Justice

Throughout the Bible, you'll see mention of justice, God's heart for justice and His call for believers to pursue justice. In my life, God has given me a heart for His justice as well. This is much of why I chose to do Mission Year. The other night, we had a city wide-something we have every other week aimed at spiritual formation. Last night's topic was justice. We watched a short video and then broke into groups and read several verses about God's heart for justice and our call, then discussed. One of these verses was Isaiah 58:6-14.

I had read this before, and even had responded to it for an assignment but I had felt confused by it. I didn't understand how fasting related to loosing the chains of injustice or untying the cords of the yoke or setting the oppressed free? How is that fasting? Hearing this verse again hit me in a new way-the words almost seemed to dig claws into my heart, to forcibly yank my head in the other direction, to see what was staring back at me. Fasting isn't this narrow view that I've held on to for so long-giving up food for a day (or any other thing for that matter) and replacing it with prayer.

The picture painted here is one where a person fasts by giving herself or himself and replaces it with "the other", by giving up what I "deserve" and working toward loosing the chains of injustice, untying the cords of the yoke, and setting the oppressed free. When I got home, I continued to ponder this verse, read it and re-read it, then read the following chapter. And then decided to read the entire context of the chapter. The section is called True Fasting, and in it, God is speaking to His people, telling them of their rebellion and the way that they "fast" in order to get God to do what they want Him to do. The way that they want "just" decisions. And God replies to them and their way of doing things with the end of verse 3 through verse 14. He is saying that our justice isn't his justice.

He is asking us to give up ourselves-our "rights" and "privileges" and all that we "deserve" in order to change the world by speaking up for the oppressed, the captive, the homeless, the poor, the orphans, the widows, the prisoners. And that voice is most effective when it moves from where it is in an apathetic perpetuation of an unjust system to joining the oppressed. As the video points out, the question changes when you become one with the oppressed. You no longer tire of fighting for justice when it becomes your justice.

The call I feel on my life is just that. I want to be the kind of person who seeks to give up myself in order to join others in fighting for justice. I want every decision I make to be one that reflects this desire. Even as I write this, I want to fight that. I want to have nice things, new things, lots of money, my own house, a car, and all the luxuries society tells us we need to be happy. But what happens when the reason you can have those things points back to the injustice that exists in our world? The cry of my heart is that I give up the things I want. That is not to say I can't have nice new things or a car or a house or anything else like that. But I want my decision to have certain things and do certain things reflect this fasting that I am called to as a follower of Christ-I want to make my choices carefully, and not just to please myself. My prayer is that I follow Christ by taking up my cross daily, and that in this, I will make choices that set people free, loose chains, unties cords.