Justice

In Genesis we read of Joseph, unjustly imprisoned for years. But he is typical of others, then and now, forgotten in jails and lock-ups, victims of human injustice. We read of Daniel, thrown to the lions for praying to the God of heaven. But there are others today, in countries ruled by communists or Catholics or dictators, who for faithfulness to God’s word are under the constant shadow of death. We read of Naboth, unjustly stoned to death so that a sulky king could have his garden of herbs. But yet there are many helpless and innocent ones still who suffer because the great and powerful want their way. We read of Stephen, and Paul, lynched by racist mobs because they were too big to be confined by the narrow hypocrisy of their fellow-countrymen and so opened their hearts and lives to receive all men into Christ. And so it is today. The stuff of human nature is unchanged.

Yes, indeed, we do read of Joseph, and Naboth, and the rest and often enough we teach the stories to the young. But are we stirred to inward anger by the injustice of it all ? Can those that hear us read and tell of these flaming perversions of justice see in us the depth of our indignation? With Jesus before him, Pilate “took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person . . . ” and then condemned him to be crucified! Which of us can read thus far and not be wrung inside to cry out, “Coward, coward, man; can such foul injustice be washed away with a dishful of water?”

Men of God boiled within at the spectacle of man’s inhumanity to man. Elijah accosts Ahab foursquare in the ill-gotten vineyard: “I have found thee, because thou hast sold thyself to work evil . . .” Amos bitterly condemns those in Israel who made themselves fat by exploiting others beneath them (chapters 2-4). Isaiah pours scorn on the land barons who “join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place . .” (5:8). And with quiet bitterness the ‘Preacher’ beholds “the tears of such as were oppressed and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter” (Ecclesiastes 4:1).

“Such as were oppressed . . .” God knows the deep hurt in the hearts of multitudes discriminated against, pushed around; victims of race hatred, civil war, religious bigotry, poverty, and political power struggles. What does it matter whether the injustice is in the bush of Bangladesh, the bloody streets of Belfast, the black ghettos of Birmingham or the side streets of Pasadena? “He that is higher than the highest regardeth” (Ecclesiastes 5:8).

Christians take no part in worldly politics. But this did not prevent James from withering condemnation: “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl . . . the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth . .. ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton . . . ye have condemned and killed the just . . .” Nor did it prevent Paul from making the Roman governor Felix tremble as he spoke to him of “righteousness, temperance and judgement to come” (Acts 24:25.)

The Minister of Home Affairs in one country recently confessed: “There is one law for some strata of society and another law for others.” An arch-deacon confessed recently that, in the churches generally, Christianity did not change people but people changed Christianity to suit themselves. When it made them uncomfortable, they just “stopped their ears” (Acts 7:57). He mentioned how he suggested to his own well-to-do congregation of 2,000 that they have a campaign in a poor district nearby. After a little initial support, he was left to attend the campaign alone.

God’s men are involved not in political solutions but in witnessing to the love and purpose of God. They burn at injustice; they have compassion on the needy and those in the prison house of human bondage and suffering. Shall we, like Stephen’s audience, stop our ears so that we do not hear the call and the crying or shall we open our hearts and our lips even though we may become at times “The sect everywhere spoken against” (Acts 28:22) ?