28 minute read
Loosening the Chains
PASTOR RICARDO GRAHAM CHALLENGES THE CHURCH TO JUSTICE
Following Christ into the City
PAGE 6
In the Word: The Practice of Justice
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THE PRINCIPLED THING:
Justice, Mercy, and Humility
PART ONE
By Pastor Ricardo Graham
Like many of you, I have been reading and studying the Bible for a long, long time. During my reading and re-reading of both the Old and New Testaments, I have been inspired by many life-changing, life-challenging teachings. God speaks powerfully throughout His Word, and I continue to discover ways to listen and meditate better in order to be able to apply His inspired Word to my own life.
Sometimes it appears that God has shared the same principles over and over in slightly different ways through the patriarchal history, the proclamations of His prophets, the precision of Jesus’ teachings, and the further elucidation on those themes by the New Testament writers.
One of the themes that I find repeatedly presented in the Bible is the teaching on godly justice. We can find one prominent example in Micah 6:8: “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
An electronic dictionary defines justice as a noun meaning just behavior or treatment; a concern for justice, peace, and genuine respect for people; the quality of being fair and reasonable; the administration of the law or authority in maintaining justice.
The Hebrew word for justice in Micah 6:8 is “mishpat from the root shaphat, ‘to judge’… To do mishpat is to order one’s life according to the ‘judgments’ of God.”
In the Old Testament writings we find the idea of justice toward one’s fellow human beings emphasized repeatedly. In powerful pronouncements, the prophets who spoke for God castigated the people for their greed, cruelty, thievery, sexual sins, murder, and other evil deeds.
If you read the entirety of chapter 6, the full context makes Micah’s more famous statement in verse 8 even more powerful.
From reading the book of Micah, it is apparent that the people continued to do evil, even as they brought their sacrificial animals to the temple. The priests and judges who were implicated by the wholesale flowering of sin, evil, and depravity seemed to be uncaring about the suffering they intentionally ignored and perhaps even caused.
While we do not live in a theocratic society or even a Christian nation, those of us who have accepted Christ cannot ignore Micah’s powerful words or assume they don’t apply today. He is talking to each one of us.
There is no escaping the fact that God has shown all humanity what His requirements are. Living thousands of years after the Cross, we have the life of Jesus to perfectly represent justice.
Justice, or doing what is right for each other, is more than a powerful concept. It is a requirement, a must for the followers of God. No mistreatment of each other is countenanced with God. His high and holy thought is that we are to treat each other with justice.
It is not easy for fallen people to render justice to each other especially when we believe we have experienced an injustice ourselves. It is not within self-focused women and men to do the right thing. Selfishness limits us, making us incapable of consistently producing justice or doing the right thing. In my thinking, the first step towards justice is thoughtful, constant self-denial.
This is a hard thing for me to write. While it is easy to make a judgment against the failure of a particular person or group of people or government to do the right thing, I am forced to vividly recall my own failure to do the right thing. We all stand condemned.
Injustice can go beyond our individual shortcomings. Perhaps there have been situations in which we have been part of a group that has perpetrated injustice against someone else. Perhaps we knew it wasn’t right (and maybe even wrong), but no one spoke up during the meeting. We may have participated in the “after-meeting,” the one in the hallway or the parking lot, and shared our thoughts about what we should have said. But somehow, something prevented us from finding our voice at the appropriate time the time when we could have made a difference in how a sister or brother was treated.
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote:
We cannot be silent about injustice, individually or as a group. To ignore an opportunity to support justice the right thing is to support injustice. God wants us to choose justice in an active way.
Ellen White assures us: “The Lord will not compel men to deal justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with their God; He sets before the human agent good and evil, and makes plain what will be the sure result of following one course or the other. Christ invites us, saying, ‘Follow Me.’ But we are never forced to walk in his footsteps. If we do walk in his footsteps, it is the result of deliberate choice. As we see the life and character of Christ, strong desire is awakened to be like him in character; and we follow on to know the Lord, and to know his goings forth are prepared as the morning.”
What about mercy and humility, the other two in this sacred triad? Stay tuned.
Following Christ into the City
By Skip Bell
Can a follower of Jesus maintain his or her spirituality in one of today’s urban centers? Especially in the West, cities are dominated by secular culture, and lifestyles are often anything but Christian.
Actually, spirituality is alive and well in the great cities of the post-Christian world. Spiritual ideas and dialogue still exist. It is organized religion that is threatened. The new spirituality of the western developed world has little regard for organized religion.
The challenge of Christian discipleship in urban life must not deter followers of Jesus. The reality of Christian mission is that God has called us to enter into life in the city regardless of its culture and difficulties.
The biblical record of Daniel and his companions offers an illustration of the summons of God to live in a non-Christian culture and maintain missional witness. The captive Israelites were commanded to pray for Babylon and seek its welfare even though it was a city characterized by idolatry and sinfulness. “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare" (Jeremiah 29:7, ESV). The prophet uses the Hebrew word shalom in describing this intention of God for the captives. They were to seek shalom for the foreign city and, in so doing, experience a blessing themselves.
God desires us to seek shalom for the cities of our world today. We are to prayerfully work for the common good of those who gather in urban environments. God certainly has not intended for us to be transformed by the culture of the city, but He does intend for us to transform lives in the city.
The challenge is complex. It is not satisfied by simply taking up residence in the boundaries of the urban center, though that is difficult enough. We cannot respond faithfully to our missional call by creating enclaves isolating ourselves in an artificially created foreign culture in the urban space. Instead, we are to change the culture in the same neighborhood, workplace, or school that others move about in.
Transforming the culture requires building relationships with people in the city center. Relationships cannot be built from a distance. Such relationships require commitment to a neighborhood, meaning that we live in that neighborhood. We can provide transforming influence only when we get involved in the issues of the community.
So, just as Jesus left heaven to dwell with us, we are to move out of our protective walls and be with the people of our city. We must know others, and be known, in the context of the activities that form daily life. We must be truly incarnational: living, working, learning, playing, and engaging in dialogue.
Living in the city does not mean we have abandoned our faith. We do not need to act like our secular neighbors to live happily, to serve God, to serve our neighbor, or to be valued in our community.
Living in the city without adopting a secular world-view requires an energetic and practiced biblical worldview. “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world” (John 17:15–18, ESV). We are called to be in the world, but not to suspend our faith or to privatize faith.
A Christian who lives their faith publically will impact the culture. That does not require religious programming or strategy. A Christian embodies a particular worldview. If they truly reflect the heart of God, that worldview affects every facet of life. The impact on culture implies they are biblically faithful rather than simply reflectors of an institutional religious culture. A biblical Christian interprets what is right, just, beautiful, and good in all they do. We cannot avoid having influence in public life unless we hide our faith and withdraw from relationships with others.
So, living as followers of Jesus offers society an alternate culture. There is little need for us to judge the effects of secularism in post-Christian culture. Instead, we can serve as advocates for justice, for the poor and abused in our culture. We can demonstrate the heart of God. We can respect those who think seriously about their worldviews while we challenge the gods of secularity. People will see the difference. The Creator of all provides natural revelation within every culture. Thus, even the secularists in the city center will be drawn to higher purpose and meaning beyond themselves.
So, the challenge is not if we can impact the culture. The challenge is if we will boldly do that instead of retreating from secular culture. To focus our challenge more clearly, the question is what steps we can take to change the culture.
Christians may speak from their faith to the issues impacting public life. In fact, they do so naturally if they have not isolated themselves, and if they are not mistakenly apologetic. “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27, ESV). The love expressed by a follower of Jesus should be recognized in clear contrast to the values of secular culture. Christians offer a voice glorifying God. Certainly, they demonstrate behaviors in the public square that represent the heart of God. But they also speak to public issues. These issues include marriage, sexuality, healthcare, education, justice, violence, poverty, racism, and immigration. We will voice the will of God in public life, and do so skillfully, not in a way that offends or passes judgment. To avoid issues for fear of destroying relationships would be to deny the witness Christ offers to humanity. But to speak with self-centered judgment or arrogance would undermine our witness. We must learn to verbalize the principles and practices of God’s love in winsome ways.
A biblical Christian interprets what is right, just, beautiful, and good in all they do.
Public discourse invites relationships in which the content and ideas of Christianity are explored. In those relationships opportunities surface in which the Scripture can be explored as revelation of God, His will, His redemption, and His calling for transformed life.
A biblical worldview is counter cultural. When we live in the city, we have the opportunity to shape the city in which we live, to lead change. Jesus calls us to live and speak for the salvation of man, to do it persuasively, and to do it with love. We are in the city to assist, to foster healthy lives, and to lead people to Jesus in ways that honor Him.
The gospel is not private. It is intrusive because it is lived out in public. In the process of living as a disciple of Christ, life is experienced without fear of being different. That is, a Christian simply lives as a Christian, reflecting Christian values, ethics, and relationships in the public space. Christianity is seen, heard, and is distinct without apology. It is public.
Fear gets in the way of public Christianity. One such perspective on fear is the fear of not being accepted. That worry leads some Christians to privatize their faith, submerging faith in a way that avoids exposure.
Another fear among urban Christians takes the form of an excessive concern for being “not of this world.” We create safe spaces in which we seek safety and security untouched by the proximity of darker influences. This fear leads us to form friendships that are intentionally restricted to those who share our faith whether they live in our neighborhood or elsewhere.
Fear leads to separation, and in that environment faith becomes private. The result is that the witness of living out our Christian life in an urban context is diminished or even lost.
Christ boldly lived among us. He still transforms culture and transforms the culture of the city today. He walks into Starbucks, meets friends there, and engages in conversation. He discusses issues of meaning in the office spaces of financial centers. He lunches in the civic club. He marches on city hall to address issues of gun violence. He sits on boards of public education and speaks for the welfare of children. He leads in the public issues of housing, poverty, health care, and art in neighborhood and municipal government. He serves. He does so kindly, not as a raging prophet who casts judgments then runs to the suburb or safe walls of the church. He lives with the people and serves in a public manner.
Christianity is public. Anything less is short of faithfulness to the gospel commission.
Christ needs disciples in the city. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, and strengthened with daily connection with Christ, those disciples who live in the city are able to advance God’s will among the masses of people who call the city home.
PORTRAITS OF JUSTICE
Genevieve White and Yadira Santana organize food bags and boxes to take to Reno’s homless.
Riverview SDA Church
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Christlike Service
This article by E. G. White appeared in the Pacific Union Recorder on March 13, 1902
There must be a reformation in our churches in regard to evil thinking and evil speaking. These sins are stumbling-blocks over which sinners stumble to perdition. They create disturbances that never need to exist. God will not justify us in giving expression to ill feeling against those whom we think have erred. Have we ourselves never made mistakes? Have we never been in the slough of despond? God help us to remember how hard it is, when tempted by the enemy, to have our own brethren step to his side, and try to hurt and destroy.
“Ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price.” Every part of the being is the Lord’s, paid for by the precious blood of Jesus. We are to remember this in dealing with one another. We are to treat our fellow-workers with respect and kindness and love; for they belong to Christ. They may not always please us. What they do may not always meet our ideas. Nevertheless, we are to unite with them in Christian fellowship.
Think of the importance Christ places on unity. He prayed that the oneness existing between Him and His Father might exist among His followers, that the world might know that God had indeed sent His Son into the world to save sinners. How shall this prayer be answered? By every believer putting away evil thinking and evil speaking.
The Lord desires His servants to show His forbearance in dealing with one another. Do not speak or write one word of censure or recrimination, even though it may seem to you as if the censure were deserved. Refuse to listen to complaints. Close the heart against prejudice. Let no word of evil surmising escape your lips. God is dishonored by those who accuse their brethren. Let envy be quenched in the flow of love from the fountain of God’s love. Evil imaginings are not worth the time so often given to thinking of and repeating them.
Do not admit a wrong that God has not charged upon you. But do not take time to contradict the false reports that are made. Shall we destroy our fragrance of spirit because others clothe themselves with bitterness? God forbid. Is it not sufficient for us to know that God does not record these reports in the books of heaven as true?
Open your heart to Christ’s forbearance. Let not a day pass in which you do not realize your accountability to work for God, an accountability placed on you by the death of His Son in your behalf. Let not a day pass on which you do not try to heal the wounds that sin has made. Always be found working on the broad plan of God’s love.
We are under obligation to will to do the will of God. The Savior is working for us. He is our Advocate in the heavenly courts, ever making intercession for us. The cry of the one ready to perish finds swift entrance to His ear. “He shall deliver the needy when he crieth, the poor also, and him that hath no helper.” Shall we not work for Him on the lines He has marked out? Shall we not be Christlike advocates of those who err?
Christ suffered, being tempted; therefore He always sympathizes with the tempted ones whom Satan is seeking to destroy. That He might be a merciful and faithful high priest, He was in all things made like those He came to help. He has compassion on the ignorant, and on those who are out of the way; for when on this earth He was compassed with infirmity. He is able to help us in our perplexities. As He works for us, let us work for one another. Let us reveal His love for our fellow-workers, acting in such a way that they will have full confidence in us.
Many more than we suppose need a helping hand held out to them. There are many to whom words of compassion and sympathy would be as a cup of cold water to a thirsty soul. Are you doing Christ service by ministering to weary, discouraged fellow-beings? In love and pity Christ helps us. Shall we not impart His grace to others, by speaking to them words of hope and courage?
Mrs. E. G. White
Doing Justice for the Victims of Harassment
By Alan J. Reinach
Once in a great while, golden opportunities present themselves to do something that will make a real difference in people’s lives. Thanks to the Me Too movement, all of us have just such an opportunity. The California legislature is laser focused on making changes in the law to help victims of sexual harassment. But the laws addressing workplace harassment also protect harassment generally, including religious harassment.
The Church State Council, the religious liberty ministry of the Pacific Union Conference, has found three bills that will be particularly helpful for all victims of harassment, including our own church members faced with Sabbath discrimination at work.
AB 1870 [Reyes, D.] extends the statute of limitations from one year to three years for all harassment, discrimination, and retaliation claims.
Until passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it was legal for companies to discriminate. Seventh-day Adventists could be fired with impunity for not working on Sabbath. Part of the compromise to get the bill passed was to give workers a very short time period to file their claims, as little as 6 months. This was to prevent workers from bringing claims.
California was “generous” in giving workers a full year to file their claims.
Discrimination claims are “statutory” claims, i.e., they do not arise from common law but according to laws enacted by the state. Other statutory claims in California may be filed within three years. The one-year time limit for discrimination claims means that these claims are themselves “discriminated” against by state law.
Extending the statute of limitations for discrimination claims to three years brings this into line with other statutory claims, providing a reasonable time period for workers to process the harassment they have suffered and to obtain legal representation. Workers suffering harassment or discrimination are often traumatized by the experience and are unable to even think of legal action for a number of months.
Often Adventist church members will first learn about the services provided by the Church State Council after it is too late to file their claims. Over the years, we have had to turn away dozens of church members whose claims are too late. This bill will enable many more church members to assert their claims when they were fired because of their refusal to work on Sabbath.
SB 1038 [Leyva, D.] restorespersonal liability for managers who retaliate against workers for complaining of harassment or discrimination, including those who request religious accommodation for Sabbath observance.
We call this the “when is a person not a person?” bill. California law holds “persons” liable for retaliating against those who complain of harassment or discrimination, including those who request religious accommodation. A decade ago, an appellate court held that a person was not a person, i.e., that individual supervisors could not be held personally liable for retaliation. This made no sense. The Church State Council has been advocating for reversal for many years, and finally there is this bill.
Why is this important? Often church members contact us at the first sign of trouble over their need for Sabbath accommodation. This bill would give us a powerful tool to encourage supervisors to make a good faith effort to provide Sabbath accommodation. We expect to prevent terminations with this bill.
SB 1300 [Jackson, D.] adds substantial provisions protecting victims of sexual harassment.
The courts have been very inconsistent in enforcing laws against sexual harassment. I attended committee hearings in January exploring how to improve the laws so that sexual harassment would both be prevented and remedied effectively. SB 1300 is the result of many minds and hearts seeking to identify solutions. This bill strengthens the substantive law as to the threshold for establishing a claim of harassment in other words, how bad does the conduct have to be? Secondly, the bill strengthens a separate claim for failure to prevent discrimination and harassment. This measure requires employers to prevent harassment even before the offensive conduct rises to the level of actual harassment.
Although this measure targets sexual harassment, its provisions carry over to all forms of harassment, including religious harassment. While it stops short of imposing a formal “civility code” on the workplace, it likely requires companies to strictly enforce zero tolerance policies for things like racial and religious slurs and unwelcome physical touching.
As of this writing, all three bills have passed their house of origin and are being considered in the second house.
You can join us in “doing justice” by supporting passage of these bills. We make it easy by providing a click-through mechanism on our website, www.churchstate.org. Just find the “Get Engaged” button on the right, and follow the yellow brick road. You can even organize a letter writing effort at church; just be sure to bring a laptop with a good internet connection. For more information, go to: neva@churchstate.org.
PORTRAITS OF JUSTICE
Led by Yanira Coria Ramírez, the young people of the San Bernardino Spanish church collected shoes to distribute among the poor and the homeless.
Iglesia Adventista de San Bernardino, CA
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The Practice of Justice
By Bernardo Sámano and Laura Sámano
My son, if you receive my words, And treasure my commands within you, So that you incline your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding; Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding, If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will understand the fear of the Lord, And find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding; He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk uprightly; He guards the paths of justice, And preserves the way of His saints. Then you will understand righteousness and justice, Equity and every good path.
—Proverbs 2:1-9, NKJV
Have you been treated unjustly, or do you know someone who has been treated unjustly? Consider this scenario. Vroom! Vroom! You have just taken your foot off the brake when the motorcyclist flashes in front of you, although it was your turn to go.
“What was that?” you cry out. “Hey, buddy, it wasn’t your turn! I didn’t give you the right of way. You took it!” You shake your index finger in the direction of the man, who’s no longer in sight. The only creature within hearing distance is your dog. “Brownie, did you see that? I can’t believe it!”
Arf! Arf! Your four-legged friend tries to balance himself in the front seat as you accelerate to drive across the intersection. Brownie senses your anxiety but offers no solution to the injustice that you just experienced.
“That man’s going to kill himself! He’s a reckless driver!” Brownie whimpers. “I know. I know. I shouldn’t lose my temper like that.” You turn on the right blinker. “He can’t even hear me,” you mumble. “If only I could give him a ticket! I would. Oh, I would teach him a lesson all right.” Your voice is gradually getting louder. “I would make a good police officer. No, I would be the best police officer!” Turning right at an empty intersection, your mind goes to the ideal, just world of your imagination, and you smile slightly at how good it would feel to give that man a ticket. “And I would show up in court if needed!” Does that sound at all familiar? Regardless of your religious affiliation or lack of it; whether you are Republican, Democrat, independent or in between; if you are an atheist, an agnostic, a lukewarm or a fervent Christian, it is certain that you have been treated unjustly or you know of someone who cries out for justice. Even if it is something as simple as someone else taking the right of way when it was yours, all of us have lamented about injustice.
Oftentimes injustice manifests itself in our homes. We don’t even have to leave the house to experience it. I (Laura) remember years ago when I shared the bedroom with my brother, Elías. Three and a half years my elder, he must have been about 14 years old at the time. We got along rather well, thanks to his selfless personality. He was so kindhearted that he would give me the last bite of his food if he saw that I liked it and wanted it.
But we had a weekly problem. Cleaning our room involved the matter of teamwork, or, more accurately, a serious lack thereof. This proved to be rather problematic, especially on Friday afternoons when it seemed as if Mom wanted our brown carpet and beige walls to sparkle. Unfortunately, in my opinion, getting Elías to help clean our room when Mom wanted us to was practically impossible.
“Are you guys almost done?” Mom would ask.
“I am done. But he has done nothing,” was my response. I took the liberty of reporting on what he was doing and never failed to partake of the ritual of whining prior to accepting the punishment.
And then something would be denied to us, because our actions had consequences. Although our punishment wasn’t unreasonable, what I felt was unjust was my being punished because Elías hadn’t done his part. It just wasn’t fair that he wouldn’t tidy up his half of the bedroom.
Society longs for justice. Human rights supporters, civil rights advocates, and faith-based and secular institutions believe that they must champion those who have been treated unjustly. News headlines and social media report on marches, demonstrations, street blockades, and rallies. Protestors are unofficial spokespeople for children and adults, men and women, whites and blacks, people from countries in the East, West, North, and South. Laity, clergy, the non-churched: all are fighting to stop injustice. They are being arrested, punished, abused, and even killed for protesting and supporting a cause.
Because people matter. If people are being mistreated, oppressed, neglected, abused, abandoned, or deprived of their rights and benefits as human beings, it matters. All individuals and institutions should do something to change what seems to be becoming the new normal, the status quo.
The experience of injustice, like a coin, has two sides: the victim and the perpetrator. The truth is that we all have been the victims of injustice at some point in our lives and we all have been unjust.
While trying to learn more about this issue, I (Bernardo) was overwhelmed to find that a web search of the word “justice” resulted in more than 848 million possibilities. The results for the definition gave me 578 million choices. Searching for the definition or meaning of justice felt like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
What complicates things further is the idea that “my right to swing my arms in any direction ends where your nose begins.” The experience of injustice, like a coin, has two sides: the victim and the perpetrator. The truth is that we all have been the victims of injustice at some point in our lives and we all have been unjust.
The sad news is that white collar or blue collar, rich or poor, educated or illiterate, native or immigrant, tall or short, husky or skinny, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23, NKJV). We all are guilty of injustice.
Maybe you have not been implicated in Spain, Brazil, Mexico, or the USA, where massive incidents of injustice have taken place recently. Your name might not be involved with corrupt government officials or greedy CEO’s guilty of embezzlement of millions of dollars. You probably don’t have anything to do with the disappearance of thousands of people, and you probably aren’t responsible for placing anyone under investigation unfairly. But in your own area of influence you are, before the throne of God, a person of interest for not practicing justice.
Virtue seems to be something that belongs to the past. The Old Testament is filled with messages from God, beseeching His people to renounce injustice and warning of the consequences for those who practice it. The people of Israel were advised to treat strangers justly (Malachi 3:5), to perform commercial transactions justly (Leviticus 19:35), and that God considered it an abomination to act unjustly (Deuteronomy 25:16).
As Christians we are encouraged to follow Jesus’ example, who during His ministry manifesto in Nazareth proclaimed that the Spirit of the Lord had sent Him “to preach the gospel to the poor;… to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18, NKJV).
In his novel Martin Chuzzlewit, Charles Dickens famously wrote: “Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.” How can we become, think, talk, act as righteous people, going beyond merely obeying the rules, such as coming to a full stop at an intersection?
Look at the Bible passage from Proverbs at the beginning of this article. Solomon, writing to the people of his time and to us as well, gives us some ideas as to how to become a just person and practice justice.
First, he sets the conditions. Notice how many times we read the word “if” in the first few verses. There is a lot of effort required: receive my words, treasure God’s commands, incline your ear to wisdom, apply your hearts to understanding, cry out for discernment, lift up your voice for understanding, and seek wisdom as if it were silver. There is no idle, passive, or indolent attitude involved.
Second, we discover that there is a blessing waiting for those who put their effort toward seeking justice. How reassuring to read that we can receive understanding, find knowledge of God, and obtain wisdom from God.
Then Solomon lists the crowning benefit of seeking God’s advice. Verse 9 says, “Then you will understand righteousness and justice.” If we seek God’s advice, our lives will have a purpose because God will help us understand every good path. What more could we want?
We read in the book of Revelation that at the end of human history God will be worshiped because, among many other things, His judgments are true and righteous.
Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints!
Revelation 15:3, NKJV
And I heard another from the altar saying, “Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments.
Revelation 16:7
If we are going to practice holiness, because He is Holy, then we must practice justice, for He is just.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church Manual points out that, not just as individuals but as a corporate group of believers, “we should support by our service and our means, as far as possible and consistent with our beliefs, efforts for social order and betterment. Even though we must stand apart from political and social strife, we should always, quietly and firmly, maintain an uncompromising stand for justice and right in civic affairs…. It is our sacred responsibility to be loyal citizens of the nations to which we belong, rendering ‘to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s’ (Matt. 22:21)” (pp. 143-144).
After attending a Bible camp event in Texas, I (Bernardo) noticed that an interesting sign hung from the last gate. Instead of a traditional message, such as “Come back soon!” or “Have a nice trip!” or “May God protect you on your way home,” the sign said, “As soon as you leave this place, a mission field is awaiting you.” Isn’t that the truth? We should know that as soon as we leave our homes, churches, or institutions where we serve, there is a mission field filled with people who cry out for justice.
Our mission field is where we live. Overwhelmed single parents, abandoned grandparents, frightened orphans, struggling immigrants, and lonely widows surround us. They are a mission field, and God can equip us to minister to them.
We are so used to injustice. Unfortunately, that can lead us to think of the pain that surrounds us as being normal. I (Bernardo) recently showed the movie Hacksaw Ridge to the students in one of my Bible classes. I was distressed that most of the students were laughing at the sight of soldiers being blown apart on the battlefield.
I had to ask myself, “Does this speak to the fact that our society lacks sensitivity to the suffering and pain of those around us?”
Maybe the reason behind our desensitization to injustice is related to our lack of connection with the Source of love and sacrifice.
The person who suffered the greatest injustice of all was Jesus. The King of the universe was born in a stable, lived without a place to call home, and died without a hint of justice. He had done nothing wrong. Actually, He’d done everything right!
Despite all that injustice, the Lord asks us to seek out justice. “Learn to do good; seek justice, rebuke the oppressor” (Isaiah 1:17, NKJV). As we develop a relationship with Christ, it will be possible for us to live justly, seek justice, and understand God’s righteousness and justice. While we are here on earth, we can trust that Jesus, the One who knows all things and has lived among us, will be the ultimate judge and bring permanent justice to this world.
Elviz credits his mother’s Adventist faith and the “o’hana” of Hawaiian Mission Academy for helping him reach his goal of graduating from the 12 th grade, and providing the spiritual support for him as he navigates through the changing environment of DACA.
Hawaiian Mission Academy
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The Ox in the Ditch
By Ray Tetz
Now it happened, as He went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath, that they watched Him closely. And behold, there was a certain man before Him who had dropsy. And Jesus, answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” But they kept silent. And He took him and healed him, and let him go. Then He answered them, saying, “Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?” - Luke 14:1-5, NKJV
My father was a math teacher who was equally capable of teaching the concrete principles of arithmetic and the abstract principles of algebra. When the phone rang on a Sabbath morning, we were already dressed and ready for church and slowly assembling in the car. Maybe I was 11; I don’t really remember. What I do remember is my dad answering the phone and then, after a minute or so, hanging it up and saying, “Well, the ox is in the ditch. Guess I’m not going to church.”
As he started to take off his tie, he looked at my brother and me and said, “You boys wanna go with me?”
He was not given to long explanations; it would have been pointless to ask him what it was that he was about to do. All we knew was that it involved an ox in a ditch, that it wouldn’t require Sabbath clothes, and that he was inviting us to skip church. We found all three factors inviting.
It took only a jiffy to change out of our good clothes and into our work clothes, load into his old VW bus, and head off to see the ox in the ditch.
What we found was a basement filling up with water from a broken pipe that had yet to be discovered and capped. The elderly woman who owned the place was standing in the driveway in her housecoat and slippers. She had been awakened by the sound of water in her cellar, and when she couldn’t find the source and with the water climbing up around her ankles she came upstairs, closed the cellar door behind her, and called Charles. My dad.
For the next several hours, my brother and I hauled buckets of water up the stairs and dumped them out onto the yard, while my dad found the pipe, got it capped (I have no idea how), and then proceeded to sweep up the mess on the floor of the basement.
For a while it was fun, and then it was just drudgery, and then we got hungry and tired. But eventually, when it was all done, a lot of nice things were said, and even though we were all really muddy and dirty, it didn’t matter, and it was something to be proud of, and the poor old lady looked so relieved and kept hugging us and giving us more Kool-Aid and, well, it was just about perfect. I still remember it.
On the way back to our house, from the backseat, I had to ask, “What about the ox, Dad?”
He looked a little surprised and then, laughing a bit, explained that it was a saying that comes from the Bible (Luke 14:5). “It means that someone is in trouble as if their ox has fallen into a ditch and has to be pulled out,” he told us. “We say it when we mean that someone needs our help and there’s no choice but to go help them even if it is Sabbath.”
He paused and added, “It’s a symbol, like in math.” Not wanting yet another unprompted conversation about math, I let it go.
The answer was not entirely satisfactory, but it was the only one I got, so I had to think about it. And I did get to skip church.
That was the day that I learned that somehow my family (including me) was a part of a group that people could call when they were in trouble. Even if you had to skip something important like church, you would have to help them. And they would do the same in return. When whatever it was that was wrong had been taken care of, there would be lots of smiling and hugging and maybe a treat and everything would be fine even if you were totally covered in slime and had to take a bath on Sabbath in the middle of the day.
It turns out that I’m a part of a community that loves me and is somehow here to help me out, but at the same time expects me to do the same for everybody else. And overall, it’s not a bad deal, not at all. There are a lot of ways in which the ox can fall into the ditch in this world and in this church. And lots of people like my dad, willing to take off his tie and help pull that ox out. I haven’t forgotten.
This article originally appeared in the “Living God’s Love” blog on the Pacific Union Conference website: http:// adventistfaith.com/living-gods-love/
Holbrook Indian School alumni Charlotte Beyal brought justice to the Navajo people while serving as the first woman and first Navajo judge magistrate in Flagstaff, Arizona. Holbrook Indian School.
Holbrook Indian School
PACIFIC UNION CONFERENCE
The Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Pacific Southwest
