It’s Time …to Do Justice
KBC – July 23, 06
Scott Stearman
Hear these words of Jesus: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices – mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law- justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practices the latter without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.”
In spite of such passages it used to be the case that we preachers could get by with standing tall in the pulpit, telling you laity in no uncertain terms what you ought to do. Whether we practiced what we preached, was less important than that we preached with great practice.
You’ll still find that in the pulpit, you may even find it here from time to time, after all truth is truth whether the mouth is clean that speaks it. But for the most part today, we preachers can’t get by without showing some authenticity. Most today do this with confessional preaching – speaking as a human to humans, letting the truth of the gospel skip from heart to heart – sharing our own hopes and struggles believing that God will speak through a broken vessel (or a cracked pot, as the case may be).
With a topic like the one today, I have to admit to you at the outset, I don’t have it together. (I’m happy to say the topic is not bank robbing, murder, or sleeping around…) This summer we’ve followed a series of topics which are fundamental to our faith. This is probably the worst one to preach on, for I don’t know that I “do justice to justice.” I know that I talk, think, pray, and preach about it. I just don’t know if I do it – at least I still struggle with it. As I think any thinking and caring American must.
First today I want to define justice, then I want to apply justice, then I want to encourage all of us to take a baby step towards doing justice.
Here’s what Daniel Vestal says in his book (It’s Time): “Justice (sometimes called righteousness) is an important word for the Hebrew prophets. It is concerned with doing what it right, both personally and socially.”
You can’t make it simpler than that, and yet many miss those two essential elements: the personal and the social. We Baptists are sometimes very good at promoting the personal: we don’t dance, drink, cuss or chew…or go with girls… yea you know the line. And I don’t mean to make light of the essential nature of personal ethics. How you live is important. Paul made the case very clear in 1 Cor. 13: even if I deliver my body to be burned, give away my belongings to the poor – but have not love…
To follow Christ is part and parcel of a personal commitment to live a live of love. This love, orders your ethical life around the needs of others. It demands that you and I constantly reform the way we treat other human beings. It may or may not mean that you give up chewing tobacco – but it definitely means you don’t spit on your neighbors carpet.
But here’s the rub. Christian love doesn’t just call for justice for you neighbor – it calls for justice for all.
Von Hulin told our Wednesday night group studying the “It’s Time” book about a story she heard from Anne Davis as Southern Seminary. She said ministry is often about pulling drowning people out of a river. And when you see people in a river – the right thing to do is to pull them out! However at some point when you see enough people in the river, it’s time to go up river to see who keeps throwing them in!
I love that story, because it captures in a nutshell the difference between micro and macro, the personal and the social, the small and the grand view of justice. You will find some Christians that emphasize getting folks out of the river, and others that talk only about protecting people from the river. Down river or up river, the Bible, the whole Bible, says both are justice. Jesus says it’s not either or.
The Hebrew prophets called for scales that were not tipped, for the widow and the orphan to be protected, and they condemned those who exploited the less-advantaged. This is justice. They did not call for some utopian equality, but they did call for righteousness and justice. And then they called for mercy. To act justly and love mercy… this is what the Lord requires.
Mercy is a step beyond justice. It’s beautifully defined by a Vestal who tells the story about the obnoxious woman sitting for a photograph. She made all kinds of demands on the photographer, and he patiently complied. Until that is the proofs came back, and she exclaimed: “these prints don’t do me justice!” “Woman, the photographer said, you don’t need justice, you need mercy.”
I suppose in some people’s mind it’s justice for people to retire with what they’ve saved. In that case Social Security can be mercy.
I suppose you could say that everyone having an equal right to pay for healthcare is justice, and some kind of universal coverage would be mercy.
I suppose you could say that given the industrial energy and dynamism in the USA it’s right that we use up a majority of the worlds recourses, but I doubt it’s merciful.
Our heritage is filled with people who loved justice and mercy: abolitionists who fought against slavery, activists who fought for civil rights. There was Billy Graham who integrated his crusades in the 50s and Martin Luther King who taught the way of non-violently loving justice.
There are many ways today to do justice and to love mercy. Serving at our food pantry, being actively involved in politics, paying attention and expressing your voice for the easily overlooked. But today, I’m going to address a topic that I’ve become convinced is more important than the war in Iraq, terrorism, or even poverty. Its name is part of the problem, because it sounds so innocuous and benign. “Global warming…” nothing wrong with a little warming, none of us like too much snow…
I must begin by bringing you some bad news. If you have a minute, let me correct a misimpression that some of you undoubtedly share. You may say to yourself – why get worked up by what a few quack scientists say… sure it looks like it’s getting warmer, but hey temperatures have gone up and down for millennia.
I honestly wish I weren’t delivering this news, but we all need to face the truth. The truth is this:
Out of over 950 recent scientific peer-reviewed articles on the environment issue, not one questioned that the earth is getting warmer, and that humans are responsible.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the world’s most authoritative body of climate scientists, has documented the steady rise of temperatures over the last 50 years, and projects it will continue, and attributes “most of the warming” to human activities.
The US National Academy of Sciences, as well as all other G8 country scientific academies (UK, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Italy, and Russia) has concurred with these judgments.
Other facts:
1) The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years. (can anyone say Katrina?)
2) The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade.
3) 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming, moving closer to the poles.
4) Four of the warmest years on record have happened since 1990.
Here are the predictions of some scientists. Given this last week, given Katrina, it’s not hard to imagine:
1) Deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years -- to 300,000 people a year.
2) Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide.
3) Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense and droughts and wildfires will occur more often.
4) At current trends, the Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050.
Another misperception: Only leftist tree-huggers care about this stuff. This I’m glad to report is no longer the case. People are waking up. The best example is the “Evangelical Climate Initiative.” This initiative was signed by conservative religious leaders like Rick Warren, Andy Crouch, Timothy George, Jack Hayford, Ron Sider. This Initiative makes four claims:
1) Human-Induced Climate Change is real.
2) The Consequences of Climate Change will be significant and will hit the poor the hardest.
3) Christian moral convictions demand our response to the climate change problem.
4) The need to act now is urgent. Governments, businesses, churches, and individuals all have a role to play in addressing climate change – starting now.
(I will have this posted on our website, so you can read it in detail – it has many supporting documents)
So what do we do? The good news is that studies show it is possible to reverse the effects. But it will take the will to do so. Here’s what I want to ask you to do. Take one step, even a baby step, on this issue. If you doubt it’s important read about it. If you know it’s important but, like me, prefer to live with your head in the sand, take your head out, and take one step. Start recycling, buy a hybrid, call your senator.
And a bit of more good news: the kingdom is made of many members, some who are called down river and some up. But all of us are called to avoid swallowing camels.
Scott Stearman
Hear these words of Jesus: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices – mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law- justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practices the latter without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.”
In spite of such passages it used to be the case that we preachers could get by with standing tall in the pulpit, telling you laity in no uncertain terms what you ought to do. Whether we practiced what we preached, was less important than that we preached with great practice.
You’ll still find that in the pulpit, you may even find it here from time to time, after all truth is truth whether the mouth is clean that speaks it. But for the most part today, we preachers can’t get by without showing some authenticity. Most today do this with confessional preaching – speaking as a human to humans, letting the truth of the gospel skip from heart to heart – sharing our own hopes and struggles believing that God will speak through a broken vessel (or a cracked pot, as the case may be).
With a topic like the one today, I have to admit to you at the outset, I don’t have it together. (I’m happy to say the topic is not bank robbing, murder, or sleeping around…) This summer we’ve followed a series of topics which are fundamental to our faith. This is probably the worst one to preach on, for I don’t know that I “do justice to justice.” I know that I talk, think, pray, and preach about it. I just don’t know if I do it – at least I still struggle with it. As I think any thinking and caring American must.
First today I want to define justice, then I want to apply justice, then I want to encourage all of us to take a baby step towards doing justice.
Here’s what Daniel Vestal says in his book (It’s Time): “Justice (sometimes called righteousness) is an important word for the Hebrew prophets. It is concerned with doing what it right, both personally and socially.”
You can’t make it simpler than that, and yet many miss those two essential elements: the personal and the social. We Baptists are sometimes very good at promoting the personal: we don’t dance, drink, cuss or chew…or go with girls… yea you know the line. And I don’t mean to make light of the essential nature of personal ethics. How you live is important. Paul made the case very clear in 1 Cor. 13: even if I deliver my body to be burned, give away my belongings to the poor – but have not love…
To follow Christ is part and parcel of a personal commitment to live a live of love. This love, orders your ethical life around the needs of others. It demands that you and I constantly reform the way we treat other human beings. It may or may not mean that you give up chewing tobacco – but it definitely means you don’t spit on your neighbors carpet.
But here’s the rub. Christian love doesn’t just call for justice for you neighbor – it calls for justice for all.
Von Hulin told our Wednesday night group studying the “It’s Time” book about a story she heard from Anne Davis as Southern Seminary. She said ministry is often about pulling drowning people out of a river. And when you see people in a river – the right thing to do is to pull them out! However at some point when you see enough people in the river, it’s time to go up river to see who keeps throwing them in!
I love that story, because it captures in a nutshell the difference between micro and macro, the personal and the social, the small and the grand view of justice. You will find some Christians that emphasize getting folks out of the river, and others that talk only about protecting people from the river. Down river or up river, the Bible, the whole Bible, says both are justice. Jesus says it’s not either or.
The Hebrew prophets called for scales that were not tipped, for the widow and the orphan to be protected, and they condemned those who exploited the less-advantaged. This is justice. They did not call for some utopian equality, but they did call for righteousness and justice. And then they called for mercy. To act justly and love mercy… this is what the Lord requires.
Mercy is a step beyond justice. It’s beautifully defined by a Vestal who tells the story about the obnoxious woman sitting for a photograph. She made all kinds of demands on the photographer, and he patiently complied. Until that is the proofs came back, and she exclaimed: “these prints don’t do me justice!” “Woman, the photographer said, you don’t need justice, you need mercy.”
I suppose in some people’s mind it’s justice for people to retire with what they’ve saved. In that case Social Security can be mercy.
I suppose you could say that everyone having an equal right to pay for healthcare is justice, and some kind of universal coverage would be mercy.
I suppose you could say that given the industrial energy and dynamism in the USA it’s right that we use up a majority of the worlds recourses, but I doubt it’s merciful.
Our heritage is filled with people who loved justice and mercy: abolitionists who fought against slavery, activists who fought for civil rights. There was Billy Graham who integrated his crusades in the 50s and Martin Luther King who taught the way of non-violently loving justice.
There are many ways today to do justice and to love mercy. Serving at our food pantry, being actively involved in politics, paying attention and expressing your voice for the easily overlooked. But today, I’m going to address a topic that I’ve become convinced is more important than the war in Iraq, terrorism, or even poverty. Its name is part of the problem, because it sounds so innocuous and benign. “Global warming…” nothing wrong with a little warming, none of us like too much snow…
I must begin by bringing you some bad news. If you have a minute, let me correct a misimpression that some of you undoubtedly share. You may say to yourself – why get worked up by what a few quack scientists say… sure it looks like it’s getting warmer, but hey temperatures have gone up and down for millennia.
I honestly wish I weren’t delivering this news, but we all need to face the truth. The truth is this:
Out of over 950 recent scientific peer-reviewed articles on the environment issue, not one questioned that the earth is getting warmer, and that humans are responsible.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the world’s most authoritative body of climate scientists, has documented the steady rise of temperatures over the last 50 years, and projects it will continue, and attributes “most of the warming” to human activities.
The US National Academy of Sciences, as well as all other G8 country scientific academies (UK, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Italy, and Russia) has concurred with these judgments.
Other facts:
1) The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years. (can anyone say Katrina?)
2) The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade.
3) 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming, moving closer to the poles.
4) Four of the warmest years on record have happened since 1990.
Here are the predictions of some scientists. Given this last week, given Katrina, it’s not hard to imagine:
1) Deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years -- to 300,000 people a year.
2) Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide.
3) Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense and droughts and wildfires will occur more often.
4) At current trends, the Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050.
Another misperception: Only leftist tree-huggers care about this stuff. This I’m glad to report is no longer the case. People are waking up. The best example is the “Evangelical Climate Initiative.” This initiative was signed by conservative religious leaders like Rick Warren, Andy Crouch, Timothy George, Jack Hayford, Ron Sider. This Initiative makes four claims:
1) Human-Induced Climate Change is real.
2) The Consequences of Climate Change will be significant and will hit the poor the hardest.
3) Christian moral convictions demand our response to the climate change problem.
4) The need to act now is urgent. Governments, businesses, churches, and individuals all have a role to play in addressing climate change – starting now.
(I will have this posted on our website, so you can read it in detail – it has many supporting documents)
So what do we do? The good news is that studies show it is possible to reverse the effects. But it will take the will to do so. Here’s what I want to ask you to do. Take one step, even a baby step, on this issue. If you doubt it’s important read about it. If you know it’s important but, like me, prefer to live with your head in the sand, take your head out, and take one step. Start recycling, buy a hybrid, call your senator.
And a bit of more good news: the kingdom is made of many members, some who are called down river and some up. But all of us are called to avoid swallowing camels.
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