OUT OF MY DEPTH
RADICAL & SIMPLE JUSTICE
SCREAMING ABOUT INJUSTICE IS NOT THE SAME AS DOING JUSTLY BY PHIL WAGLER
M
y wife and I have been commiserating with others perplexed by the emerging adults we are parenting. Some of our kids have friends identifying all over the sexualityspectrum. They are social-media-ed out the wazoo. They are cultured by education and entertainment to see the seemingly hopeless plight of polar bears and tree frogs, refugees and indigenousness peoples, among other global maladies. All this angst is no aid to mental health. I also observe that the sympathy for all past and present injustices doesn’t always take seriously the shattered spiritual condition of the planet to the same degree. This is no cantankerous rant about the next gen. Their vision of this beautiful world and all that ails must be heard by their elders. I am deeply challenged by my younger friends and their experience of the world they are inheriting. In fact, some of what we hear echoes the blistering biblical prophets. Isaiah swings a proverbial 2x4 at the Israelites who are living fatly deceived. “Behold,” screams the prophet, “in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers…you fast only to quarrel and to fight…” (Isaiah 58:3-4). Israel’s evil is evidenced in pleasure-seeking and prosperity at the expense of others; in broken relationships and selfish tug-of-wars. This is precisely what many — both Christian and not-Christian — are
30 SEVEN MARCH / APRIL 2019
pointing out. The Church — and we level ground before the throne of the men of Christ — must hear what the Lamb who was slain for all (Galatians Spirit is saying. Good News must be 3:28; Ephesians 2:14-21; Revelation 7:9actualized, not just verbalized. 10). God is the radical! He is leading a This is precisely where the zeal can rebellion against injustice and only as bog down. The proliferation of media we walk His way will we purposefully means the world’s problems get pushed respond to today’s injustices. to us with dings and vibrations. This Which leads to the simple: Jesus’ can overwhelm, leading to paralysis of way reduces the overwhelming to action. Liking a post does the smallest common OPINION AND not equal transformation. denominator. Love your Re-tweeting does not wives (Ephesians 5:25). EMOTION mean you are usurping the Open your life to the widow COME EASY, establishment — you may and orphan and show no BUT IN THE only be establishing your partiality between rich and own rigidness. Screaming poor in your community FACE OF THE about injustice is not (James 1:27; 2:1-7). Honour STAGGERING the same as doing justly. others above yourself, bless INJUSTICES OF those who persecute you, Living offended does not heal offense. Opinion and and serve your enemy THE WORLD, emotion come easy, but the (Romans 12:9-21). Feed the ACTION IS staggering injustices of the hungry, clothe the naked, REQUIRED. world require action. visit the prisoner as though This is where life lived you were serving Jesus with a faithful and covenant-keeping himself (Matthew 25:31-46). This is so God is radically simple. simple, everyone and any community God loves this world so much that can do it — and that’s what makes it so he not only spoke but acted to save. challenging. After all, this means it’s In Christ, God does justly and justifies about my heart and hands. It means the broken and rebellious by enduring it’s about more than re-posting and the greatest injustice — Jesus Christ, more about really living the just God with us, suffers by our hand for Kingdom of Jesus in the small but our freedom. In Christ, God reveals never insignificant geography God a Kingdom in contrast to the world’s has rooted me. political and corporate empires. His Kingdom will never end. His way turns swords into plowshares (Micah 4:3-5). His Spirit produces a new / PHIL WAGLER lives in Surrey, BC community (Acts 2:42-47). His action where he parents, disicples and seeks results in every tribe and gender on to be an ambassador of King Jesus.
