March 17, 2009
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Social Justice
Heard a sermon recently about the call for justice.
I'm not going to belabour this point, because others have done it so much better than I can. The bottom line is that God's word speaks about his anger towards injustice in chapter after chapter, book after book. That we do not preach this more stridently at the pulpit is a travesty. The due conclusion of Christ-like love is Christ-like indignation over injustice.
If one were to be a lover, and one's beloved were passionately concerned with the state of his/her puppy, one would have to be emotionally stunted not to sympathize/empathize. Is it any wonder why we don't find our walks emotionally charging when we refuse to engage in mirroring God's thoughts?
Truncating our experience of God's word to mere internal reflections results in a truncated spiritual life and experience. It is like following a recipe to bake a beautiful cake, and stopping with getting out the flower. The fullness of life in Christ is predicated on a multifaceted obedience. To be a man after God's own heart, one must take God's point of view; At that point, I think it would be impossible not to be engaged in such affairs.
Comments (6)
Amen!
by being complacent, we are like the man forgetting what we look like even after we've just looked in the mirror. we are to serve. we are to act. afterall, we've been blessed with enough to show compassion and mercy to others.
Faith without works relevant to God’s created Earth is exactly why talking about heaven more than Earth is wrong: God’s justice, His righteousness (covenant faithfulness), is intrinsically tied up in His love and desire to save the ‘other’ that He’s created. ‘The due conclusion of Christ-like love is Christ-like indignation over injustice.’ Indeed.
We’re rescued by grace so that we can do what we were created for: doing good works under the supreme workmanship of God. Saved, being saved and to be saved, we can then work (by God’s Spirit alone and not by our flesh) for an Earth healed, renewed and glorified: that is, redeemed wholly from this present evil age.
nice to-the-point post. =)
I like your analogy of baking the cake by reading the recipe *and* getting out the flour. To continue with that analogy, one of the biggest point of paralysis may be how to get more Christians engaging in the spectrum of activities from getting out the recipe, studying it, prepping the ingredients (providing the ingredients), etc. so that a cake--and one that actually tastes good--will be produced according to the need for it.
There's more to this issue than meets the eye, but of course the point you addressed is *the* most important starting point--the desire to address it, out of the desire to commune closer with God.
I agree. We need to seek to understand issues so that we can empathize/sympathize and then most importantly, act to stop the injustice. No action is too small.
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