In Search of Justice

One of my brothers (in Christ) recently posted on Facebook that he highly recommended reading this book called The Harbinger by Jonathan Cahn.  I felt a nudge in my spirit to take him up on his suggestion.  After all, I need another book to read along with about the other ten or so I'm piece mealing my way through (did you hear the sarcasm there?).  Feel free to insert an A.D.D. joke here if it helps you laugh at the stacks of books you'll find littering horizontal surfaces throughout my home near my roosting spots.  I have a desk, because it has a wide and deep horizontal surface which is perfect for said stacks.  I'm told that if the top surface were cleared of stacks I could sit at that desk and read one or two of those books with a note pad or something.  I'm not sure I believe them when they say things like that.

But that Harbinger book has started something I'm going to have to pursue, and publicly as the case may be, because the answer is important.  What is Justice?  The story line hasn't specifically brought up that question in the first nine chapters, but it's drawing a long series of parallels from the Old Testament Prophets that speak directly to that as one of the key failures for which Israel was judged by God. 

I think the answer is directly related to all the political harangues we've been on so bitterly for the last 4-5 years.  The root issues underlying the bitter exchanges are important mind you, but the problem I have is I find no redemption in them, because the conversations are all surface.  I mean we can't get down to the brass tacks of simple root applications, we keep it heated and we keep it emotional and we try to force our well reasoned approach down our opponents throat BECAUSE WE'RE RIGHT BY GOD AND IF YOU DON'T AGREE YOU'RE LIKELY GOING TO HELL FOR BEING A ...  You get where all this stuff has gone.  We can't truly agree or put words to what we think are the solutions.  I recently blogged about a conversation wherein I just told the other person we can't agree on the foundation of the Constitution as a rule of law so there is no conversation to be had, we're talking at and around each other...

That's pretty common in political conversations.  So, we've stayed surface, or tried to slap band aids on the issue by pressing the latest cause "put prayer back in schools" or "sign this petition to give all female teachers bra holsters and .22 automatics".  First of all my girls already pray in their public school, because they've been taught at home to talk to God about everything.  Second of all... the caption read "this is a properly dressed teacher" and I'm not sure that anything less than a C or D cup would have concealed the outline of the smallest gun hanging between her cups, not with the tight t-shirt she was wearing, let alone whether she'd ever be able to pull a child in for that impromptu hug that seems to be the signature of a child comfortable with their teacher.  But even if we think both of these things should be done (and I'm not saying they should or should not, not here in this forum) the question remains why?  What have we gained, have we restored a foundation?  Does it raise too many implementation questions?  My point is that until we can get the answer simplified and into a practical application I'm not signing anything.  Because methinks the problem is more basic than those things.  I think it's about something brought up first in the history of Abraham recorded in the Bible.

For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him. 
Genesis 18:19 (ESV)

The way of the LORD can be kept by DOING righteousness and justice.  Got it.

Well sort of... on second thought... part of it but not really the other.

If we accept that a good working definition of righteousness is "right relatedness to God and others", you know love your neighbor, do unto others... speak the truth, IN LOVE as we're told in Ephesians 4:15 (rather than WITH A CLUB - as it so often turns out).  I get that part mostly.  I can work it out.

But justice?  doing?  What... I mean how... I don't get it really.  And I hear that prophet guy saying:

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8 (ESV)

Do justice?

And I hear time and again these other prophets saying that Israel and other nations are under the wrath of God for failure to be just and righteous and defend the defenseless, and live righteously with one another.  Don't change the rules, don't move the boundary markers, don't have double standards.  Do have love for God and one another.  Do have faith in God to reward your right behavior.

So if Abraham can be chosen to teach his family how to DO justice and righteousness, that must mean it's doable - right?  This isn't a situation of 'with God all things are possible.'  Or 'Is anything to hard for God?'  This is a situation of Abraham knows how to get this done, he's fully capable of doing it.  Therefore we can all DO justice.

How?

Well, I suspect like I heard somewhere a few hundred times or so "let it begin with me" is most definitely where the prescription starts.  But the how is still important, I can work out righteousness - I get it mostly.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Don't make condemning judgments that bludgeon the other person with condemnation and allow no room for redemption.  Instead make right judgments that incorporate understanding where the situation unraveled, what God intended the situation to be, and work with each other to get there by His grace.  Or simply accept the fact the other person doesn't want to get there and you aren't going to take them there kicking and screaming and force them to repent.  You might drag them to the altar and get a confession, but not repentance.  So I can accept my friend as they are, love them where they are, while I pray for them to get more in line with what God reveals to be His best intentions for our best life now and throughout eternity.  I can even wrap my brain around the fact that the best righteousness I can do will still fall short of God's truest glory and that ultimately I have to rely on this $50 theological term 'imputed' righteousness, the righteousness of God revealed in Jesus Christ and 'imputed' to me by faith in Him. 

But how do I work out justice?  I mean are we talking laws, rules at least?  Or is it something else, something more than rules, or less than rules as the case may be? 

Abraham was before the Law, the Ten Commandments and the bazillion others... so it can't be as complicated as we want to make it.  Yet God says we're supposed to DO this justice thing.  What's worse is we've got all these references to Him being mad when this justice thing doesn't get done.  He rolls up nations like we fold up game boards, He smooshes together all the Risk armies into one little geographic territory and starts rolling the dice to conquer the un-Just(ice) opponents that he warned beforehand.  I mean there's these little Roman numerals and horses and cannons all piled up and spilling in like some crazy plastic barbarian horde changing the whole color scheme of the map and collecting cards every round... so I'm guessing He takes it pretty freakin' serious.  I should probably get this one right...

And yet I can't specifically tell you what it would mean to DO justice.  Seriously.  I wish this tired soldier were joking.  I can't specifically tell you.

Can you tell me what it would mean?  Have you ever thought about it?  Do you think we ought to know what gets God so fired up? 

Not "Truth, Justice, and The American way."  I mean surely you understand we here in the United States of America have mostly forsaken Truth and exchanged The American Way for something our founders routinely warned against.  Justice surely didn't survive loosing the book ends of that patriotic phrase.  Truth in this country fell by the wayside at the last just before the turn of the 20th century with the systematic change of American and world history to reflect the motivational pattern of "follow the money."  We redefined what motivated people.  Once we were successful in stripping our motivation for historical actions from Moral law that conformed to, or diverged from,  the revealed nature of God - we were able to slowly and systematically begin redefining everything to suit our needs and whims.  And then shortly thereafter we abdicated our personal moral and financial responsibilities to this nebulous entity "The Federal Reserve" - an entity neither Federal nor having actual gold and precious metals in Reserve.  And though no one reading this today was alive in 1913 and actually made that choice personally, we have inherited the futile thinking of our forefathers who revealed by their actions that the true God we worship is money, or success defined in dollar signs...  history records that several protests were lodged and yet they had that 'injustice' foisted upon them, and we inherited it, and the consequences.  Which brings up a converse approach to finding 'justice.' 

We can probably rattle off several examples of what 'injustice' looks like, so can we work backwards and put our finger on 'justice'?  Or do we have to start from a known point and move forward?

Do you think it's important?  I do.  And I'll tell you why.  It's captured in the last phrase of the verse from Genesis 18:19:

...This is how the LORD will fulfill to Abraham what He promised him. (HCSB)

If doing what is right and just is the litmus test for whether I'm the new creation Scripture claims I'm supposed to be in Christ, and whether or not I'm truly a child of Abraham by faith, then I need to know how to DO JUSTICE.  I'm not talking works salvation here.  I'm not talking legalism or a return to Judaism.  Abraham as I pointed out was before The Law.  And justice was still doable.  So we're going to find a different marker post here.  Or at least I'm going to tell you what I find Scripture to reveal, whether you agree or not will be your choice.

See you next time, with something more than questions.