To Do Justice

Sermon Series: "So What's So Hot About Christianity?"
This Sunday: " We Know How to Make the World Better!"

Today we look at the first part of yesterday’s trio of actions that Christianity offers to the world as a way to make it better by restoring it to the state of blessedness that is its birthright. To recap, that trio found in the book of the prophet Micah is:

·   To do justice

·   To love kindness

·   To walk humbly with God

“To do justice.” What does it mean to do justice? Some translations read “to do justly,” making what is a noun in the Hebrew into an adverb. “Mishpat” is variously translated as “judgment” and “justice.” It is derived from the Hebrew word, shaphat, which refers to the judgment rendered by a shophet, or judge. Implied in this definition of mishpat is the idea that one has the opportunity and right to take one’s case to a person outside of a conflict or controversy for arbitration and a fair hearing. AS in most things Biblical, the emphasis is on the nature of the relationships between persons, and how those relationships are grounded in their relationships with God and the rest of creation.

Juan Pusong III has an interesting blog about the Biblical concept of mishpat that seems to me to be an accurate summation of its various meanings. I invite you to visit it and reflect on his musings. 

The Oceanside Jewish Center publishes little Table Talks that are meant to be discussed over meals in a family and to probe deeply the relevance of the bible to everyday life. In one Table Talk entitled “Tzedakah U’mishpat: A Shared Mandate”, they share the following:

The terms tzedakah and mishpat appear hundreds of times in the bible. They are the very foundation of society and the standard by which we imitate the ways of God. For Abraham they are a mandate of his election by God. (While) tzedakah came to mean righteous giving in later Jewish literature, here the term has a different meaning. Rabbi Eliot Dorff suggests that the concept of justice has both a procedural and substantive meaning in Biblical literature, reflected in these two terms. There must a process for carrying out justice but there must ultimately certain standards and values by which justice is measured. A just society is not only a society in which all people are treated equally but one in which those who are must vulnerable, are protected by the laws and standards of society. Mishpat reflects the procedural means of effecting justice; tzedakah is a more comprehensive quality which goes beyond the letter of the law in pursuing the protection of all people in society, even those who are guilty. Tzedakah and mishpat, then, become a divine imperative and not just an instrument for the common good. What’s more, the more powerful one is, the greater is the mandate to assure the practice of justice and righteousness. Rabbi Dorff writes: “The Torah itself, and the sages even more, appreciated the fact that justice to become a reality in people’s lives, could not be left as a general value to which one mouths allegiance, but must be translated into concrete terms.” Maybe that is why the first mention of these terms involves a discussion in which Abraham takes his convictions to their most extreme and concrete conclusions. Parshat Va-yerah contains an answer to the question: what does it mean to be a blessing? The ‘way of the Lord’ was to pursue justice and to live righteousness.

In other places, I have ventured the following more generic definition of what justice should entail: “A minimum definition of justice is that all persons have the potential and opportunity to live lives of meaning and purpose, have unfettered access to the basic necessities of life, are free to choose the material and social conditions of their life and have equal power to influence political, and social decision-making processes.” This definition is designed to be secular in orientation, and applicable across religious, social and national borders.

Justice is based upon what some religious traditions call “right relationship.” The idea of right relationship is predicated upon the recognition that all things in the world (and universe) are connected to one another through a complex network of relationships, and the nature of these relationships can either contribute to the well-being of things, or to their detriment.  Right relationships are those that are conducive to well-being.

When one speaks of right relationship, one is also by implication speaking of community – and in particular the cohesive health of that community.  Of course, this extends not only to the human members of a community, but also needs to extend to the non-human members of the larger community as well.

Issues of environmental degradation and social and economic inequities  are inter-related.  At root of all three issues lies the fact that industrialism reduces the individual into an entity divorced from the “outside world” and reduces the world to a pile of “raw materials” to be consumed and manipulated by the autonomous individual.  This leads to an alienation between the members of society as well as alienation of people from the natural world.  Whenever anyone or anything is considered to expendable, consumable or whose worth is measured simply in terms of their utility to someone else, then the conditions of right relationship are not being met. It is in this way that the connections between environmental justice and social justice within the human community become transparent.

But this sermon series is looking closely at what particular things that Christianity has to offer that can transform human individuals and human communities and thereby make the world a better place. What does the life and death and teachings of Jesus Christ offer to our quest for doing or creating justice? I phrase it this way, because the Hebrew phrase translated “do justice” can also read “make, create or establish justice.” Justice is something that is the result or product of the creative, constructive efforts of human beings. It should not only characterize our actions themselves, but also become a tangible product or resultant way of being.

Jesus certainly was in the line of prophetic proclamations concerning Justice. At one point he argues with the scribes and other religious leaders by saying “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former” (Matthew 23:23).

In 1972, the Mennonite Biblical scholar John Howard Yoder wrote a book entitled The Politics of Jesus, which shook the foundations of Christian ethical thought at the time. In that book, Yoder applied one consistent question to the life and teachings of Jesus: “Is there here a social ethic?” (pp. 22-23) His hypothesis was that “the ministry and claims of Jesus are best understood as presenting to men not the avoidance of political questions, but one particular social-political-ethical option” (p. 23).

Yoder looks closely at one particular Gospel, the Gospel According to Luke. In that Gospel he uncovers hundreds of references that only make sense when viewed from their social and political context. And, of course, when we speak about “justice,” we necessarily speak of political systems. Here I am not talking about political parties, as common parlance would have it, but how we order our lives as self-governing communities. That is what is meant by politics in this context.

There is not space to rehearse all of the social ramifications found in the Gospels, but they are well-established in Christian literature. Tomorrow, I will investigate a few of these examples in relationship to the life, death and teaching of Jesus Christ. On Wednesday I will look at what it means to love kindness, and on Thursday I will look at walking humbly with God.

(Images: Prophet Micah from https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic-EJF2jLwFOta_cdY2zPvQhEAxmbg6pfHXsj9SFVnTM4GiChegvyj26fV5rlAsvI-faZelffgez_hStYbHiuJ951BkwxxIAbwj-dhZSo7MvgWTKlq4AggeF8BK3ms5vbujqJ2xk6kNRk/s400/N07WG208A1C.jpg; John oward Yoder from http://www.afriendlyletter.com/index.php/page/4/; icon of Jesus from my own picture files)