Welcome to week 4 of our Just Love series! This week, our focus will be on what justice looks like in the Kingdom of God. Check out our previous weeks' posts if you have not seen them yet!
So what does justice in the Kingdom of God look like? In order to understand the Biblical, Kingdom view of justice, we are going to take a walk through a series of Scriptures from both the Old and New Testaments. We will see how God views justice, how God enacts justice in His Kingdom, and the ways in which we are called to participate in Kingdom justice.
Justice in the Old Testament
There are several Scriptures within the Torah, the Hebrew Law, where God talks about taking care of specific groups of people. As early as Exodus 22, along with Leviticus 19 and several other places, God demonstrates that He cares deeply for the vulnerable and expects His people to care for them too.
In the ancient Israelite context, there were four groups that were repeatedly understood to be among the most vulnerable in society: the orphan, the widow, the foreigner, and the poor. These four groups are sometimes referred to as the "quartet of the vulnerable" because of how frequently they appear both in the Law and in the Prophets.
God intentionally creates a system through His Law where the most vulnerable are taken care of by His people. He is intentionally creating a culture where the marginalized have a place and where they are protected.
From the very beginning, God's Law is intentional about this. Justice is not an accidental side note; it is part and parcel of who God is, who He's calling His people to be, and what He wants the culture of this people to look like. God is saying, "I'm concerned about them, and I want you to be concerned about them, too."
It is evident, all over the Old Testament, that restorative justice is one of God's biggest concerns. Look again at our theme verse for this series, Micah 6:8:
He has shown you, O man, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
And to walk humbly with your God.
The context of this Micah passage is important. Again, God has been working to develop a culture among His people of caring for the vulnerable. And Micah is preaching to a group of people who have started to enact unjust practices against the poor, which makes the poor become further disenfranchised and the rich become richer. For example, some would illegally change the boundary lines of their land to claim part of their neighbors' land, or use weighted scales so they could charge people more for fewer goods.
These inequitable practices have Micah really upset. And as a prophet, Micah is the mouthpiece of God, who is coming against the people of Israel to rebuke them for their injustice. In these verses, God reminds His people that they were created to be a people of justice.
Another thing that is remarkable about this verse is what justice is paired with. Justice occurs alongside mercy and humility. Mercy is what galvanizes us to justice, when we have compassion and understanding for others; but when we do that with humility, it prevents us from becoming power hungry, in thinking that we are able to enact justice ourselves. We can trust that God is a God of justice if we have humility.
God is intentional about stating that not only is He a God of justice, but also that the people of Israel have experienced justice, particularly through their rescue from Egypt. In Exodus 1 God is said to have heard the cries of His people who were oppressed. God has compassion on them, and then He frees them.
This is intentional. God is saying that justice is not only for the Israelites; the justice they experienced was always meant to extend past their religious and ethnic categories to encompass the whole world.
The Hebrew word for justice is mishpat, which means justice, fairness, or impartiality; however, Dr. Tim Mackie clarifies that the true connotation of this word in the Old Testament is to make the problems of others your own.
This idea of mishpat is centered around the concept of restorative justice, in which the culture is shaped with a bent toward equity. This is why justice and mercy and love are so connected, because we want to establish a culture of taking care of the most vulnerable.
When Joshua divided the land of Israel for the twelve tribes, there was one tribe that gets "left out" of this land division: the Levites. This is because the Levites were tasked with with taking care of the Temple, and one specific family within the Levites was called to be the priests of the nation. What that meant was that the Levites had no land of their own and, therefore, no resources of their own.
So the Lord decreed that the other eleven tribes would give a tenth of their produce, their income, to the Levites. This was known as the mishpat of the Levites.
This was deemed equitable and just for the Levites to receive, because they had no other means of providing for themselves. God arranged this society so that this group of people, who would otherwise be neglected, was supported.
This is just one example of God working to build an equitable society, a society of justice. There are many other examples as well, such as the repeated emphasis on justice and equity for the "quartet of the vulnerable." God intentionally teaches His people to be open-handed and generous to those who are disenfranchised by society. After all, God owns everything; we're just stewarding it, right?
Justice in the New Testament
Moving over to the New Testament, we want to look specifically at some of Jesus' teachings related to justice. In Luke 4, which is Jesus' first public teaching, Jesus goes to the synagogue in Nazareth and read from the scroll of Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
This is from Isaiah 61. Jesus is essentially saying that the coming of the Kingdom of God means that mishpat is here for everybody. He is literally taking this idea, which God had told His people for hundreds of years, and embodying it. The Gospel message being fulfilled, for Jesus, is that the oppressed and the marginalized and the poor will be taken care of.
This is not just a side note; this is evidence of the coming of the Kingdom of God. The first thing that Jesus says publicly is, intentionally, mishpat for all people, not just the people of Israel.
We can also look at the people that Jesus chose to spend time with, who were often the marginalized: tax collectors, poor people, Samaritans, those on the fringes of society. Jesus' very life declares His desire for mishpat.
Jesus also has several teachings, particularly in the Sermon on the Mount, relevant to this theme. In Matthew 5, He talks about murder; how killing another human being is definitely wrong, but He takes it even further and says that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. He also mentions adultery, and says that adultery is definitely wrong, but takes it a step further by saying that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully "has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
What if at least part of what Jesus is trying to teach us here is to see the humanity in other people? That it matters how we see people, not just what we do towards them, but that how we see people matters?
If we can recognize the imago Dei, the image of God, in somebody else, they are no longer an object. They can no longer be subject to our greed, or anger, or lust because they are a person, with whose humanity we are forced to reckon.
Jesus is saying that how you view people makes you into a certain type of person, and that He has a particular idea of the type of person we should be: someone that sees the fullness of humanity of others, because we see Jesus in them.
It is when we lose sight of the humanity of others that we start to accept their mistreatment. If I can see someone as being less than human, then it does not matter if I treat them poorly or if they do not have the same rights as other members of society. This is where slavery and Nazism and Jim Crow laws converge: with the loss of humanity by the oppressor toward the marginalized.
Jesus admonishes us to love our neighbors and to respect the image of God in them, because in doing so, we will love like He loves... but also, we will have no choice but to pursue justice for them.
Not only does Jesus teach us that the greatest commandment is to love God and neighbor, but He goes a step further and says that we are supposed to love our enemies as well. He states, You've heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy but I tell you this love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be sons of your father in heaven. And He ends in verse 48 by telling His listeners to be perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect. Perfect, meaning to be complete in the fullness of love by not only loving your neighbor, but also loving your enemies!
There are a lot of implications about why Jesus says this, but one interpretation is that if we love our enemies, we have to humanize them. To recognize the dignity of their life as well, recognize that they also were made in the image of God. This is a hard thing to believe, but we have to learn that if we love Jesus, we cannot diminish the value of others.
What about people that have hurt us? Well, Jesus also says, Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad! So Jesus teaches us to rejoice and pray in response to persecution.
[A quick caveat to this idea: We do not promote or condone abusive situations. We do not believe that if you're in an unhealthy situation you should stay in it or not take action if you are in danger. This is not the point of what we are trying to say!]
The point is that Jesus calls us to see the imago Dei in everybody, and that includes people we agree with, people that we don't, people that hurt us, and people that love us.
What are we called to do when we are in situations of injustice ourselves? Dr. Tim Mackie describes Jesus' response to these situations using the term "creative nonviolence," which is a term that has also been used by various non-violent activist groups throughout history. Let's take a look at a couple of examples.
In Matthew 5:38-42, Jesus gives his followers several hypothetical scenarios. This is what He says:
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
In the ancient world, a slap on the face always used the right hand. So a slap on the right cheek of another person would mean a backhanded slap, meant to humiliate the other person. Instead of getting into a fight and ending up further injured, Jesus tells His followers to present their left cheek so that the offender is forced to slap with an open palm, as they would to a person of equal rank.
What does this action force the other person to do? It forces them to see your humanity and equality, or be dishonored by backing down and refusing. If you want to see more examples, please check out the Bible Project's Sermon on the Mount series, specifically this episode on the above passage.
The Future Restoration of Justice
Justice is not just an ideal to strive for now; it is also a promise for the future resotration of all things. At the end of the book of Revelation, Jesus quotes Isaiah once again, saying, "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away" (Rev. 21:4). So the fullness of the coming Kingdom also includes mishpat! The sign that God's Kingdom has come is that there is no more need to lament, because everything has been made right.
Justice is not a side note to God. This is so true, in fact, that the full restoration of the world is marked by justice. So then, justice cannot be a side note for the people of God. We have to be proactive in our pursuit of just love.
Original sermon by Noelle Fillmore
Blog post adapted by Allison Freytes
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