When you’re heading to the judge’s booth, you take your best stuff. And that’s the kind of quality God expects from his people. The finest. That which is most excellent. The goods they might show off.

What kind of gifts are you offering to God? Time to take inventory?

Money – Are you giving regularly to support those who care for your spiritual health? When you give to missions, do you throw cash at whomever happens to have sent you a request letter when your have your checkbook out, or do you think strategically about local and global works?

Work – Do you view your occupation, whether volunteer or for pay, as an act of service that requires your best? Do you view your world as your mission field? God may not have called you to full-time, paid ministry, but he has definitely called you to holiness and to sharing with your neighbors. Are you ministering to coworkers, praying for them and encouraging them?

Community life – Do you give as well as taking in your church community? Do you allow yourself to receive? Do you have a community where you can share freely without hiding? What about your larger community? What volunteer work would make the best use of your time, talents, and spiritual gifts? Are you “stretching forth your hand to the needy”?

Marriage – If married, do you make your time as a couple a great priority, or does your relationship get your leftovers? A Christian leader I know determined to spend as much effort on her marriage as she spent becoming an excellent employee worth promoting. And what a difference that choice has made! The goal of marriage is oneness. So, what needs to happen for you to be fully united with your spouse? Could you benefit from a few sessions of counseling to strengthen what’s already good? Do you need a weekend away?

Parenting – If you are a parent, do you use the television as a babysitter? Do you groan when the kids get home from school because their presence means you have to stop doing what you enjoy? Or are you intentional about how you spend time with them? How can you think ahead about family prayer time and directed dinner conversations? 

Health – How well do you manage the body God has given you? Do you eat right, viewing even how you eat as an act of worship and stewardship? Do you get the exercise you need? What about rest and stress management? Should you get off the couch, or could you benefit from more couch time?

Personal Development – Are you growing spiritually? Do you pray for yourself and your needs? Do you have talents you need to invest in developing? To what, if anything, do you listen during car or subway time? Do you need to set reading goals? Cancel or subscribe to some magazines? Have a hard talk with someone about your future?

The apostle Paul urges his readers to present their bodies to God as living sacrifices. What kind of sacrifice are you bringing with your life?

Adapted from Chai with Malachi (AMG). 

God Hates Divorce—But He Did It!

Here's my latest Tapestry post:

Often when we talk about a biblical view of divorce, we quote Malachi: “God hates divorce” (2:16). And it’s true. He does. But does that mean God hates the actions of anyone who initiates a legal divorce?

God himself said he divorced Israel (Isa. 50:1; Jer. 3, and possibly Hosea). And of course God is God, so he can do whatever he pleases. Nevertheless, many wonder…if God hates divorce, did he hate his own actions? To answer this question, we need to look at the context of Malachi’s statement.

God’s words, “I hate divorce,” follow an accusation against husbands who chose to do violence to their covenant marriages by divorcing godly wives, leaving them for idol-worshiping younger women. After these unfaithful husbands linked up with pagan women, the men cried out to God because he refused to hear them.  

This situation in Malachi’s day differs from God’s use of metaphor to show how he felt about the disobedience of his people. In the latter case, God divorced Israel to bring the nation to repentance. It was a love-motivated move with the desire for reconciliation at its core. What a contrast to what the men in Malachi’s day were doing!

Reconciling God’s hatred of divorce with his own actions does leave some questions unresolved. But we can make two essential observations:

• The cause: God divorced only in the case of repeated, unrepentant sin. What destroyed the relationship was not the divorce per se. The divorce merely called the marriage covenant what it already was: severed.

• The reason: God divorced in response to hardness of heart in hopes that his drastic action would bring ultimate restoration for the offending party.

The fact that God divorced Israel leaves room for the option that divorce may be a last resort in addressing the hardness of a spouse’s heart. This would explain why in the New Testament we find Paul telling a believer to avoid resisting the departure of an unbeliever and to choose peace rather than fighting. He grounds this option in our calling: “For God has called us to peace” (1 Cor. 7:15).

What is your view of divorce? Does it align with Scripture—that it’s best use is love in response to hardness of heart? Whether or not you are married, what is your view of marriage? Do you see it as our culture (even the Christian subculture) often does, as existing only for romance, affection, and self-fulfillment? Or do you view it as a covenant before God, designed to picture Christ and the church (Eph. 5:22–33), and an image of oneness? If we view marriage as being like an interconnected head and body rather than as a business partnership or a romantic flame, it is easier for us to see the ruining of such a relationship as an act of violence—a beheading. God is far more concerned about his glory, about faithfulness, about developing godliness than he is about fulfilling our desires for passion, romance, and fulfillment. And he is also concerned that the rebellious turn back to him.

In Malachi’s day (about 430 B.C.), men had more social power than women. But today, especially in the west, women have much more control. Consequently, the sort of behavior that Malachi addresses is less sex-specific among God’s people now than it was in his time. We see professing Christian men and women engaging in relationships of serial monogamy, leaving Christ-following spouses to remarry "something better," having no concern for their testimonies.  

If married, do you honor your covenant before God? Whether married or free, do you respect that a married person to whom you may be attracted is someone else’s spouse by law—the law of the land and the law of God? Do you treat marriage with violence or honor? And if you are being treated with violence by a hard-hearted spouse, do you have the courage—by faith—to show some tough love so that he might repent?

Adapted from Chai with Malachi (AMG), the latest in the Coffee Cup Bible Study series. 

My Latest Book Arrives!

Book number ten in the Coffee Cup Bible Study series has finally arrived. Chai with Malachi brings readers face-to-face with the sovereign God of past, present, and future—the one who keeps His promises to discipline and bless His people so that He will be known among the nations.

Through penetrating use of rhetorical questions, “Lord Sabaoth” (the Lord of the angel armies) reveals the justice and mercy required for His people to spread His renown in all the earth. And with that revelation comes a promise that the “sun of righteousness will arise with healing in its wings.”

Designed for group or individual study, Chai with Malachi guides readers through an encounter with “the Lord who rules over all,” a phrase that appears numerous times in a few short chapters.

My former student Malia Rodriguez joins me for a section that examines the 400 silent years between the Book of Malachi and Christ’s birth. The book also contains a leader's guide that contains a special Advent-themed bonus section for those choosing to do the study during the Christmas season.