I think I got liberated these past two weeks. I have wrestled with what is called “justice ministry.” It has seemed to me that there is no way to get involved with the mainstream of “justice ministry” without having to be a liberal. Folks, this should not be a shocker, but apparently it is: Jesus is the Savior, not whoever we anoint whenever. When you try to get Jesus to fit an ideology, either you’re in for a rude awakening when He hurts your cherished assumptions and values, or you will create a Jesus to suit yourself and those cherished assumptions and values. There will come a time when, if you are liberal or conservative, Jesus is going to shred your values. And it won’t do you any good to be halfway on board with His plans. Anyone who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.
Martina said something about the garden being a justice ministry. I think I myself may have said the same. But I really did not see how. We’re just growing stuff and feeding people. And I was starting to worry: when are people going to think this is bait-and-switch? I mean, I ride an extracycle, and garden like a Mendocino County hippie. The kind of folks who conflate this work with the whole gospel are going to be pretty mad when they find out I’m a Jesus-is-the-only-way preacher. But Martina knows justice, so I had to think about it some more, take it more seriously.
On a long drive from Texas, there was lots of time to think. We were coming through some really pretty parts of North Texas and Arkansas. The grass was coming up, and winter wheat, too. I got to thinking about sheep, and that got me to the 23rd Psalm.
This Psalm has been a favorite of mine. Sometimes we take it for granted, having seen it on a million cards or wall plaques, heard it at funerals, who knows. But it is a very deep poem, worthy of serious study.
When I first became a Christian, Psalm 23 was one of the first things I memorized. I remember telling a professor who helped lead me to Christ that if you could just really “get” Psalm 23, it would take you a long way. I now know that trusting the Good Shepherd will take you all the way.
Anyway, the line that kept coming to me was “Thou preparest a table before me, in the presence of mine enemies.”
Some of what I love about the verse is its honesty; the phrase “in the presence of mine enemies” is an admission that there is evil in the world, that you have enemies. Most times, we’d rather hear (or say) that everything is just great, there’ll be no problems if we follow Christ.
Think about the table the Lord prepares—both a literal table where one can eat in peace even tho surrounded by enemies. And it is a “table” meaning flat high ground where the sheep go for summer pasture. The Lord, the Good Shepherd prepares it by going there in advance of the sheep, rooting out noxious weeds, looking for good water, killing bears in their dens and bringing down wolves on the run with a well-aimed shot.
And it was in this verse that I got a new lease on, a new understanding of, justice. Or maybe it has been brewing for awhile, and Martina just pushed it over the edge. I have been working on a line of thought for a while: what to do about the gentrification that is slouching up North Limestone? It looks good, real good. But it is going to run off the people who live here. The conclusion is that the poor have to have their own place, and it must be the church. It is the table where they can eat in peace in spite of the conspiracy outside.
If the work of the Good Shepherd is to be imitated by the little shepherds, then we, too, must prepare a table in the presence of enemies. We have to be able to carve out a space and time of peace and plenty where now there is only confusion, chaos, threats, lies, and hunger.
The Good Shepherd never asked the wolves if they liked it or not. This was my new lease on justice. Not waiting for politicians to enact justice, not even expecting them to. Not trying to be a player.
The shepherd makes sure the sheep are fed, watered, and safe, in this life and the next.
2 comments:
I have a bad reaction to the word "justice" when it is thrown around in a Christian context (other contexts, too, but that's not what is being discussed here). The way I see it, if there were justice we would all be burning in the fires of hell. What we have, by the Grace of God through the work of Christ, is Mercy.
When folks get to talking about Justice Ministry, I get uncomfortable because I know that as fallen creatures we are incapable of true Justice.
It sounds to me like you are talking about Mercy Ministry. Mercy is part of the promise of the Sermon on the Mount. God, through his Grace, simultaneously grants us his Mercy and the moral ability to show Mercy to others.
Justice I leave to God. Mercy is a gift I'm called to share.
I don't think you're in too much danger of being mistaken for a hippie from Mendocino County unless there is a "special" part of your garden that you're not really mentioning on this blog that you keep hidden from the helicopters. :-)
I like this from your entry: "When you try to get Jesus to fit an ideology, either you’re in for a rude awakening when He hurts your cherished assumptions and values, or you will create a Jesus to suit yourself and those cherished assumptions and values. There will come a time when, if you are liberal or conservative, Jesus is going to shred your values." Course I think a lot of the Jesus stuff is a bit far-fetched, so that is in a way the opposite of your main point I suppose, but all the same, that quote above is how I think enlightenment must be.
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