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Trendy Justice

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 been made aware of the great injustices facing our world today. The fact that people across racial, cultural, and socio-economic borders are being made aware of injustice globally, nationally, and in our own back yards 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 hr famine. In the past couple years pop culture has helped to fuel the fire as celebrities adopt children, build schools, and throwing huge concerts to raise both awareness and finances in the collective fight against poverty, AIDS, and the injustices of war around the world.

I love what is going on in this way, and am excited to be a part of this movement in whatever way I can. That said, I do have some questions and concerns:

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 world view. At first glance this motivation seems harmless, if not logical. The reality is, it does feel amazing to see justice come to a situation, and to now 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. 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' that God has called us to, and it will never be 'Trendy'.

Earlier this year I found myself in the middle of a mind blowing situation. A woman named Marg approached me on behalf of a friend who needed help. Marg's 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 Margs friend had lived the past number of 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 friends 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.) 2-3 days went by without a response, and so I took it up with the Pastor at the church we're attending. He asked me to share the need on Sunday morning, and in turn I was able to gather a group of 6 to go and clean the house on 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, rotten take out, and 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.

At one point I was standing knee deep in garbage with a shovel, when a client of mine who'd joined the clean up crew asked me: "so… this woman was just depressed!?" His eyes filled with tears, as this man who has fought with depression personally, connected with the magnitude of what this lady must have experienced for things to get this far. I couldn't help but think that He had somehow connected with Christ's heart for the situation in a way that I hadn't.

It was in that moment that I realized how far I have to go towards 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 when he said:

"learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow." Isaiah 1.17

In addition to the fact that Trendy Justice tends to be very fragile when the rubber hits the road, there is a much larger issue at it's core. Trendy Justice lacks hope. Ultimately a sandwich, 30/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 be 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 towards light in the midst of darkness.

¹ In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He existed in the beginning with God. ³ God created everything through him, and nothing as created except through him. ⁴ The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. ⁶ God sent a man, John the Baptist,⁷ to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. ⁸ John himself was not the light; he was simply a witness to tell about the light. ⁹ The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world." John 1.1-9

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'). God 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 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:

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. 2 Corinthians 4.6-7

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 3rd, 2009 at 12:27 pm and is filed under lessons, stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “Trendy Justice”

Jon Says:
May 4th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Social justice is popular these days, but only anonymously and in small amounts. If you can give lunch to a farmer in Cuba by buying your latte at a fair-trade coffee shop or tattooing an equals sign on your wrist, you’re hailed for your social responsibility, but you go largely unnoticed if you build an orphanage in a war-devastated country.

At Emmaus, we’ve been going through Proverbs, and I can’t count how many times a proverb is coupled with a result like “that it may go well with you” or “that you may live long in the land”; in other words, the whole motivation for doing good is the good you get from it. Now, James has explained that Proverbs was written as “Torah for Dummies” for Judah. At the time, Israel was in captivity, and Judah turned to God so that they wouldn’t have to be in exile as well, and so the writers played into that a lot. Still, while reading it, I couldn’t help but think that it was against everything I’d learnt from both instruction and experience. Doing good things doesn’t always result in good things happening back to you. As Pastor Ron says, obedience and service shouldn’t be out of a spirit of compulsion and obligation but rather as a natural expression of love for God.

That said, God created that awesome feeling inside that we get from doing good, not so we can pat ourselves on the back, but because He wants us to know that someone cares when we work hard for a good cause. Yeah, we get a reward, but we’re working for God. As Colossians 3:23 says,

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ You are serving.
James Says:
May 4th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
I hear you chad. Having worked with a few NGOs over the past year and a half, I've seen both how "trendy justice" has helped and hindered. On one hand, aside from motives, the average individual is more aware of issues going on, and are more likely to help. On the other hand, if that desire to help isn't rooted in anything deeper, that desire goes away quicker. I've noticed that when money gets tight, supporting non-profits (Christian and non Christian) drops way down the priority list, if not completely off. While money isn't the be all and end all, it is an indicator of our values, and at the end of the day, most NGOs aren't self sufficient. The other problem I see with "trendy justice" is that it only caters to a select few. If you supported whatever was trendy at the moment, you were considered socially conscious and responsible. I remember back a few years ago when all things Africa were trendy. I wasn't one of the ones, who particularly cared for Africa, and often felt like an outsider. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't that I didn't care for Africa at all, or didn't think there were worthy causes/efforts there, but it wasn't where my heart was. I suspect I wasn't the only one.