Spirituality and justice

Faith and justice are inseparable for Christians. The Christian story or narrative is about divine love revealed in the person of Jesus Christ and experienced in the world both inside and outside the Christian faith community in the life and spirit of the one who comes and dwells amongst heralding and building the Kingdom of God today. Our understanding of God as divine, compassionate and just is central to Christian belief. Jesus is the face of this belief and in his life, death and resurrection lived the fullness of God’s generosity and hospitality for the other. God’s purpose and dream for harmony and justice for the whole created order are to be seen and heard in the words of the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures, the lives and challenges of the prophets, in the wisdom literature and culminating in Jesus himself.

The prophet Micah wrote that Yahweh asks of you only this:

That you act justly, that you love tenderly, that you walk humbly with your God.

This hope, this expectation can be summed up in the biblical and Hebrew word Shalom – meaning all embracing peace in every sphere of life – wellbeing, harmony, completeness, prosperity, fullness, rest, the absence of discord and agitation.

When expanded shalom means:

• the peace of being in harmony with nature and the cosmos.
• peace based on justice and reconciliation in society and the world.
• peace in our relationship with family, friends and the community.
• a deep personal peace of being at home and at ease with one self.
• a willingness to be open to the gift and promise of God as the source of all life and being.

Two years ago I attended the Anglican Communion Conference on Justice and Peace in South Africa. It was a humbling and enriching experience. I recall still the worship experience in a local parish, in the heart of one of the most deprived shanty towns near Johannesburg. Here I experienced what I can only describe as one of those “life shaping experiences”. Here in the midst of squalor we celebrated the Sunday Eucharist together which expressed all the aspects and conditions of the human family. Amidst suffering, humiliation and abuse, stories of hope and resilience in the midst of depravation and exploitation, there were glimpses and commitments of faith – for some probably their only resource and explanation of their suffering and exploitation. All were brought to the altar and placed before God. Under great adversity, the people gathered. They shared a resilience and a commitment to each other and their God which expressed both a deep personal faith perspective as well as a desire for change. This was no mumbo jumbo response as the critics of religion would say no doubt, but rather a deep and yearning spirit for a common humanity which aspires, and seeks after justice – God’s justice of compassion, mercy, forgiveness and the sharing of the earth’s bounty. Here the spiritual belief in God, is part of the call to justice.

Faith and belief in God is not just some ideological or philosophical construct to suit a lifestyle, or a period of time, but rather one deeply rooted in the awe, transcendence and mystery of being. How easy it is for us here in Australia, from an affluent, secular, post modern and post Christian age. (Note the content of the recent bush fire service at Rod Laver Arena. Central were not our religious leaders but rather Politicians.)

The pursuit of justice, the agenda to build God’s kingdom, is, I suggest getting God’s agenda in harmony with our agenda. This is as much spiritual as it is economic or political. It presents a theocentric understanding and view of the world and its meaning and purpose. The Old Testament prophets understood this message in speaking to the Israelites. Listen to these words from the prophet Amos:

Is not this the fast that I choose:
To loose the bonds of injustice,
To undo the thongs of the yoke,
To let the oppressed go free,
And to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
And bring the homeless poor into your house;
When you see the naked, to cover them,
And not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
You shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
If you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.

The Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.

Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.

I was fortunate I believe in my own nurturing in the faith by my local parish church. While sin was spoken about, the clear message was that God was generous and forgiving and his justice and our relationship with God is as how Matthew 25 says it:

When did you feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless and bring good news to the poor?

These words echo the Lukan manifesto:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

The principles of these encounters, this seeking after justice are to be found in the Parables of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son and the Sermon on the Mount. Luke’s Gospel provides a clear mandate for preferential treatment for the outsider (Luke 4: 16-30) and coupled with Matthew’s Great Commission to bring in others to the fold, set the Church’s mission. They are incarnated in the words “You shall love your neighbour as yourself”. The parables of Jesus give the reader an insight to the being of God as just and compassionate, while at the same time confronting our own expectations and prejudice. Acceptance of this claim as the basis of a theology of justice and action provides the rationale and focus for pursuing a three fold mission agenda, namely proclamation, adoration and service, each together affirming the presence of the living God in the world (Doctrine of the incarnation). It allows the church through its parishes, sector ministries and community agencies to embrace both Matthew’s call to share the good news to everyone and Isaiah’s hope as told in Luke, as the vision for the Church, to build a just and compassionate community. Affirmed in the resurrection of Jesus is the on-going struggle for justice, the triumph of good over evil and the proclamation of God’s generosity and hospitality, an agenda which is both personal and social. Our participation in God’s justice means we share in the meaning of resurrection and redemption for the creation, not just as historical events but as conveyors of God’s ongoing dream. We are privileged to be co-partners in the ongoing revelation of the divine plan.

Discipleship, following in the footsteps of Jesus and Salvation, standing under the grace of God’s generosity cannot be limited to the personal without engagement with the communal. The latter remains central to the mission of Anglicares across Australia. Our work is not “just social work” as some claim. Rather, it is incarnational and guided by the disturbing Spirit of God calling us into places and times of pain, hurt, suffering and injustice. Our work is not an optional extra for those who seek to walk faithfully as a disciple in the footsteps of Jesus.

Paul, in his letter to the Church at Rome, reminds us how the whole of creation waits in hope in anticipation for the fulfilment of God’s plan, where all will live in harmony with their God and each other. Christians are called to work with God in fulfilling this promise – a promise which is both a here and now challenge, as well as a future event. This challenge is more than an individual’s responsibility. It exists at the heart and centre of our responses to God as a community of faith. A ministry of social justice, of reaching out to those in need, of advocating for the other, the refugee and the exploited, cannot be ignored or justified on ecclesiology ideological or economic grounds. It is an imperative grounded in Scripture and expressed by Jesus in his ministry. Christians are called to emulate Jesus in their own lives.

All this suggests that while we are called to have a personal relationship with God, this does not mean that our engagement with the world can be a private matter. Christians and the Church are called to engage with the world “As the Father sends me, so I send you”. Personal and social transformation, a life of fullness, not in the sense of the material, but in being in harmony with the whole of creation and the creation is what we bring as people of faith to a world broken and divided in so many places.

We do this not because it is the right or good thing to do but because engagement with the world and spirituality are two sides of the same coin. This is what we are called to be as “salt and light”; and as we engage and move forward into the world we can also be confident that despite God’s perceived absence at times, grounded and beside God stands. Whether it be in the midst of our own recent bush fires disaster or in Zimbabwe naming all that needs to be healed, naming exploitation and abuse remains a core activity of discipleship. Ministry of justice implies a priority for the other and so be us in our ministry today. This is a spiritual task and the recognition that our wholeness, our sense of being, meaning and purpose reaches beyond the immediate and the material. It is fulfilled in our relationship with the other and with the divine. Both are eternal and holy, awe inspiring and redemptive for us and for all.