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By Chad Block
NOT SURE if you’ve noticed, but social justice is the new black! What I mean is, it’s become really trendy to get involved, to make a difference, to embrace
justice.
I love some of what’s resulted from this collective social conscience. Organizations like Invisible Children and Bono’s ONE campaign are examples of an ever growing and incredibly impressive list of
groups deeply moved to ‘do something,’ having learned of the great injustices facing our world. The fact that people
across racial, cultural, and socio-economic borders are being made aware of
injustice globally, nationally and in our own backyards, is nothing shy of
incredible.
Youth groups strive to ‘go green’ at their schools, our fridges are covered in $30/month children, and every year
hundreds of Canadians go without food for the 30 Hour Famine.
In recent years, pop culture has helped to fuel the fire – as celebrities adopt children, build schools and throw huge concerts to raise
both awareness and finances in the collective fight against poverty, AIDS and
wars around the world.
I am excited to participate in this movement, in whatever way I can. That said,
I do have some questions and concerns.
First, I must ask: Why? What is our motivation in ‘doing good’? I fear that for many, the desire to get involved is rooted in a very selfish
place. We give because it makes us feel good.
I have talked with countless people who can strongly articulate the idea that
they give because it ‘feels good.’ The truth is that for many of us, Christian and non-Christian alike, ‘if it feels good – do it’ is at the core of our worldview.
At first glance, this motivation seems harmless, even logical. It does feel
amazing to see justice come to a situation, and to know you were a part of that
process. There are huge issues, though, when this becomes our sole motivation.
First of all, our efforts will be very short-lived and inadequate when it comes
to accomplishing anything in the big picture. I am daily reminded of the fact
that justice is only a ‘feel good’ experience on the surface.
Handing out sandwiches will only cut it for a short time. Eventually, these
exchanges will connect us with a person – with a face, a name, a story and a deep need for much more than a sandwich. Suddenly the reality of the situation jumps up and slaps us in the face, and it
no longer ‘feels good’ to give. In fact, it threatens to become incredible scary, messy, and costly.
This is the ‘justice ministry’ God has called us to – and it will never be ‘trendy.’
Earlier this year, a woman named Marg approached me on behalf of a friend. Her
friend was an elderly woman who had recently undergone a hip replacement. She
had been taken to the hospital for surgery, and Marg needed help getting her
house cleaned, so they could move her back in.
The task of cleaning this house was no small order, because Marg’s friend had lived for years in severe depression. The effects of this deep
depression had kept her from doing even the most basic of household duties.
Marg described the state of her friend’s house, and challenged me over and over with the fact that I really had no idea
how bad it was.
I put a call out to our local churches to recruit some help, and made no attempt
to glorify the request – knowing that if things were half as bad as Marg was saying, I’d only get myself in trouble if I was anything but upfront with the details. A
few days went by without a response, and so I took it up with the pastor of my
church. He asked me to share the need on Sunday morning. I was able to gather a
group of six to go and clean the house the following Wednesday.
When we arrived, the state of the house was beyond what any of us had expected:
filled with four years of garbage and rotten take-out food, with human urine in
milk jugs.
The smell almost made me sick a number of times. We separated the empty pop
bottles from the rest, and were able to use the $150 in returns to pay for one
of the three dumpsters we used to have the garbage hauled away.
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At one point, as I stood shoveling knee-deep garbage, one of the clean-up crew
asked me: “So . . . this woman was just depressed?” His eyes filled with tears. This man, who has fought depression personally,
connected with the magnitude of what this lady must have experienced for things
to go this far. I realized that he had somehow connected with Christ’s heart for the situation, in a way I had not.
It was in that moment that I knew how far I have to go toward understanding God’s heart for justice. It is a justice that goes far beyond trendy, or an action
of self gratification. It is the very act of setting right the wrongs in this world, and it is far
beyond our ability to accomplish.
It is an answer to the call of Isaiah 1:17: “Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of
the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.”
Trendy justice tends to be very fragile when the rubber hits the road. But there
is a much larger issue: trendy Justice lacks hope. Ultimately, a sandwich, $30
per month, school fees for a year, clean drinking water, AIDS drugs . . . it’s just not enough.
What we need is a saviour. We need someone who can bring complete justice – and not one of us can fully do that for another. The good news, however is that
“light has come into the world.” There is hope – because in the darkness of injustice, there is a light.
True justice shines when our actions and efforts are flooded by, filled with and
pointed toward light in the midst of darkness. As it says in John 1:9, “The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, [came] into the
world.”
As the church, we must not get seduced by the ‘feel good’ experience of trendy justice. Instead, we need to surrender our very lives to
the cause – an act that will never be ‘mainstream.’ The Lord is a God of justice, and we desperately need to catch his heart for
the injustices that surround us. Let us pray that his kingdom will come, in the
face of injustice on earth, as it is in heaven.
The Bible challenges us to “not become weary in doing good.” A deeper look at this passage in Galatians 6 teaches us that “the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” Justice that is self-motivated and self- manufactured will not cut it. Instead
it must be the result of the Spirit in us.
For truly, as 2 Corinthians 4.6-7 states:
“God, who said, ‘Let there be light in the darkness,’ has made this light shine in our hearts – so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. We
now have this light shining in our hearts; but we ourselves are like fragile
clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great
power is from God, not from ourselves.”
The preceding is taken from Chad Block’s weblog, ‘Life as I Live it,’ which is found at chadblock.ca. Block is a worship leader affiliated with the
Vineyard Church, who works for the Salvation Army in the Comox Valley. He is
preparing to release a CD. Several selections from it can be found on his blog.
December 2009
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