We Serve a God of Compassionate Justice

Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou, katoa

Last week Cecily reminded us that, as we read the story of the Exodus Journey in Exodus, we too must remember that we are on a journey with God. We were reminded, to quote Cecily that “our actions and behaviours are a direct result of our attitude”. So I wonder, if on our journey with God, when we encounter brokenness, how do we act? Are we prepared to step out and act on the word of God?

Especially, when that word tells us to love God’s Law; if you read the Old Testament closely, you will find a common theme come through – Lord, I love your Law. Just look at the oldest and one of the most structured Psalms in the Bible, Psalm 119. The whole Psalm is obsessed with God’s Law, all 173 verses focus on the precious nature of God’s Law. I wonder if verse 97 sumerises how WE think about God’s Law today? “How I love your law! I think about it all day long”

Personally, I think it is fair to say that very few of us here think and meditate on the 613 laws and commandments that can be found in the books of Moses daily. Most of us would agree that one of the differences between the first testament and the second is that in the first testament, God revealed himself through his Law, yet in the second, God reveals himself through his Son. However, we need to be careful to assume that Christ replaced the Law entirely. If both the Law and Jesus reveal to us our heavenly God, then there is still something to be found in God’s Law. We can find the heart of God in his Law. This is why we are called to worship through a meditation on God’s word and Law.

And, this is why we need to venture into the books of the Law in the first testament. The Law is a beautiful thing. It is worthy of meditation because when we struggle to see Jesus by our side, we can find both Him and His Father in the Law.

One of the attributes of God revealed through, and in the Law, is one of Justice. In fact, it is one of Compassionate Justice. Both the Law and Jesus instruct us to live lives of Compassionate Justice. We are called not to be silent in injustice. We are called to label something what it is, if the world is broken, we are to call it broken and live a life separate to this brokenness so that God can be revealed. We are called to speak up for the poor; but, also, to speak up for the rich. We are called to not take sides. Sorry, I have that slightly wrong, we are called to only take one side in cases of injustice, and at is the side of our Father.

This is the heart of the Law. This is the heart of the Son. Compassionate Justice is what we have been called to even when we live in a world of injustice. And I am going to get to the world a bit later on, let’s start where we should all start – in the Word and Law of our Father. As I read this, I ask that you close your eyes and listen with your whole being. Allow yourselves to meditate on these verses. I am reading from Exodus 23, verses 1 to 9 from The Voice translation:

Do not pass along a false report. Do not plot with evil people to give a false witness.  Even if the majority of people are doing evil, do not follow them.  

Also when you are called to give testimony in a dispute, do not let the crowd pressure you into perverting justice.  In the same way, do not side with the poor in a complaint just because he is poor.

 If you are walking along and come across your enemy’s ox or donkey that has wandered away, then you must return it to its owner.  If you see the donkey of someone you know who hates you and it has fallen beneath its load, you must not leave it there. You must stop and help the donkey recover the load.

 Do not deny justice to the poor among you in their disputes.  Stay far away from false accusations, and do not condemn the innocent or righteous to death. Understand this: I will not acquit those who commit such miscarriages of justice.

 Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe can blind those who see and twist the words of those who are in the right. Do not oppress an outsider. You know well what it is like to be an outsider living in a foreign land, for you were strangers once in the land of Egypt.

Many of us have been there, a typical school playground. But all of us here would have been a different person in the story. Some of us would have been the rejected one, the one that no one liked. Some of us would have been the cool kids. And some of us just wanted to have friends. The story remains the same all the time. The rejected kid sits at a table with just-plain normal kids and the cool kids come up – eaw, why are you sitting with the reject? Look, come over to our table. No rejects sit there. If you stay sitting with the reject you will get the curse of the cheese. You will smell like the reject and then you will be rejected.

The next day, the rejected one brings chewing gum to school and uses it to try and make friends. It seems to work until PE class. You see, the reject finds them self without a locker to put their bag in. The normal kids come in and, wanting to be cool, instead of making sure the bag was safe, finders’ keepers, losers’ weepers after all, they take the bag with the gummy contents, leaving all the books behind. The rejected one, has to carry their books home in a shopping bag. But the bag soon breaks so the books are stacked high in the rejected one’s arms as they stumble home to the chorus of laughter from their school peers.

No one ever asked the rejected one for their story. If they had asked, they would find out why this kid comes to school in old hand-me-downs, sporting black-eyes and without the latest gadgets.  They turned up as the new kid at the beginning of the year. Because they hadn’t done primary or intermediate with the others, they had no right to feel accepted. Not at this school anyhow. At this school, everyone had to play the same game

This school story bears all the injustices of Exodus 23:1-9:

• The injustice of lies and rumours
• The injustice of following the crowd so that we don’t feel rejected
• The injustice of taking someone’s possessions, or leaving someone’s possessions to be taken when they are out in the open
• The injustice of walking away when someone is bearing a burden
• The injustice of accepting bribes, and therefore, allowing oneself to be blind, deaf and mute as a result
•  The injustice of ill-treating an outsider
• The injustice of denying justice – full stop!

If we want to see our God in these verses with the understanding that he is telling us his nature through his Law, this is our God, this the way we are called to live:

• Justice is about speaking the Truth; especially as we serve ‘The Way, The Truth, and The Life’
•  Justice is about standing up for the victim even if we have to step out of the crowd
•  Justice is ensuring that our enemy is not denied possessions that they rightly own and need
• Justice never walks away from  those carrying burdens
•  Justice refuses bribes, and therefore, chooses to see, hear and speak the Truth
• Justice shows compassion for outsiders
• Justice is nothing short but compassion in action

But this is not our world today. And hear me here friends, this message is not about rich or poor. But rather it is about the outsiders and the insiders. It is about the ‘us’ or the ‘we’ and the ‘them’ or the ‘other’.  It is about the precarious nature of this world today as the disillusioned working-class peoples around the world find their shared frustration and anger pushing them to vote together as one for extremist leaders and policies.  The world today is broken.

In many places there is no compassion and where there is many are speaking against the compassion being offered. We have the truly scary elections in the United States, where walls are being talked about to stop outsiders entering, meanwhile, the current President finds himself in tears at a funeral for five police officers because the racism Martin Luther King Jr preached against is still evident in his country today. In Europe, we have a massive refuge crisis and countries falling apart. The German president, a strong Christian, has vowed open doors for refugees; her country is against this policy and she will probably be voted out in the next election. The UK is now leaving the EU, a decision which will affect generations and has already affected ethnic groups within England. Polish businesses and cultural clubs have been attacked; leaders on both sides are calling for calm. Meanwhile, we have the terrors of groups such as ISIS, and the ethnic cleansing of Christians. The world is broken.

And what can we do about what is happening in the world today. Well there is only one answer, pray. Pray hard and pray strong.

With all this going on, it is a good thing that we live in little Aotearoa New Zealand eh? While I agree that we are all globally connected today and I agree that these things can, and might, happen in Aotearoa, I actually believe that we have our own injustices occurring. Injustice can be found in three ways here in Aotearoa.

First, we have historical injustice. Historically, the missionaries brought to Aotearoa three things, first they brought western knowledge and technology, second the brought the gospel and thirdly they brought, Te Tiriti. Our Maori ancestors accepted all three. By the 1860s, more Maori could read and more Maori attended church than their Pakeha counterparts. Problem is, settlers wanted and needed land. Like a donkey left on the side of the road, successive Governments enabled this land to be taken and used. Maori saw Te Tiriti as a covenant (just as God made a covenant with Moses), Pakeha governments didn’t. As the church had a central role in the development of Te Tiriti, we as New Zealand Christians need to choose to open our ears and listen to the stories of the past so that healing can occur for all of us.

If this is something that you think you need to know about then a good place to start are the books:

Healing our History, or Bible and Treaty

Second, we have welfare injustice. As a country we pride ourselves on being the first welfare state in the world. While this is only true in the contemporary sense (you see, Israel’s Law enabled a welfare state in the Biblical sense), it does mean that as a country, we pride ourselves on supporting the less-well off. But the truth is here in this valley. This valley was a construction of the welfare state. Okay, we have very few state homes; but most of the homes in this valley were built to enable people to have a start in a nice home and community. We also had factories here in this valley and over the hill meaning that families were assured of employment. They are all gone now. Most went in the 1980s. What also left us in the 1980s was the old Welfare State. Before successive political reforms, high taxes meant that benefits enabled people to live adequately until they found work. And yes, the way the country was structured back in the past meant that unemployment rates were kept at a bare minimum. At one time, the prime minister knew the names of the unemployed by heart.

Our welfare system is no longer like this; we live in a job market. Beneficiaries are shamed through the process. Alongside this, we have been fast moving up the ranks towards first place in statistics of shame. We now have the second highest child abuse rate in the OECD. One child dies every two weeks often as a result of parents not coping. If we agree that it is not okay for our poor to live in garages, if we agree that it is not okay for parents to be working four jobs but still needing a food bank, if we agree that our children deserve to live in love and warmth, then are called to speak, to have a voice, and assist the poor step out and act in love.

If this is something you are interested in, talk to Allan Taylor about CAP and the video that was shown last week showing that our Church recognises the trauma of poverty and the story of hope that can counter it.

If you want to know what happened in the 1980s then watch the DVD ‘In the Land of Plenty’ or the series ‘Revolutions’ on YouTube

Finally, we have outsider injustice here in Aoteaora. I don’t see this as much in places like Wainuiomata, but I do see this in small town Aotearoa. Many Pakeha NZers, do fear foreigners and are quick to knock our Pasifika and Maori brothers and sisters. I have seen this often on the gossip book – facebook – where people, my friends, are quick to speak against and in fear of outsider groups. There was one time I posted a video, very much about this message, where a Muslim sister spoke about 9/11 and her family’s fear. They decided to go to the Mosque to worship and were blown away by the Christians who were there to say we will not reject you. We will stand with you. We will show compassion. But the comments to this woman’s amazing speech on my Facebook feed were of absolute hatred and fear. Church, I only want to fear one thing, and that is God.  

If people are going to speak against the outsiders living with us and these outsiders have done us no harm, then God calls us to stand with the outsiders and speak with them on their behalf.

So, how do we live a life of compassionate justice? Well, it is simple – choose to see injustice. This involves knowing and hearing all sides of the story. And this means, going deeper than television and newspaper news, both of which are created with advertisers in mind and not you. So, first you have to see, then you have to hear, and then you have to act, and this just might involve speaking.  

You need to know your Truth and speak your Truth. And if your Truth is the heart and mind of our Lord Jesus Christ, then if you enemy, is lying on the street beaten and bated, you won’t leave them there in the mud. You will know the intent of the Law as Jesus summarised in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. You will go to them and you will show them love, you might be passionate about your faith, you might be passionate about your God and your Saviour, but you share both God’s passion and His heart. And when God’s heart and your heart become one it takes all this passion for justice to emerge and the result is the outpouring of compassion bucket after bucket.

So, church we are going to finish this message with a short Ted Talk about Justice and Silence. Arch-Bishop Desmond Tutu once said to ‘To choose to be silent in moments of injustice is to choose to take the side of the oppressor’. It is by this saying and Truth that I choose to live my life personally. I will not be silent about the injustice in this world. I will not be silent about the injustice in this county, even if it means I have to buy history books.  I will know my God, I will know my Truth, and I will choose not to be blind, deaf and mute to this world.  I will not give up one of the most precious gifts God has given me – my voice.

No Reira

Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou, katoa