How Do We Respond to Injustice?

Psalms 28:3-6

Do not drag me off with the wicked,
with the workers of evil,
who speak peace with their neighbors
while evil is in their hearts.
Give to them according to their work
and according to the evil of their deeds;
give to them according to the work of their hands;
render them their due reward.
Because they do not regard the works of the Lord
or the work of his hands,
he will tear them down and build them up no more.

Blessed be the Lord !
For he has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy.

...............

On Friday, December 14, 2012, at 9:30am, a 20-year-old man ended the lives of 20 schoolchildren and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT. The public response was immediate and emotionally charged. Parents wept for their lost children, while others across the country held their children a little longer before bedtime, imagining how painful it would be to lose those we hold most dear. The innate sense of justice we all feel was stirred to the point of brimming over. We were reminded that evil is still real, and we could not suppress the instinctual craving for justice in the aftermath of wicked deeds like these.

In Psalm 28, we get an interesting balance in the mind of the believer: the twofold truth that we are both desperately in need of God's forgiveness, and desperately ready for God to punish others who act wickedly. We want the final judgment to come, and for all things to be made right. But we know we belong in the lake of fire ourselves, so we cry out for mercy, utterly dependent on God's grace to spare us from our just penalty.

Really, humility and justice must hang together in the Christian's life, for one cannot exist without the other - at least, not in any authentic way. For example, our thirst for punishment against mass murderers would surely disappear if we lost our ability to humbly identify with the fragile dependency of our dear children. Our sympathy toward these little ones corresponds to our fierce opposition to any force that would spoil their delicate lives. Here's how Jesus embodied this balance:

"Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea." (Mark 9:42)

Likewise, a lack of justice will always coincide with a lack of humility, and vice versa. For example, if I did not care deeply for the weak and vulnerable child, I would not have the deadly serious mind of Christ toward any threat to their safety. In fact, it is safe to say that God's justice is an extension of his humility. No one feels the wickedness and gravity of sin more than Him who has known the fullest depths of humility. This humility is what has led to God's wrath being satisfied on our behalf - at the cross, there is simultaneously justice for sin, and justification for the sinner. As Paul said:

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." (Romans 3:23, 24, 26)

Our humility must also be defined by a deference to the supremacy of God in all things. The psalmist here considers the wicked man's greatest crime to be that he disregarded the works of the Lord (28:5). To have a vision and passion for God's glory is to be both truly humble and also highly sensitive to how sin perverts and distorts God's glorious love and holiness.

This is the gospel-balance that helps us respond to the Newtown massacre in the way that God does - with deadly seriousness and the just fires of hell, motivated by a humble love and longing for the protection of innocence and the glory of God. I pray I can walk in the light of the cross of Christ, which speaks mercy to me while simultaneously paying for my crimes against God and man. I pray I can walk like Micah:

"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)

Photo Negative - Part 2

Matthew 20:27-28

and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

...............

This chapter continues the photo negative of chapter 19, taking the theme to it's most important conclusion: Salvation does not depend upon the goodness or strength of men, but rather on the unmerited generosity and power of God. The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard is perhaps the most shocking example of this photo negative, destroying our preconceived notions about religion and putting us on our knees before our Maker.

As we saw in chapter 19, this parable ends with the concluding statement "so the last will be first, and the first last." In order to further explain this cryptic little statement, Jesus takes us through a realistic story that is unlike anything the people had heard before. A master hired some laborers, a common-enough occurrence. Then, as the day went on, the master periodically hired more laborers among those who were without work in the marketplace, also a common experience. But, then the unthinkable happens. The master appears to throw aside every pretense of fairness and equity by paying those who had only worked one hour with the same day's wage that he had promised to those who had borne the brunt of the work through the scorching heat. Our intuitive sense of justice cringes at this notion, but luckily for us, the parable ends with a theological explanation that is pivotal for understanding God's kingdom and the way he works in human affairs:

Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity? So the last will be first, and the first last.

I think it is clear from this explanation that Jesus is explaining the freedom of God; that God, as Creator and Sustainer of every molecule in the universe has the right and freedom to do what he wants, whenever he wants. But, I want us to notice something else that is a photo negative of our common cultural notions of fairness. The master shows his generosity to the workers who came later, but he ALSO calls the wages he gave to the first workers a sign of "generosity." Could it be that these first workers also did not truly earn anything good? How can their hard-earned wages be called generosity? Here is the photo negative.

Imagine an escalator. People standing on the stairs moving ever upward, on and on. The world sees human goodness and progress as something like this escalator: People generally are moving closer to moral perfection and beauty with every passing generation. Science, technology, medicine, art, legislation - everything appears to be improving our standard of living and our peace with one another, right? In this cultural paradigm, when God sends someone to hell, it is heinously offensive. Doesn't God see the beauty and progress of that individual. Even though some degenerate criminals stumble along this upward moving escalator, they could never do anything so bad as to deserve being flicked off the escalator by the finger of God, right?

Imagine another escalator. People are standing on the stairs moving ever downward, on and on. The Bible pictures human nature as hopelessly broken and perverted: People generally and individually are moving closer to hell, closer to complete separation from God, with every passing generation. War, disease, natural disasters, poverty, hunger, crime, hatred - human beings appear to being destroying themselves in a spiral of ever-increasing depravity. In this paradigm, the idea that God would send anyone to HEAVEN is heinously offensive. God could never allow one of these rebellious, ungrateful fools into eternal fellowship and joy in His presence, right? I mean, sure, there are some Billy Grahams and Mother Theresas out there, but no one really deserves to be plucked off the escalator and mercifully rescused from this downward spiral, right?

The photo negative is hard to swallow. It sounds a little pessimistic at first. Can human nature really be all that bad? Well, we must not abandon the fundamental dignity and inherit worth of human beings, as Image-bearers who were personally and lovingly formed by their Creator. However, the image of God in us has been torn to shreds by our rebellion. Some of it remains, but it proves to be of no merit in terms of our salvation. No goodness in us will prove to be enough to earn the approval and acceptance of God. The Bible paints this photo negative with large and undeniable brush-strokes. We must conform our minds to the viewpoint of God, or else we will continue to see salvation as something we have earned, rather than the unmerited generosity of a loving master.

SPECIAL REPORT - God is not Trite

Romans 12:1-2

I appeal to you therefore, brothers,
by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,
holy and acceptable to God,
which is your spiritual worship.
Do not be conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
that by testing you may discern what is the will of God,
what is good and acceptable and perfect.

...............

This has been on my mind all morning. I cannot help but write about it.

God is not trite.

He is not petty. He is not narcissistic, schizophrenic, unreasonable, or unstable. Why am I saying all of this? What is happening that makes God appear to be petty?

The Church.

The Church is what is making God appear so small, so irrelevant, and so detached from reality. It drives me mad just thinking about. Now, before I get into the details, this is not a full-fledged condemnation of God's church. The Church is God's holy bride that will be washed in his blood and taken into the new heavens and new earth to live with him forever. I love the church. That's why it's imperative that we call her out of darkness. And, the particular kind of misrepresentation that is driving me mad this morning is this: WORSHIP.

Consider, how many times does the New Testament make reference to singing? How many times in the book of Acts, for instance, do we see the early church singing? In Acts 4:42 we have a brief summary of the life of the church. "And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers." Does anybody see singing in there?

The point is, worship is not what many people think it is.

Worship does not equal singing, raising your hands, trembling, feeling awe, getting slain in the Spirit, or any other ecstatic experience. God demands worship, in Spirit and in truth, and he promises eternal hell for those who do not worship him. I'll say that again: He promises hell for those who do not worship.

Whoa, wait a minute! Hell? For not singing? For not attending a weekly "worship" service? Why, God sounds like a petty, immature, narcissistic, maniac!! What a waste, why would I ever worship a God like that?!

And, those are the appropriate questions the church has to face. We've painted God to be petty and then demanded people to worship. Our children grow up thinking this way and they end up turning away by the time they hit college. The problem is, the Church continues to try and solve this problem in the wrong way. Emergent churches try to make "worship" more trendy and in line with the surrounding culture (God is somehow lagging behind culturally?). Mainstream churches make "worship" more formalized and liturgical, hoping to bring people a sense of reverence or nostalgia (God wants to be lagging behind culturally?). And, Evangelical churches just switch the music around, fire the choir, and hire a twenty-something guitar player to lead us in a "worship experience." All of this is under the pseudonym "worship."

Romans 12 gives us another definition of worship: putting every aspect of your life on the alter, and conforming those details to the will of God, rather than to the world. That is worship, in a nutshell. Doing EVERYTHING to the glory of God. But, it's not doing everything with a Jesus-stamp on it. It's not just slipping people a gospel pamphlet with their receipt at the register. Or, whispering prayers while you toss boxes or punch in numbers on the keyboard. No, doing everything to the glory of God is really seeing what you do in a new way. That may require some basic changes in what you do with the majority of your time. Or, it may mean merely changing the WAY you do what you do with the majority of your time. Either way, it is comprehensive, all-encompassing, and powerfully relevant.

God is not trite. He cares so much more about the ins and outs of your daily life than in whether you had a certain kind of experience or sang a certain kind of song on Sunday morning. And, when we start to see the comprehensive nature of the worship that He demands, it begins to make a little more sense why Hell is the alternative. For those who make their lives into a personal kingdom of self-rule and self-worship, Hell is the only logical destination. We condemn ourselves by making God into a petty, distant, immature music-leader. He doesn't just want our songs.

He wants our lives.

(P.S. I do enjoy singing and think the Church has plenty to sing about!)