Faith In Real Life Blog

Do Justice: “Do the Work”

Rev. Vernon Gramling

Decatur Presbyterian Church

June 1, 2023

 

Iasiah 58: 1-12

Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. 2 Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgements, they delight to draw near to God. 3 ‘Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?’ Look, you serve your own interest on your fast-day, and oppress all your workers. 4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. 5 Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD? 6 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? 7 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? 8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator[a] shall go before you,  the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard. 9 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, 10 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. 11 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. 12 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.

This is the fourth and last in our series on justice.  Doing justice is the culmination of three topics we have discussed so far—the work of awareness, accountability and advocacy. Hopefully, we have become aware and accountable enough so that we can talk about justice intelligently and perhaps even advocate for it. The next step on this continuum is doing justice. Doing justice is the work of the Lord.  Everything else is preparatory[MD1] .

This is not to say the preparatory work is not work.  Any work we do to see, to be accountable and to speak up is part of the work of ‘doing justice.’  We must see injustice and be aware of our inexplicable privilege.  We must pay attention to the many ways we disengage and rationalize the disparities of our world. Then we must find ways to discuss and advocate. Each of these is emotionally charged, uncertain and difficult but finding specific proactive ways to do something about injustice is harder still.  The world’s needs are overwhelming, and our efforts are a very small drop in the bucket.  It is hard to do justice in such a world. But that is our call and our responsibility.

Our scripture confronts the people with this call and their failure: “Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God.”  The people obeyed religious practice.  They prayed, fasted and attended worship.  But they missed the point.  They failed to see what was most important. Obedience and personal spirituality are a means to God’s end, not an end in themselves . They had confused the two. Isaiah’s charge against these worshipers was that[MD3] they had lost the purpose of worship by being obedient to the forms of worship.  They lost sight of their responsibility to love and be mindful—they lost sight of the Godly expectation that they do justice.

The ancient Israelites had turned their relationship with God into a transactional exchange.  They did their part.  They ‘humbled’ themselves and fasted. They were obedient to the Lord. In return, they expected God to favor them. The people cry out: “Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?’  Most of us have fallen into this trap at some point in our spiritual journey.  In this regard, we are all children. We expect God’s favor to relieve us of the hardships and suffering of life.  We expect favored treatment when we have been good[MD4] , and we complain about an absent God when hardship strikes.  But unfortunately, it is very much like faithfully visiting a gym, learning about physiology and meditating about the values of exercise, — but not actually exercising.  We want the benefits of God without doing the work.  All of that preparatory ‘effort’ will not make us stronger. There is no getting around the fact that caring for our bodies requires actual work.  Who wants to face that?  Much better to watch TikTok workout videos and think about what we ought to be doing. The same is true in our religious life.  Most of us would rather talk about faith rather than live that faith. Loving is undeniably difficult, and we[MD5]  cannot love without doing justice.   

Our entire religious life is designed to keep us ever mindful that God’s work is loving.  Loving means a life devoted to inclusion, regard, and service.  Loving means doing justice.  But such regard was painfully absent in Isaiah’s community.  So, he rebukes them: “Look, you serve your own interest on your fast-day, and oppress all your workers.”  We cannot claim to serve God and ignore the inequality in the world. Walking the walk is hard work.  And most of us are just as likely to fall as short religiously as we do physically.  As Paul put it, without love, we are noisy gongs and clanging cymbals.  

This is an uncomfortable confrontation, and it is fairly easy to turn this blog into an extended guilt trip. I remember well when my 16-year-old daughter complained that she did not want to go to church because it just made her feel bad about herself.  We absolutely need to acknowledge that we are a stiff-necked, avoidant people but that is not sufficient.  We must remember what we stand for.  What we stand for is a God who loves.  What we believe is that such loving gives our lives meaning.  We seek to do justice because we believe we and the world are better when we do.  This is what God wants for us.  

The problem is that such a life runs directly contrary to our hard-wired self-interest. Most of us would readily agree that a life of collaboration, cooperation and reconciliation is better than a dog-eat-dog world.  Yet that knowledge is not sufficient.  History has repeatedly demonstrated that it is impossible for empires based upon dominance to continue to hold power.  Eventually they are toppled.  If underdogs are not crushed—and many are—they will eventually ‘win’—- only to become the next top dog to be toppled.  Unfortunately, that knowledge does not protect us from our primal desire to protect ourselves and to insure our own self-interest.  

If we are reasonably comfortable in life, we do not want to see, much less feel the needs and inequities around us. In real life, it is very difficult to give up our sense of safety—whether that is time, money, or emotional investment—for another.  Through some combination of fear of what we do not know and a fear that we cannot be enough, we[MD6]  are led to an unwillingness to struggle with doing justice.  When and how much to respond to others is a never-ending problem of discernment for a Christian.

Linda Huffine told us about a church that decided to have ‘simple meals’ for church suppers in Lent.  The goal was to highlight how little many of the peoples of the world had to eat.  It did not go well.  One Wednesday night, maybe.  But certainly not all of Lent.  People who are used to eating well generally do not want to know what it is like to be hungry.  As long as we don’t see or experience it, we do not have to respond.  Our[MD7]  self-interest often trumps our stated ideals.  

In real life, it is a struggle that most of us would rather avoid. I certainly fit that category.  We find ways to avoid and detach. We cross the street.  We avoid greetings.  We sit elsewhere. We relate to the circle we know best. And perhaps worse, we try to justify the status quo—especially when it benefits us.  This does not mean we should not do these things; it does mean we should be willing to struggle with when and how we should extend ourselves.   

The same thing happens to most newlyweds.  I often find that people have little idea of what they are promising—much less what they are getting when they get married. Just as many of us go to church to get something, most of us start our marriages with the same expectations.  People often expect marriage to provide a soul mate, regular sex, freedom from loneliness, financial security, a sharing of life’s chores etc. and are quite upset when those ‘promises’ go unfulfilled or worse are offered but not sustained. What a surprise it is to learn how inconvenient it is to live with another person—no matter how much we love them.  Loving another person has nothing to do with what we get.  Loving has to do with what we give.  Within our own limits, we promise to support another human being. That human is the same muddled concoction of weak and strong, considerate and selfish, needy and unapproachable as we are. When we begin to realize what we share, we shift focus.  Instead of transactional score keeping (simply a means to enforce ‘fairness’ and our idea of how things should be), we begin to look to how we can value and support.  The Christian faith claim is that’s how reconciliation and justice begin.     

But, if we seek to follow Jesus and do justice, we live in God’s promise: “Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, 10 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. 11 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.”

Finding our shared humanity, seeing the child of God in each other, and helping each other find our way in this world is doing God’s justice—whether that is in our homes, our communities or between nations. Such a life is the life God wants for us.  We can only begin to offer God’s justice because God has forgiven our inadequacies, our failures, and our sinfulness.  Live in God’s grace.  Do Justice. 

Let it be so.