The nakedness, hunger, loneliness and imprisonment Jesus spoke of are representative of human suffering, but not an exhaustive list. Much of Jesus’ teachings revolve around liberty for the oppressed and justice for the weak. When Jesus launched His ministry, He explicitly demonstrated these concerns:
“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners” (Luke 4: 18-19)
Justice and liberty seem like sore points with God. Over and over in the Old Testament we read about God’s demands to defend the weak and set captives free. In the New Testament, it was one of Jesus’ primary focuses. Why? Because all humankind is made in God’s image and wherever mankind suffers, Christ suffers.
As always, Christ chooses His words carefully. The King won’t say, “You knew I was hungry and gave me nothing.” No, it’s lack of action, not lack of knowledge that is condemned. On that day, Christ’s people, the Church, will not be able to claim ignorance.
Before we protest and scream, “That’s not fair, I wasn’t aware” we’ll find the warning was given centuries before Christ. God, speaking to His people through Isaiah the prophet commanded them to “learn to do right, seek justice, encourage the oppressed”(Isaiah 1:17).
In this command alone, never mind the full volume of scripture, we see that God places the onus on us to learn - to educate ourselves - in promoting justice. God is even more explicit through the prophet Hosea when He says, "My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6).
Our generation has access to a volume of information that is historically unparalleled. We’re never more than a click away from a vast world of statistics, figures and facts. There’s no excuse for not knowing anything! The real issue is our desire, or lack of desire, to know.
Experiment now. Open any search engine. Type in “Human Trafficking”. I’ve just done it. In 0.6 seconds it located 3.57 million entries. That’s certainly more than entry-level knowledge. Narrow it down by adding “Ireland” in your search bar. Still overwhelmed? Add “Christian response”. I hate to say it, but now there remains no excuse.
We’re not overtly bad people, we just turn a blind eye to human suffering, assuming someone else is taking care of the “problem.” It’s the government’s job anyway, right?
As Christians, we already have the template. While we were still slaves: slaves to sin, corruption, and our own carnal nature, Jesus heard our cry, giving Himself as a sacrifice to free us. He paid the ultimate price. He set the example.
We might say we didn’t learn, but we can’t say we didn’t know. We might say we were fascinated by the virtual world and the ease with which we kept abreast of our friends’ every fleeting moments and social contacts.
But it’s just as easy to invest that time learning to do right. We were created to love each other. If we just start somewhere, we can someday say, we learned about injustice and we learned to do right. Yes, that’s uncomfortable. We’ll have to gaze at human suffering but these are lives we can change. Jesus calls us out of our complacency. He demands that we serve.
Last month I encountered Anik from Africa. She had been a prostitute. Before you condemn her, consider this. Her passport had been taken and her children were being held captive. Every sexual encounter was an exercise in hope: a hope that her captors would release her children unharmed. They had no such notion. Freedom was denied her, until Christ’s people intervened.
Jesus launched His ministry quoting Isaiah the prophet. “…proclaim freedom for the captives.” In our modern day world, His servants, fighting for justice, made this a reality for Anik and her children. That’s what His people are supposed to do.
The script is already written. The actors are being chosen. Which part for you? Which part for me? Which part for the Church in Ireland? Ultimately, there are only two supporting characters: Those on the left who depart from the King for doing nothing and those on the right, who enter His courts for serving the oppressed.
Today you choose which character you will be.
Ken Gibson is CEO of The Leprosy Mission Ireland, serves on the boards of Christian organisations dedicated to fighting injustice and acts as development consultant to organisations across Europe. Watch out for his book on Overseas Aid being published this autumn!
Join The Conversation: Would you prefer to be ignorant of what is going on in the world? What can you do to avoid the apathy trap? Is cutting down on things like social networking the answer? How should we invest in doing right? Post your comments and questions below.
Fighting for social justice is a noble cause, and indeed much neglected by Christians. But this article seems to indicate that social justice is the primary concern for a Christian, and the quoted Scriptures are bend to fit Ken Gibsons meaning. For instance the quote of Luke. Does it really mean what Ken makes it say? How many captives were set free by the Lord Jesus? How many prisoners? It wasn't because the Lord Jesus had no access to the data of social injustice in his days - He doesn't need to google for answers! When Paul had a chance to do so in Acts 16 he actually confirms the opposite "Do not harm yourself, for we are all here." No, the captivity and prison spoken of are always explained as the spriritual captivity that sinners live under and the power of the gospel that can bring us into the kingdom of the Son of God's love. Interestingly, Paul had gone into prison in Phillippi because he set a captive free, a woman who made a lot of profit for her masters because she was psossessed by a spirit of divination. But Paul didn't set her free as soon as he got a chance, no, we read that she annoyed him for many days. Why was that? I imagine that Paul didn't set her free because she was not ready for the gospel (we don't read that she became a Christian) and that freeing her from this spirit would not set her free at all.
ReplyDeleteThe passage of Matthew 25 is even more dangerously applied to our situation. Does Ken really wants us to believe that on judgment day we will be judged according to our social activities, our "good deeds"? If so, we all can know for sure that we are not gonna make it, for that was the reason why the Lord Jesus came and died. By the way, if we look at Matthew 25, I can discover three groups of people there, sure we have the nations separated as the goats and the sheep, but they are judged in relation to a third group "my brethren." Who are these brethren in this case? They are not he sheep, and certainly not the goats!
I am not saying that we shouldn't care about social injustice. We are ambassadors of the most high God. His Kingdom is a kingdom of righteousness and love and security. But as Christ Ambassadors are first task is to preach the good news of salvation through faith alone: "We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled with God." The Holy Spirit will empower us with any means necessary to get this message across, including breaking obstacles of social injustice or miraculous signs - just as the Holy Spirit (not us) wills. But doing these (very good deeds indeed) is not the purpose, they are part of our tools to get His message and His love across. When we focus on the good deeds we can just as well drop the term "Christian" and call ourselves "humanitarian." There have been many "humanitarian" workers I admire, but they ultimately fail to set captives really free.
well said amen
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