Justice for All

Last weekend I attended The Justice Conference in Portland. The conference founder, Ken Whytsma, in the first session expressed a desire that God would crush us. Crush us so that we might be moved to action.

All too often we are inspired, moved or convicted through witnessing an event or hearing someone’s heart.  We have every intention of acting on it, yet the fire dwindles and nothing is changed.  I have continued to reflect on all I heard and learned last weekend, but my everyday life is crowding it out.  But what I must remember is that the everyday lives of others are nowhere near as plentiful, safe, or nourished.  I must not allow my everyday life to blind me to the reality of theirs.  As a means to keep these issues at the forefront of my mind, I share with you the nuggets of wisdom I gleaned from the conference. I cannot possibly render their words as well as they did, but this might serve to remind me and inspire you.  

• Ken Whytsma pushed us to recognize that when we ignore the need of another, we are denying that person’s significance to God. He asked us to rethink our concept of righteousness: that it is not personal piety or morality, but rather embodying and doing justice.  Furthermore, he encouraged us that working for justice is a way to know and experience God because it’s His nature, much as we know our friends and loved ones better by participating with them in their passions.
• Waltern Brueggemann (apart from being entirely adorable) exposed the religious leaders of Jesus’ day as perceiving Jesus as a threat to their socio-economic structure that depended on the labor of the vulnerable.  So, too, we, as His followers, are to be a threat to the establishment of our current socio-economic structure.
• Richard Twiss, president of Wiconi International, urged us to no longer look upon the Native Americans as a mission field, but co-equal participants in the life, work and mission of Jesus Christ. He asked us to know the tribes of the area we live in and become involved in relationship with them.
• Rick McKinley, pastor at Imago Dei Community, reminded us that apathy and self-interest blind us to the needs of our neighbor. He was passionate about the possibility of justice being done neighborhood by neighborhood. We should be prompted to give, and give, and give because ‘all is given, nothing is earned.’ And all is given so that we might share and no one would have need.
• John M. Perkins urged us to emulate the Samaritan who crossed racial boundaries to be the neighbor to the Jew who was near death.  In his words, to live a life of justice will be a marathon, not a sprint, but that we can persevere through confession and acknowledgement of our sin and need for God.
• Rachel Lloyd, founder of GEMS, connected economic injustice and racism to trafficking and reminded us that while trafficking is in the forefront right now, domestic violence and child abuse have not been eradicated; we must be vigilant on all fronts.
• Shane Claiborne and Ben Cohen physically illustrated with groceries and people how 20% of the world’s population has 80% of the world’s stuff. And that this is not an error on God’s part in creating too many people but rather an error on our part in not sharing. Like manna, we mustn’t take more than we need; there will be enough.
• Stephan Bauman (CEO of World Relief) illuminated the plight of women in the world as the most oppressed people group.  Women comprise 70% of the world’s poor, perform 2/3 of the world’s work, are 80% of the world’s ill, earn only 10% of the world’s income and own only 1% of the world’s property. He urged men to not leave women to fight this battle alone.
• Francis Chan challenged us to do bigger and crazier stuff as we age because we’re closer every day to seeing God face to face in heaven. In choosing not to live under the umbrella of risk-avoidance (retirement-funding and inheritance-accumulating), our lives make more sense Biblically. If we love our neighbors as ourselves, we should spend on our neighbors as we spend on ourselves.

I was crushed, as Whytsma hoped. And I’m in the process of asking God how I need to respond to all I heard. As I’ve been praying over that, it has occurred to me that His answer may be a specific cause. But it will – unequivocally – be at least to alter the way I spend, eat and engage with others.

I hope you’ll take a few moments of reflect on these thoughts, and perhaps check out the links I’ve included. Stephan Bauman said it well: we can’t change everything, but we can do something.

He had a word for those who don’t.

Slactivists.