A curious thing began to happen to me some time ago. It is my habit to
read through the newspaper most days. I found that increasingly
articles about injustice began to really bother me. I was getting
angrier than I ever had before. I was beginning to feel very strong
emotions when I read about the suffering of others. One day I read an
article that described the horrific abuse of a child. A wave of emotion
washed through me and I began to weep. Tears poured out of my eyes and
I hastily wiped them away, trying to retain some sense of composure. I
was, after all, sitting in a coffee shop surrounded by people. I was
overcome with deep sorrow for this child, and at the same time, I felt
a rage rising up within me towards those who had caused this child’s
terrible suffering. I wanted to turn the page, to shut off the
emotions, which were so raw and almost too painful to handle.
Then
I felt the gentle whisper of the Lord and He seemed to say to me, “You
are feeling a fraction of what I feel for this little one. You are
weeping because I am weeping. Your heart is hearing my heart-cry for
that child.” I paused and considered what I felt the Lord had spoken to
me. I chose not to turn the page. I chose to let the sorrow I was
feeling run its course because I love God and I wanted to show Him that
I would care about what He cared about so much. After that experience,
something changed within me. There have been many times now that I have
found myself weeping or becoming angry over the injustices that I read
about or see in the news. Each time this happens, I know that I am
feeling something of what God feels about those situations. He has set
me on a journey to know Him more deeply. I have begun to know the God
who loves justice and hates injustice.
Justice is at the very heart, core and centre of God’s nature. If
anything can get under the heavenly Father’s skin, it is when justice
is corrupted and injustice is perpetrated. He expects and calls those
who are His people to live and act justly and to have nothing to do
with injustice. Justice weaves itself through God’s character for all
His ways are just. How important is justice? Micah 6:8 lists it as a
requirement of God’s people:
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require
of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your
God.
In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus tells us that there are two commandments
that sum up all of the Law and the Prophets, two keys by which to live
our lives:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and
with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the
second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.
Our love for God is a commitment of our entire being; thus we are
committed to who He is and to submitting ourselves to Him. We cannot
help but embrace justice as He does, and stand opposed to injustice as
He does. If we are those who love our neighbors as ourselves, then
there cannot possibly be any room in our lives to engage in injustice
towards others, for that would be contrary to loving them. Love
requires that we treat others justly and with respect.
God is deeply concerned with justice. He expects us to live justly and
to care about the injustices in our society and our world. The Church
as the community of Christ is called to be a people of love, a people
of justice and a voice that speaks out about issues of justice. The
prophets of the Old Testament were called on by God to speak boldly
about the injustices present in Israel and in the nations surrounding
her. They expose the truth and the reality of what was going on. That
same prophetic voice resides within the church today; we are to be the
voice of the Spirit speaking out the truth and the reality of what is
happening around us. Does this feel overwhelming? For most of us it is
not a question of whether we should care about justice. We know that we
should, we know that God does. “But,” we ask, “where do I begin? How do
I become someone who genuinely cares?” For if we respond to God’s call
to be those who act justly and love others solely out of obedience to
something we have read or hear, we will not have a deep foundation for
caring about the social issues that surround us? What is the foundation
that we can build on? It begins with a response on our part: we want to
be those who are passionate about justice because God has called us to
be children like their Father. Then we must engage this God who is, and
hence loves justice.