“To me, faith in Jesus Christ that is not aligned with social justice, that is not aligned with the poor—it’s nothing.”
–Bono
As the soldier played with the safety of his M-16 assault rifle, I
thought I was going to be sick. It seemed like an awful nightmare, but
I was awake—more fully awake than at any previous moment of my life.
It
was November 1992. Desarmes, Haiti. After a coup d’etat, the
paramilitary Macoutes no longer merely terrorized the countryside; they
were actually running it. And they wielded an iron fist in this village
in the Haitian outback. Groups larger than three could not meet without
a permit. Youth groups and farmers’ co-ops were forbidden. Checkpoints
monitored traffic on the dirt roads.
Lares, a Haitian national serving the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC)
as an agricultural trainer, had been arrested for allegedly
distributing a disparaging letter against the local military chief. The
soldiers had hog-tied him and beaten him with clubs about the head,
ears, back, and thighs. Now they also declared their true intentions:
“Tonight, we will get drunk and beat him to death. By morning, he will
be dead. No bribe will change our minds.”
Now Ron, our MCC host and tour guide, stood face-to-face with an armed
guard and spoke out boldly in Creole: “God is your judge and he is
watching you! You must stand before him some day. He sees you now and
you will have to answer to him. He will hold you to account for this!
He will not tolerate this injustice. Set this man free now!”
Questions began to race through my mind. Would they really kill Lares?
Would they kill Ron? Would they dare? What about me? Could I escape
with my wife, now six months pregnant? God? Where are you? What are you
doing? What should we do?
As I listened, the Lord spoke:
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of
injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and
to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to
clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood (Isaiah
58:6–7)?
God continued: “You can no longer spiritualize those verses away. This
is very real, and it is exactly what Isaiah is talking about.”
But how? How could we liberate this literal prisoner, tied as he was in
actual nylon cords, from an armed, flesh-and-blood oppressor? To break
this stalemate would only serve to escalate the crisis, would it not?
Silence. I watched and waited, focusing on keeping my head and my
bowels together. Ron would not back down. He believed that without
witnesses like us around, the Macoutes would work up the courage to
kill Lares. A crowd began to gather. Mugginess and tension weighed down
on us. We cried out to the Lord in prayer, but despair threatened to
win the day.
Sheep or Goat?
I was beginning to see through the blindness of those who accuse
Christian organizations like MCC and Christian PeaceMaker Teams of
being “too political.” I had heard it before and even asked it myself:
“Shouldn’t stick to relief work or channel their energies into
‘soul-winning’? In the Haitian context, where life and death stand out
in stark contrast every day, souls are people. And the people are
naked, starving, and oppressed. There is no fence of ambiguity to
straddle. You can walk away in silent acquiescence to the misery and
evil or you can speak out and act for justice and mercy, hoping to
overcome evil with good.
Now I was getting a crash-course on kingdom justice and mercy. I was
coming to realize they are not merely temporal matters of politics or
philanthropy that can be isolated from one’s spiritual life. They are
of eternal importance and will be addressed when Christ renders
verdicts on Judgment Day:
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he
will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 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, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”
(Matthew 25:31–40)
When the Day of Judgment comes, what we have done or neglected to do
for the naked, the hungry, the prisoner, the sick, and the oppressed
will be identified with what we did or did not do for the King. He will
ask: “Did you feed me and clothe me or did you not? Did you welcome me,
visit me, comfort me, free me, or not? You either came to me or
abandoned me. If you helped them, you helped me. If not, I don’t
believe I know you.”
On that day, whether we were “left” or “right” in our earthly politics
will matter little when the divine judge beckons us to his left or his
right. Whether we were conservative or liberal in our theology will
flee from our minds. Even whether we said “the magic prayer” might seem
shallow in that moment. But whether or not we did justice, loved mercy,
and walked humbly with God will be of paramount concern (Micah 6:8).
The New Testament teaches that we are saved by faith in the grace of
God and not by good deeds (Ephesians 2:8–9). However, it also states
that a truly living faith will not fail to reproduce the character of
Christ in our lives, by which I mean our actions (James 2:26). It is
not enough to merely listen to God. The ministries of Matthew 25 are
not afterthoughts of Christian charity held in place with refrigerator
magnets. They are the foundation of the very throne of God!
“Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and
faithfulness go before you. Blessed are those who have learned to
acclaim you, who walk in the light of your presence, O LORD” (Psalm
89:14). Once we have heard, we must follow through with action.
Lilut
Back to Haiti. As I stood there trembling, a little boy with a bright
white, perfectly ironed shirt approached me. Lilut was eleven years
old, with dark black skin and bright white teeth. In the middle of this
moment of hell, he smiled at me and began to rub my back. I saw Jesus
looking at me through those big eyes. They said, “It’s going to be
okay.”
Ron continued to lay his life on the line, demanding immediate release
of the prisoner. The guard rebutted: “We cannot release him without a
court order.” What an odd “justice” system. You could arrest, sentence,
and punish a man without so much as a warrant or any shred of evidence,
but to free him required a trial.
“Then let’s go to the judge,” Ron countered.
“The judge is in the next town,” the guard replied.
“Then we’ll go to the next town.”
“We have no truck.”
Ron pulled out his keys. “We’ll take my truck.”
Under pressure from Ron, the foreign witnesses, and now the entire
village, the captors finally ran out of excuses. They loaded the
prisoner and a handful of soldiers into the back of Ron’s pick-up and
disappeared with Ron at the wheel. We waited and prayed that evening
and throughout the night. What would happen? What if they didn’t
return? What would happen to Ron? What if the soldiers came for us
next? What if…?
Eventually, the Lord eventually broke through my troubled thoughts with
his peace. In retrospect, was it God who suggested I have some dry
bread with avocado to settle my stomach? I don’t know, but it was a
good idea, because after that I was finally able to get a little sleep.
Next morning, we heard the truck returning. Villagers poured out of
their homes and lined the riverbed that doubled as their main road. The
whole crew was returning, but now the ropes had been removed from
Lares. Our MCC friend stood in the truck-box smiling and waving at the
crowds in this impromptu remake of Jesus’ triumphal entry into
Jerusalem. He was free. Men, women, and children began to chant in
unison, “God is able! God is able!”
Clarion
As our ears tune in to the heart of God, we sense his compassion for
the world and his grief over its brokenness. We sense his anger at
systems that keep the broken underfoot, but also his invitation to a
better way. And we sense his call to be watchmen (not just watchers)
who sound the alarm (without being alarmist): “Blow the trumpet in
Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill. Let all who live in the land
tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming. It is close at hand” (Joel
2:1). We’re called to speak up, not as mere critics, but as messengers
of Christian truth and love and hope in its personal and social
dimensions.
In Clarion, we have pooled a diversity of voices to blow the collective
trumpet (and sometimes the whistle), calling for the remarriage of
faith and social concern. From the university lectern to the local
coffee shop, we’ve gathered thinkers, writers, and artists to share
their thoughts publicly. Herein, we’ll endeavor to define, engage, and
reflect on a broad range of themes concerning spirituality and justice.
We hope you’ll hear our hearts, but also God’s heart. Those who have
ears: let them hear what the Spirit is saying.