U is for Justice

- text of a sermon given at Unionville Alliance Church in 2003

2 years ago I thought if for any reason I should ever be asked to preach, I would speak about justice. It was a topic I couldn’t remember if I had ever heard preached before, but it was a subject, which has always intrigued me.

Justice is one of those 1960’s words, like love, joy, peace and revolution. Words that sounded like thunder in young minds filled with idealism, and rock and roll.

Justice for those of us who grew up then  - was to see Martin Luther King, who though of keen intellect and powerful speech, chose the streets of Birmingham Alabama rather than a church pulpit to preach against the injustices of his day.

And whether we saw him on TV or read transcripts of his speeches, he had a way of making justice sound so beautiful that it became not only the hope of every black American but of every person on the face of this earth.

For justice rightly spoken of, is beautiful to hear. And it is big and overwhelming. It raises our sights from the petty issues of self-interest we are so easily consumed with to the really urgent, present day concerns … like the 24,000 children who die every day of hunger; and the escalating displacement of people from their homes by war, racial genocide and famine. For Christ we believe is not just the Saviour of the individual, He is the Saviour of the world. His concern is not only for our individual welfare, but the welfare of everyone who lives on this good earth He’s made.

 You can hear this in the voice of the prophets:

‘Let justice roll on like a river’, cried out the prophet Amos, ‘righteousness like a never-failing stream.’ (Amos 5:24)

‘I know that the Lord secures justice for the poor’, writes the Psalmist, ‘He upholds the cause of the needy.’ (Psalm 140:12)

The Lord told Jeremiah: 

‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, nor the strong man boast of his strength, nor the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight’. (Jeremiah 9:23, 24)

When a society is furthest from God, justice is hard to find. In the 59^th chapter of Isaiah, the prophet says to his people: ‘Your iniquities have separated you from God; your sins have hidden his face from you’ (verse 2) ‘no one calls for justice, no one pleads his case with integrity’ (verse 4) ‘justice is driven back, righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, and honesty cannot enter’ (verse 14). ‘The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice’ (verse 15), he was appalled that there was no one to intercede’ (verse 16).

As I considered these prophetic cries for justice, that verse from the Battle Hymn of the Republic came to mind…

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea

With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me

As he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free, 

While God is marching on.

So as I sat down to prepare this sermon on justice, my mind and my heart were in overdrive.

I did my best to quiet myself. I sat down with God’s version of the Bible, the King James Version, my 30-pound copy of Strong’s Concordance, 10 pieces of blank paper and two fountain pens topped up with ink.

I should explain that the King James Version, for those of you not familiar with it, was first published in 1611 and is still highly regarded by many because of the beauty of its expression, even though it uses many words not in regular use now like ‘goeth’ and ‘wenteth’, ‘puffeth’ and ‘purloining’. 

A concordance is a tremendous tool for studying the Bible in that it lists all the scripture references for any word in the Bible. For words in the Old Testament, a concordance also connects them to their equivalents in Hebrew since Hebrew was the language the writers of the Old Testament used. For the New Testament, the words are connected to their Greek equivalents, since the writers of the New Testament wrote in Greek.

So with my King James Bible and my 30-pound concordance, and with my fountain pens loaded with ink, I was poised to write down all the verses in which the word ‘justice ‘is found in the New Testament. 

Would any of you care to guess how many times the word ‘justice’ appears in the King James Version of the New Testament? Let me tell you. Not once. Nowhere, nada, zilch. 

In all honesty, I was crushed. I felt like Christopher Columbus all primed and ready for the New World, only to be told that my ship had sunk in the harbour. I like preaching, but only if I have something to say. Just moments ago I was inspired, now I was feeling expired - panic set in.

The fact that the word ‘justice’ appears 28 times in the King James Version of the Old Testament was of little consolation. After all, I was preparing to speak at Unionville Alliance Church, not Unionville Alliance Synagogue.

It was beginning to dawn on me why I had never heard a sermon on justice before! 

And so I thought, well what else could I speak about? Maybe, I could talk about fasting. Now there’s a real crowd pleaser!

But then I thought again. What if the King James Version isn’t God’s favourite version of the Bible? So I looked for the word ‘justice’ in a more current translation of the New Testament, the New International version, and to my delight found the word ‘justice’ repeatedly.

In Matthew 12:20, in describing Christ’s ministry, the gospel writer quotes Isaiah: ‘A bruised reed he will not break and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, until he leads justice to victory’.

Paul when preaching to the Athenians tells them that God ‘has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all by raising him from the dead.’ (Acts 17:31)

It is even used in the most succinct definition we have of righteousness in all of scripture. Reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans 3:21-26:

But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the law and prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Christ Jesus to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished – he did this to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus’.

So my question was – how could the King James Bible not have the word ‘justice’ appear anywhere in its translation of the New Testament – when in the New International Version at least, it was all over the place?

The answer lay in my concordance. The word ‘righteousness’ as used twice in the passage we just read, is the English equivalent to the Greek word –dikaioma (dik-ah-yo-mah). The word ‘justice’ that also appears twice in those same verses comes from exactly the same word in Greek ‘dikaioma’ (dik-ah-yo-mah). In other words, what are two separate words in English: ‘justice’ and ‘righteousness’ are in Greek only one word. Greek does not differentiate between the two. In fact, any time you see any of these words in the New Testament: ‘equity’, ‘justification’, ‘righteous judgment’, ‘justify’, ‘righteousness’, the root word in Greek, dike (di-kay), for each of them without exception is ‘justice’. 

There is no righteousness apart from justice. What we distinguish in our minds as separate – righteousness and justice – the original language of the New Testament, Greek, does not separate. When you read ‘Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled’ (Matthew 5:6) it is the very same as ‘Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be filled’. 

And not only does the Greek use the same word for righteousness as it does for justice, but so does the Hebrew.  In over 200 references to ‘righteousness’ in the Old Testament, the Hebrew word is justice. No wonder Jesus lambastes the Pharisees for their rigorous attention to religious trivialities at the expense of more significant issues. With anger, he tells them that they have ‘neglected the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy and faithfulness…You blind guides, he calls them, ‘you strain out a gnat and swallow a camel’ (Matthew 23:23,26)

When you see the word righteousness in the Bible, regardless of whether in the New or Old Testament, the word you see is ‘justice’.

Now I don’t know how this is settling with you, but I tell you, this discovery hit me like a thunderbolt. In my own mind, I think of righteousness and justice as two separate things. Righteousness is an abstract thing – referring to Christ alone: a beauty, a holiness, a rightness of character and action that makes him uniquely qualified to save us from our sins.

But when I think of justice, I think of civil rights marches and demonstrations of protest against the growing disparity between rich and poor. I think of a convict who after spending 20 years in prison for murder, is found to be innocent. I think of issues like a woman’s fight for equality and the crippling weight of debt borne by the most impoverished nations in the world. When I think of justice, I see protests against the status quo…cries of anguish against the way things are…

In short, my mind makes righteousness a heavenly thing, whereas justice it sees only as an earthly thing. I don’t know how to marry the two let alone think of them as the same thing. 

But the problem is in my thinking. If my notion of righteousness doesn’t upset the status quo; if it doesn’t threaten to turn upside down the way I think, the way I do things, and the responsibility I have for the welfare of others, then my understanding of what righteousness is, is severely flawed. If it doesn’t provoke the way I think how society should safeguard its most vulnerable members; if it doesn’t challenge the way I think businesses should conduct themselves to be ethical and fair; if it doesn’t provoke my politics so that privilege doesn’t preempt what is good and right and lawful for everyone, then I have yet to understand Christ’s righteousness, let alone His justice.

Christ is not only our righteousness; He is our responsibility to be just. Righteousness is no more an abstract reality, than Jesus Christ is a work of fiction. When God became man in Christ, righteousness and justice took on skin and bones. Christ’s triumph over all sin on the cross was His triumph over all injustice as well. His resurrection is the proof that in the end, the just shall prevail.

When we speak of the day when we who believe in his righteousness will be with him, we are speaking of the very same day when Jesus Christ will satisfy all those who have hungered and thirsted for justice. Those who have been merciful will be shown mercy, those who have mourned will be comforted and the meek will inherit the earth. The poor and the persecuted will inherit God’s kingdom and peacemakers will be called God’s children. That is what God’s justice looks like and will look like when this age is said and done.

The trouble we have equating justice with righteousness is our colloquial use of either. If a person cries out for righteousness, most of us know to point that person in the direction of heaven and in particular to Jesus Christ. But when a person cries out for justice, we are more inclined to point him in the direction of a judge, or at very least, a lawyer.

But justice here on earth, we would all concede, can be severely flawed. Thinking of the millions who died in Nazi concentration camps, or more recently in Rwanda and Bosnia: do we believe that their being denied justice here on earth means their being denied justice in heaven? Isaiah 59:15,16 says: The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice, he was appalled there was no one to intercede, so his own arm worked salvation for him’. 

When the Lord returns, we will with His coming look in every direction and see justice more beautiful and fair and good than anything we can possibly imagine. All injustice here on earth will be fully appeased by God’s justice on that day. And God, whose justice never compromises his righteous judgment nor his mercy, will be praised. 

In God’s doing away with all wickedness so that only his goodness remains, the song will be sung from Revelation 15:3: 

Great and marvelous are your works, 

Lord God Almighty

Just and true are your ways, King of the ages.’

Not even a whimper of injustice will remain.

Does the promise of God’s making all things right mean that we should not preach the gospel? By no means, it is the reason we should preach it all the more! So that the oppressor will turn from his wicked ways and so the poor will have hope. No wonder Jesus said that the good news of his coming was to be preached to the poor. Those who are poor, whose lives have little or no basis for hope here, need to hear that in God’s kingdom - justice, peace and joy prevail.

Does the promise of God’s making all things right mean that we should not work for justice now? By no means. As King David observed: those labour to be just are “like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings grass from the earth.” (2 Sam 23:3,4)  In being just we are giving evidence, as Psalm 11:7 declares, that: ‘The Lord is righteous, he loves justice; the upright will see His face’.

But what is the basis of God’s justice?

First of all, what is justice? In a word - Justice is to be fair. It is to be fair in paying the person who works for us. It is to be fair in punishing a person for his crime. It is in having two coats, giving one to the person who has none. 

At the heart of justice is the issue of worth. If I buy something from you, justice insists that I pay you a fair price.

But what is the worth of the human person? Or to put it in the words of the Psalmist: 

What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? (Psalm 8:4)

We have an expression that a man, or at least a good man is worth his weight in gold. The flaw in that equation is that it means that a good sumo wrestler weighing over 500 pounds would be worth more than a family of three good, normal sized individuals. There is really no way either using weight or value to measure the true worth of any human being. The moment we do, we say foolish things like Tiger Woods is worth more than I am because of his many accomplishments against my oh so few…or that the North American CEO who dies in a plane crash is worth more than the African sheep herder who dies of AIDS. As Christians we know that the true value of any person is the greatest price ever paid for any person.

And that greatest price is Jesus. We believe Jesus died for every person…that his death is the price God paid for every single one of us, regardless of who we are and where we live.

And believing this, it impacts the way we see people around us, the responsibility we have to the rich and the poor; to the oppressor and the oppressed.

I find myself having a greater respect for those who understand the gospel as the imperative to seek justice for those unjustly treated. The same gospel that compels Billy Graham to preach is the gospel that compelled Martin Luther King to advocate for civil rights. The same gospel that inspired AB Simpson to initiate an alliance of believers committed to sharing the gospel to the four corners of the earth, is the same gospel that inspired Archbishop Oscar Romero to speak out against the injustices of his country’s government in El Salvador, even though it would cost him his life. The same gospel that calls us to seek and save the lost is the same gospel that calls us to clothe the naked and give the homeless a place to live.  Our lives as Christians are meant to be about rescuing others because Christ has rescued us.

If it is still difficult for you to think of justice and righteousness as one, then think of justice as what righteousness does and righteousness as the heart and soul of justice. Integral to both is that they can only be truly found in Christ.

So having established the centrality of justice to the gospel, what does it mean for us? Going back to those verses in Isaiah 59, where the prophet laments the absence of justice in his society, one can’t help but think that our situation today is very similar. Phrases like: ‘No one calls for justice’, ‘no one pleads his case with integrity’, ‘the way of peace is not known’, ‘our sins testify against us’ and ‘truth has stumbled in the streets’. ‘The Lord was appalled that there was no one to intervene’.

The situation begs the question – with injustice and wickedness so prevalent; why didn’t someone intervene? Because the ones who could have intervened wouldn’t because of what they’d lose. Injustice can only be overturned by those who administer justice, but to do so can mean alienation from those in power and exclusion from the inner circles of privilege.

And so the Arbiter of all justice, the Lord himself came to intervene. But at the cost of divine privilege. He gave up immortality for mortality, the omnipotence of God for the frailties and vulnerabilities of a man, the lordship of all to be the son and the servant of man. And by doing so, Christ fulfils these words in both Isaiah and Matthew:

Here is my servant whom I have chosen

I will put my Spirit on Him

And he will proclaim justice to the nations;

He will not quarrel or cry out

No one will hear his voice in the streets

A bruised reed will he not break

And a smoldering wick he will not snuff out

Till he leads justice to victory.

In his name, the nations will put their trust. Matthew 12:18-21

Here is not only the one through whom justice comes, but also the way in which justice is done. It involves proclamation but not violence; entreaty but not coercion; restoration rather than destruction, the Holy Spirit rather than anarchy, servanthood rather than philanthropy. It is a justice which does not beat down those who are already beaten down. It builds up, it restores.

Directing my comments to those of you whose career choices lie ahead of you: God may call you to evangelize; to take a place behind a pulpit and with the words God inspires you to say, charge an entire congregation to believe the gospel and live lives worthy of Jesus Christ. But God may equally be calling some of you to take a place among the humiliated of the earth: among the homeless, among the refugees, among persecuted minorities, among the elderly and from their midst, plead their cause.

It may not mean poverty, but it will mean foregoing privilege as did the Son of God. It may mean as it did for Christ, being despised and insulted because of those you identify with.

For all of us, to seek justice in practical terms will mean taking these steps:

1) Associate, don’t abandon. We are to associate ourselves, as Romans 12:16 bids us, with people of low position. In business we talk about client profile, about attracting the kind of customer who will cause our businesses to succeed. This is not a bad thing. Jesus spoke of using worldly wealth to gain friends for ourselves and by doing so, being welcomed into eternal dwellings. (Luke 16:9)

But we are also compelled by Christ’s teaching in Luke 14:13,14 to build another client base; made up of ‘the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind…although they cannot repay you’, he said, ‘you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous’.

2) Advocate rather than abdicate. Proverbs 31:8,9 insists that we:

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,

For the rights of all who are destitute.

Speak up and judge fairly;

Defend the rights of the poor and needy.

This can be a messy business. In the business I’m in, insurance, it might surprise you to learn that there is the odd occasion where insurance companies decline to pay legitimate claims. This can be particularly troublesome in what we call ‘income replacement plans’ – plans that are supposed to replace a person’s income when if for reason of illness or disability they can’t work. Some of these claims can take weeks if not months of hard squabbling before they get paid. Without someone advocating on their behalf, the prospect of no income for the ill person can be traumatic. 

And then there are the people on welfare. No doubt, there are some who take advantage of the system, but for all the ones I know receiving Social Assistance, they desperately need it. They have no other means of income. Sometimes in business settings somebody will rant and rave about all those ‘leaches on welfare’ and the temptation is to go along with their sentiments if only not to create a scene. But then remembering those I know on welfare, I think: ‘if I don’t speak on their behalf, who will?’

3) Choose reproach if need be before choosing to preserve your reputation. Jesus was accused by the religious as being a friend of sinners for the company he kept, rather than acclaimed as a holy man for behaving like a Pharisee. This was the choice Christ made and we must be prepared to choose the same.

4) Dialogue rather than dictate. Foolhardy is the man who buys his wife clothing without the benefit of her input. The same holds true if you are trying to resolve the issues of homelessness or Native Canadian rights. 

5) Always work to encourage self-reliance; always give those most ill affected by their circumstances the opportunity to speak for themselves. We are commanded to go and make disciples, not to perpetuate dependency. 

6) Humility over self-promotion. Listen first, then speak. Try to be as invisible as you possibly can.

7) Persist, don’t quit. Reading from Luke 18:1-7 ‘Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: ‘ In a certain town, there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’

And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. Will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? I tell you, he will see that they get justice and quickly.’   

Jesus uses as his role model for how we ought to pray a woman who is unrelenting in her plea for justice. Why? Because those who persist in prayer and those who persist in seeking justice face battles where the victories are for the most part, incremental, and the need for perseverance, huge. But to both the prayer warrior and the seeker of justice Jesus gives this promise - as bright as the noonday sun - Will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? I tell you, he will see that they get justice and quickly.’  We don’t have to look any further than the collapse of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe or the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa to learn of God’s power in our time to make things right. 

In practical Monday morning kind of terms:

Justice in your home means – for parents to love and discipline their children. It means they can’t favour one child over another. Even if one of the children shows promise of being the next Wayne Gretzky or the next Karen Kain, they are to get no more attention than do the others. It’s unjust for children to live in the shadow of their more talented or more compliant sibling. 

Justice means for husbands and wives to so love each other that they defend each other from the unfair accusations of others: whether those accusations come from their children or their in-laws or from the dreaded Nosy Norma who lives next door. Each family member should know their home to be safe and supportive when the world outside is unduly harsh. Justice means that husbands and wives have an equal share in each other’s troubles, aspirations, triumphs and prayers.

Justice in the workplace means that if you are an employer, to pay your employees fairly, even if means paying yourself less. If you are an employee, it means putting in an honest day’s work for your pay. Psalm 112:5 says that ‘good will come to him who is generous…who conducts his affairs with justice’. It means not to cut corners nor gouge your clientele. ‘Better a little with righteousness, than much gain with injustice’. (Proverbs 16:9)

Justice in the church, quoting from James 2:1-4 means that ‘as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, we don’t show favouritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fancy clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fancy clothes and say: ‘Here is a good seat for you,’ but say to the poor man, ‘You stand there,’ or ‘Sit on the floor by my feet,’ have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?’

It is to employ every resource at our disposal to show mercy, to be faithful, to be just – whether it’s the Community Care Fund, the Pastoral Care team, the one another biblical communities, children’s and youth ministries, etc…

Justice in the world means taking our place as God’s people, stewards of all God has entrusted to our care: the welfare of our neighbour, and the welfare of this beautiful planet God has given us. Proverbs 13:23 says: a poor man’s field may produce abundant food, but injustice sweeps it away. We look at the Enrons and the Worldcoms and decry the evils of corporate greed and 8 figure executive incomes. But the truth is: we have all been bitten by the ‘I want more’ bug and the net result is that this abundant earth, which produces more than enough food for all of us, feeds too few of us. It’s our injustice rather than any lack in God’s provision that is the reason so many are starving.

The projection of our lives is meant to be outward… we are not only to be taken up with the concerns of these four walls, but those of the world outside them. To be taken up with the concerns of the needy is the best way I know to curb our craving for more.

As long as we have breath, we should not be willing to write off the world as going to hell in a hand-basket – Christ calls us still to be the salt which preserves it and the light which brightens its darkest places. “When justice is done’, says Proverbs 21:14, ‘it brings joy to the righteous and terror to evil doers’. 

There was once a teacher who was particularly tough on one of his students. For no reason it seemed. The teacher taught history and ethics at a Christian High School.

In trying to teach his students the meaning of virtue, he had given it definition by saying that:

‘V’ – was for Christ’s victory over sin and death, which is the basis for all virtue’.

‘I’ – was for integrity which is the character of virtue.

‘R’ – was for respect; which is what virtue demonstrates to all people.

‘T’ – was for truth, which is the underpinning of all virtue.

‘U’ – was for understanding, through which virtue builds relationships among people and

‘E’ – was for equity: that primary to the nature of virtue, is fairness to all.

Nadir was the name of the student that the Ethics teachers had been repeatedly picking on. On this occasion, Nadir had already received a detention for talking in class when it wasn’t him, but Curtis who sat in the seat behind him. The tests they had written the day before yesterday had been returned by the teacher marked and Nadir got 10 out of 10 only to discover that the teacher had deducted 3 marks off with the notation ‘Nadir, for you to have done this well, you must have cheated – 3 marks off’.

Nadir, needless to say, was fed up.

So when the ethics teacher asked Nadir to stand up and give the expanded definition for virtue, Nadir stood up and repeated nearly word for word:

‘V’ – is for Christ’s victory over sin and death, the basis for all virtue’.

‘I’ – is for integrity which is the character of virtue.

‘R’ – is for respect; which is what virtue demonstrates to all without prejudice.

‘T’ – is for truth, which is the basis of all virtue. 

But when he got to the letter ‘u’ Nadir hesitated and then said:

‘U’ – is for justice; for if you my Ethics teacher isn’t for justice, then who is?

The question is ‘If we as Christians are not for justice, then who is?’

Prayer

Lord Jesus

In your humiliation and death

You were deprived of justice.

And those who had been your followers

Deserted you, leaving you all alone.

When we see the humiliation of others

Who today are being denied justice,

Help us Lord not to run away. 

Keep us from retreating to what is safe and comfortable.

Strengthen us to share in the sorrow and troubles of others.

In their midst, Lord let your exuberant

Life-giving Spirit of joy pour out.

Not only for their sakes, but also for ours.

And not only for our sakes

But most of all, for yours.

For yours truly is the kingdom

The power and the glory. 

Amen.

Benediction

Jesus had so much more in mind as to what His church should be in the world than we can possibly imagine. 

The Pharisees and teachers of the law thought it was enough that the church be a place where one could thank God with clean hands.

But Jesus spoke of a church where men and women contaminated by evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony and slander could become clean and thank God with clean hearts.

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law saw the church as an institution where God’s word could be safeguarded; the sacred sheltered from the common; where traditions could be preserved from the ravages of time.

But Jesus saw something more. He saw the church as something living, so affected by the eternal vibrancy and life of the Holy Spirit that the poor, the hurting, indeed all those who thirst would come running in. Not only was the church to have the sound and appearance of a wedding feast, she was to have a table big enough to feed all who come.

Herein lies one of the great paradoxes of God’s love. Although Christ himself was denied mercy and deprived of justice when he was in the world, his church is to be his instrument of mercy and justice to that same world, the world he loves.

So go out in His name as his instruments of mercy and justice, not only for the world’s sake, but for yours, and most of all, for His.

Vulnerability

Vulnerability – for a Business Leaders Seminar on October 19th, 2002

I have a cousin who in his 53 years of living has done what would take most of us, 3 lifetimes to squeeze in.
When we were both 9 years old and went to the EX, he would be the one standing up while riding the Wild Mouse, while I’d be sitting white knuckled in the back seat of the Giant Swan ride. He’d be the one popping wheelies in his bumper car while I’d be crying out for Mom.
In his late teens he raced motorcycles until a near death accident meant he had to shift gears and race cars instead. He raced at Daytona and was one of the first Canadians to be asked to drive for a European Racing Car team in the world’s most renowned endurance race, Le Mans.
He went from there to the family Stock Brokerage business, which gave him time to become President of the Ontario Liberal Party. From there he assumed the top position of a prestigious European Automotive company and then on to be the Chief Financial Officer for 3 different advertising companies. Now he splits his time between Toronto and Vancouver running a company, which manufactures engines for the trucking business. He has had poems published in US literary magazines, released 3 music CD’s of his own compositions and one of his paintings hangs on our living room wall.
But none of the above explains why we are such close friends. If anything, his accomplishments might have been a barrier.
What makes us friends began with a lunch we had 14 years ago. At the time, he was the Chief Financial Officer of a major advertising company. I had booked the lunch in the hope that he might appoint me as the agent for his company’s employee benefits plan. I remember approaching the occasion with some trepidation, especially since the last time we’d spent more than a hour with each other was at the EX when we were nine.
The lunch started with the usual pleasantries but it was evident from his demeanor that something was wrong. I quickly concluded there was no sale to be made and switched gears to ask him how he was doing. 
‘Not good’, he said. He proceeded to tell me how he had been asked by the UK parent of his company to provide a financial statement for the Canadian operation. Prior to sending the report, the CEO and Founder of the company’s Canadian operation asked for a copy. ‘You can’t send this’, his CEO told him after reviewing the figures. ‘I want you to spice up the income figures, which among other things will provide the 2 of us with a healthy bonus.’
My cousin said that he couldn’t do that. The next morning, he was refused entrance into the company. He was simply told that his services would no longer be required. Subsequently he learned that the CEO had revised the financial statement and then sent it to the UK parent company with notice that David had been relieved of his responsibilities because of ‘financial impropriety’.
It was the very day he was barred from entering his company that we were to have lunch. He told me, that typically he would have cancelled, but he needed somebody to talk to. 
I can’t remember saying much – to be honest – other than commend him for his integrity, I didn’t know what to say. I remember that he was really hurting and I felt for him. But in one of his life’s darker moments, a deep friendship was born.
Since then we have become so close, he knows what my faith looks like and I know all the reservations he has about it. I know things about him that very few people know and he likewise of me. Why?
Because of vulnerability. When he was down and falsely accused, he found a hiding place, a person with whom he was safe.  
He once told me that he had learned in competitive racing how the race would start well in advance of the starter’s gun. Every occasion with his fellow racers was an exercise in trying to get under the other’s skin – to find the weak spot on the other and ‘drive the knife in so deep that there was no chance of recovery until the race was over’.
In the sports vernacular it’s called ‘trash talking’ – saying whatever to undermine your opponent – innuendos about one’s mother, one’s spouse, or one’s reputation. It happens in sport and in happens in business. It even happens in churches.
You know the tactics:
Stare down your opponent until he blinks. 
Bear down until they buckle.
Stake your territory no matter who gets in your way.
Wear the t-shirt with the bright red words across your chest: NO FEAR.
Be invincible…have no weak spots, even if you have to fake it.
It means never backing down, even when you’re wrong. Try it in marriage and watch the relationship die. Try it among business partners and quickly lose their trust. Use it to fatten up your bank account and it will dry up your soul. To build your life into an impenetrable fortress, you need a heart of stone. 
But the gift of Christ to us is not a heart of stone, but a heart of flesh … a heart capable of compassion towards the plight of others, regardless of whether friend or foe, ally or competitor.
But who likes to be vulnerable, to have a heart of flesh? It is to be open to attack, to being picked on. It means being susceptible to betrayal and accusation. It means your heart can be wounded; it means pain and hurt, feeling helpless and losing sleep. It means holding back from wanting to strike back and wound as you have been wounded.
But the truth is: in such moments of vulnerability we find the Lord. 
Raise you hand if in your case it was at the end of some great conquest – some successful takeover bid, or the occasion of your being acclaimed the top of your profession, or the day your income doubled, you turned to Christ and said: ‘Lord, I give my life to you!’
No – for most if not for all of us, it is at the opposite end of life’s spectrum that we find Christ…when the marriage fails, the business folds, the cancer is diagnosed, when life reaches a dead end. Why is that? Because the first step into the Christian life begins with: “not my will but yours be done Lord’… a statement we never make when doing our ‘own thing’ is reaping huge rewards.
But the vulnerability is not just on our part, but on Christ’s as well. Had God in Christ not become vulnerable, had not felt pain, had not been tempted, had not endured the failings of others, there is not a person in this room or anywhere else who would know God or know his forgiveness, or his inner peace, or his invincible love. As Isaiah wrote: it is by his wounds that we are healed. 
A dear friend in contrasting the God of the Bible with the God of Islam wrote recently:

But just how great is the Allah of the prophet, Mohammed? Great enough to save man? No, that belittles Allah.  Great enough to love man? No, Allah is above all such emotions. Great enough to be Father? Never! Allah exceeds all such human vocabulary. How then does the Bible reveal a God who is greater than the deity revealed in the Qur’an? It lies in this: only God can become weaker. The Allah who was revealed to Mohammed cannot fathom this…
The truth lies in the humblest paradox. The greatest has become the least.
You, Lord God are greater than the ultimate claims of any rival god since you alone can become lesser, humbler, lower, sacrificial, incognito and little.

When Jesus identified himself in Matthew 11:28 as the ‘one who is gentle and humble in heart’, he defined himself as vulnerable. It was through vulnerability he rescued us and it is through our vulnerability he seeks to rescue others. 
In reflecting on how vulnerability is to influence our lives as leaders, I thought of Jesus’ encounter with the woman in the opening verses of John 8. As I read it, note all the references John makes to Jesus’ posture. Had John not been an apostle, he might have been a playwright, a stage director skilled in the art of defining his characters by the postures they assume on stage. From John’s account:

At dawn Jesus appeared at the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them: ‘If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.’
Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.
Jesus straightened up and asked her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’
‘No one, sir,’ she said.
Then neither do I condemn you,’ Jesus declared. ‘Go now and leave your life of sin’.
John 8:2-11

I don’t think there is a passage in all of scripture that makes so many references to posture. In the context of vulnerability, this is key  - for vulnerability is first of all, a posture one assumes.
The opening verse indicates that as the people gathered around him, Jesus sat down to teach them. His method of teaching was not from the position of being over people. He was ‘on their level’ if not beneath them. Not only should this encourage vertically challenged preachers everywhere, but anyone who seeks to be consoled by his words. He who holds the scepter as Ruler of us all, also held the towel of a servant.
So even when the Pharisees came with their stones and their accusations, Jesus remained seated. His was not a top-down type of authority…it was rather from the ground up… not only beneath his adversaries, but beneath the woman who had been publicly accused. It was from this posture of vulnerability that Jesus not only confronted his enemies, but rescued the woman they’ve condemned.
‘Teacher’, they lord over him, ‘this woman was caught in the act of adultery. Moses says we are to stone such women. Now what do you say?’
Clearly they were baiting him. He was their real target. The real reason they had come with stones was not to stone the woman, but to trap Jesus for teaching something contrary to Moses. If they could prove that, then the Law was clear. Jesus must be stoned for being a false prophet.
Yet Jesus didn’t bite. He didn’t stand up to go ‘toe to toe’ with his adversaries. Instead he bent over to write something on the ground. He retained his vulnerability though his opponents were armed with stones.
But his vulnerability didn’t mean that he had no recourse in the face of their attack. It’s just he had a different kind of arsenal. So when their pestering continued, he slowly straightened himself and countered with a sentence that has worked its way into common usage by both Christian and non-Christian alike: ‘Let the one who is without sin, throw the first stone at her.’
Suddenly every man stood condemned. Were they to throw stones they would first have to take aim at themselves.
But again, notice Jesus’ posture. While his adversaries were wrestling with their consciences as to whether they were guilty or not, Jesus hid his face from them. He again took to writing on the ground. He was not going to add insult to injury. He remained bent over, perfectly positioned should even one of his adversaries ask for forgiveness.
None did. Instead, one by one, they withdrew.
Finally only two remained…Jesus and the woman. What the woman feared would be the sentence of death, had been reduced to a quiet conversation between two accused: one guilty and one innocent, one unfaithful and one true. 
“Has no one condemned you?” he asked her.
“No one, sir”, she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you”, Jesus declared. “Go and sin no more.”
In the woman’s vulnerability compounded by public accusation, guilt and overwhelming shame; she found the man for whom vulnerability was no shame but rather the means by which he rescued her.
So how can we do the same?
From this story, four things come to mind:
Posture
Perception
Time
Arsenal
Posture means we are not to lord over people. Our authority is meant to be from the ground up. We are to be vulnerable, accessible, approachable, and real. We are to serve the ones who serve us. Make the coffee sometime, or do the staff dishes – that kind of thing.
Perception means we are to see those we work with – those we lead – as diverse as we are – some who love sky-diving, some classical music, some jazz festivals at Toronto Island, some who have bickering in-laws and some who have children who don’t get enough of their time. 
But they are also people who like us are inclined to cover who they really are with mascara, or a Hugo Boss business suit, or crude jokes, or a fierce disdain for anything other than business. 
Some of those we work with come with labels: gay, Zen Buddhist, MBA, CEO, philanthropist, entrepreneur… all which can be a barrier to protect the thing most precious: their person – with its unique loves and hungers and yearning for God.  Like all things truly precious and worth safeguarding: it is where they are, as we are, most vulnerable.
Jesus in confronting his accusers was able to get behind the barrier to the spot where they were most vulnerable. But not as an adversary, but as one who really loved them. Had they been willing a deep relationship could have been born.
But they weren’t willing, which eventually left just him and the woman. In what can only be classified as genuine dialogue: he blessed her with forgiveness and the power to leave her life of sin.
If our ministry as Christians is truly to reconcile rather than to condemn, then we will have to give people our time. Jesus to free the woman had to wade through what we in business refer to as ‘time wasters’: interruption, antagonism, confrontation, patient endurance and resolution. It took time…much more than we are accustomed to giving to the people we know, let alone the people we work with.
There is no way to get there without its adversely affecting our other objectives:
The time we spend at work, the income we make, the successes we’d like to achieve.
Finally, we must drop the weapons standard to the world around us: trash-talking, intimidation, faking it and the insistence to be right even when we’re wrong.
Instead we are to rely on other weapons: being truthful; being just and fair; being  alert to what’s really going on; relying not on our own strength but on our weakness through which God shows himself strong.

To close with a story:
Every year, the CRC - an inner city ministry in Regent Park holds their annual Christmas party. It begins with a meal and then a carol sing in the small sanctuary at Regent Park United Church.
Seven years ago, I was asked if I would bring my guitar and play the part of a strolling minstrel. When I got there I was told by the party organizer, Daisy, that to play the part, I would have to dress in an elf suit, which she then gave me. The suit was predominantly green, had curly toes and was girlish enough that the cooking staff whistled at me every time I passed by.
After dinner, while seated in a pew of the church, I could feel someone stroking the back of my neck. I turned around to see a woman with a rather prominent 5 o'clock shadow. She quickly admitted to being a transvestite and I quickly admitted to wishing my wife were here.
During the carol sing, an invitation was given for individuals to come up and share Christmas reflections. One guy came up and shared a poem about the evil of the capitalist machine, a woman followed by singing Ave Maria as though the tune was up for grabs and then the bearded lady behind me got up and read a poem. The poem was very moving - a simple, yet profound expression of gratitude and love for the Christmas gift of God's son. It was also a confession of his inner anguish over not knowing who he was and a strong plea for God's help.
In his vulnerability, my mind saw beyond the transvestite to a man in deep anguish. I have only seen him a couple of times since - but I learned from others that as a child he was repeatedly subject to severe mental and sexual abuse. In his struggles as an adult, he has tried several times to commit suicide.
Had he been the one brought before Jesus - once his accusers had gone – I can only imagine Jesus saying the same words 'neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more'. The One who for our sakes had become vulnerable would have empowered him to leave both the shame and the sin behind.
Incredibly, we are commanded to do the same.

Re-thinking church

So why re-think the church?

Jesus is in charge, isn’t he?

Didn’t he say he’d be the One to build His church?

If the church isn’t the way he wants it to be, wouldn’t he change it so it is?

And since only he knows what the church is supposed to look like, who are we to judge it as something other than he intends?

I love the church.  I love my family too.

Even though I have an older relative who has a distinct pungent smell about her and an uncle who is near comatose for anyone other than young women under 25.

Between church and family, it’s their vulnerabilities I love most - a drooling Pope who dignified old age by being very public about his diminishing faculties, the cousin who wishes he wasn’t gay, the community church too poor to have its own roof.

Where my love turns cold and my bashing gene gets in gear is when either become abusive...the brother who beats his wife, the church which spends more in upkeep than in caring for the poor.

When abuse occurs in a family, an appeal can be made to ‘family values as taught by Dad’, which are of little impact if Dad too beat his wife.

But in the church, the issue of family values is pretty much entrenched in this one standard: those who believe in Jesus must live as he did.

Which if I understand this Taproot business correctly, explains the necessity for our re-thinking the church. Rare would it be to find anyone who believes that the contemporary church is living like Jesus did.

We’re more like the society we live in, than the Jesus we believe in. The question is - how do we look more like Jesus?

Perhaps the question to ask ourselves first is: what of our current behaviour is least like Jesus?

We are seemingly adverse to provoking the world with a social alternative which looks like Jesus...where our economics mean the person having much doesn’t have too much and the person having little hasn’t too little...where our politics advance the cause of the most vulnerable regardless of what it might cost us...and where our social relations encompass everyone so that no one is left alone and uncared for. 

In short we hold back from doing what it takes for the world to know we are his disciples by our love.

We are too much the status quo to be like Jesus. We’d sooner squeeze a camel through the eye of a needle than offend a rich man and his money. We push the poor aside during our ‘building’ campaigns and in times of economic recession. The poor don’t have the place in our eyes that they do in Jesus’ eyes. They are his first beatitude.The rich are his first ‘woe’.

Brian asks the question about whether we could be the church without money. I’m still unconvinced as to whether we can be the church with money!

Most of us have a pretty good idea of what Jesus would do if he got a hold of our cheque books. Fewer vacations and a whole lotta poor people for dinner.

But the disillusionment many have with the church has more to do with what we as churches do with our money.

Can we honestly look at a church budget of $1 million and say we are allocating the funds the way Jesus would?

This re-shaping of our economics and politics and social agenda can’t be legislated. We must be willing. But to be willing, we must have some sense of how profoundly short of the standard we now are and how our aversion to living life as Jesus did makes us shallow and ineffective and uninspiring and near comatose. Good reason to repent.

The church that looks like Jesus to me

'The church is a disciple of Jesus to the degree that it is the church

going out to the world, announcing and enacting the same “good news”

in the ordinary places of life. In “The Missional Church” the

benediction becomes one of the most moving moments in the life of the

“church gathered.” It recognizes the importance of the people of God

“disassembling” for the work of being the church in all of the nooks

and crannies of everyday life. In and through the benediction, the

people of God are “missioned” into their daily worlds ...' 

Brian Cunnington, from the Taproot, April 2009

Whenever I am asked to identify a church that looks like Jesus to me,

I answer ‘Doctors without Borders’ (MSF - Medecines Sans Frontiers).

Now to the best of my knowledge MSF is not a Christian organization,

but in thinking about people who willingly put their lives on the

line, their mission is a near match to the one who laid down his life

for his friends.

Now I imagine when MSF personnel assemble - infrequent as those

gatherings might be - the sense of kinship and renewal in their

assembly would be strong. It would have to be. Because when they

disassemble to care for the victims of famine and war, they can’t

afford to go out empty.

Not that their assembling wouldn’t include parties and one beer too

many - but there would be more to their gathering than social chit-

chat and the local brew. There would be stories, things they had

learned from the field, instruction on new innovations to combat the

dire realities they face; all combining to equip and train them to

respond effectively in the nooks and crannies of human despair.

Although I am blessed weekly at church with the benediction to go out

and be like Jesus, sometimes I go out empty. It mystifies me. The

sermon was good, the worship had me hitting new notes, the coffee in

the foyer worked, and I got more hugs than the Velveteen Rabbit.

It could be me. Maybe I’m not gripped with the same sense of urgency

that MSF has about the world I’m disassembling into. If I’m not going

into the week intending to put my life on the line for others, I’m not

sure what I’d gain from even the most heavenly of assemblies.

It could be the church. If we live as though our lives are not on the

line while we’re apart, what are we really expecting of each other

when we’re together?

It could be the benediction. However articulated many of us leave

believing that all that is really expected of us is we behave well and

bring a non-believer the next time we meet. We don’t leave thinking

it’s up to us to rescue the world...‘heal the sick, raise the

dead’ ... ’to be the ‘preview community’, the tangible foretaste and

harbinger of the coming reign of God.’

Until we do, are we really a disciple of Jesus?

God moves

God on the road. The ground he stands on is only holy for as long as he’s there.

And then he moves on.

Now I know why Jesus’ ministry was on foot and the significance of the prophet Ezekiel’s vision of God on wheels.

God moves.

Even if there were a temple which could contain Him, he’d move.

And yet so much of the church’s focus is on things past...the way the world used to be when there was prayer in the schools and nobody worked on Sunday.

As though God is stationary and the world has passed him by. We define the times we live in as being ‘post Christian’.

It’s the reverse. It’s God who has moved on and if we don’t follow, we lose him.

When things get really desperate we cry out to him and he finds us again.

No wonder the last thing that conveys God’s presence is routine. He is not static.

‘Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going’ is how he moves and who he is.

However we understand ‘Jesus the same yesterday, today and always’, it can’t be that he’s stationary, waiting for us to come back to him as someone whose best before date was Acts Chapter 2 or Genesis Chapter 1.

He is ever the promise of better things to come, ever ahead of us, ever to be followed, ever moving to the places where he is most needed to reconcile, make right and make brand new.

So what's to be different in church?

I have sat through thousands of sermons, but I have never heard anything that remotely smacks of ’a new economics, a new politics, a new understanding of power...a new citizenship’. 

I hear the very opposite - an economics that encourages us to give 10% to the church, 10% to our savings accounts and doing what we can to live on the remaining 80%.  Can’t say that I dispute the practicality of such economics but it is nowhere close to the economics where:

‘The bread you possess belongs to the hungry. The clothes that you store in boxes belong to the naked. The shoes rotting by you, belong to the barefoot. The money that you hide belongs to anyone in need.’ (St. Basil)  

Common sense has us trading the economics of Jesus for what any good financial planner would tell us. I can understand when I hear it from a financial planner, but it totally offends me when I hear it from the pulpit!

Politics? Ask any good preacher and that’s the one subject that’s taboo from the pulpit. ‘Remember the Moral Majority?’ they lament, like ‘remember the Alamo?’ Don’t they understand that ‘Jesus is Lord’ is a political confession even more than a religious one? 

Instead we bless the troops as though to bless the troops means they’ll be even better with God’s help at killing our enemies. We pray for our politicians so we continue to enjoy the freedoms and privileges we have at the expense of people who have neither.

Power? From my experience of who the church leadership are - they are the same folks holding leadership positions in their ‘secular’ occupations. Who would ever think to include in church leadership anyone from the handicapped section of the church? Ten with money have a greater say in the direction a church takes than a 100 hard pressed to put $10 in the offering plate!

A new citizenship? You mean something other than pledging allegiance to the flag? That would be blasphemy in most churches!

As to why we don’t hear from pulpits about the economics or politics of Jesus, I can only guess. It’s just too radical. It’s the fear of the church shrinking to only those desperate enough to try it, a number too small to pay the mortgage and staff salaries.

But again as one who has sat through literally thousands of sermons, 99% of which are aimed at those who don’t believe (a curious phenomena in churches where at least 95% do believe) I am desperate to try living out the economics and politics of Jesus. Even if it costs me everything I have. 

I’d quit the church if I weren’t so convinced of my complete and utter inability to do the politics and economics of Jesus all by myself. Any other desperados out there?

GO!

If I could give you one word, that word would be 'GO'.

Go to where the people are.

Go to where the needy are.

Go to the people nobody else is caring for.

And there in life's margins - among the broken and disillusioned -

expect to find God there and hear what he'd have you do.

The prevailing word among most churches is 'build it and they will

come'.

It might make for a good movie but it is the antithesis of Christ's

command to 'go and find the lost and rescue them'.

The prevailing word in successful churches is 'settle down'.

Settle down in your office and write a good sermon.

Settle down in your Board meeting and write a good strategic plan.

Settle down in your renovated building and expect the seekers to come.

If the church is meant to have any seekers, them seekers are supposed

to be us - us seeking first the kingdom, us seeking first his will, us

seeking first the lost and broken and hurting and abandoned, us going

out into the alleyways and the dingy rooms, among the forgotten lost

in institutions of care - the mentally ill, the elderly, those in

homeless shelters.

Tell the pastor he can't write his sermon in his office where the

hurting people aren't.

Tell the Board it's God's vision which drives the church, and that

vision can only be clearly seen on the street where God goes before

you.

Confession of a part-time preacher

I am going to personalize this so no preacher thinks I’m taking pot shots at them.
That said - part-time preacher that I am, I have become disillusioned with almost every word I have ever preached.
I’ve been preaching to make Jesus look good so that people might admire him even more than they do...so they pray more, so their faith might be lifted.
I have said lots about Jesus being the way to God, but next to nothing about Jesus the way God expects us to behave.
I have said lots about our having a saving faith in Jesus but little about how faith working by our love saves our neighbour.
I have said lots about how Christ has brought ‘healing and salvation to the world through his woundedness, suffering and death’ but nothing about our bringing ‘healing and salvation through our woundedness, suffering and death.’
I’ve said lots about Jesus having walked among us, but next to nothing about Jesus walking in our shoes having crucified our ambitions and self-interests so he can bust out of our shell to love those on the street.

You can see my homiletical shortcoming - I have majored in belief as it pertains to Jesus but not in belief as it pertains to the way we live. I have detached belief from behaviour killing any possibility of Jesus being seen in us.
From now on, I am going to preach about the church’s being a counter-cultural, enemy loving, anti-greed, power refuting, total social re-make.
As a part-time preacher I should be able to get away with it. I am in a position where I can offend. It’s not my job that’s on the line.
Sometimes I think that when a full-time preacher gives up his pulpit for a week, it should be to someone who has had rocks thrown at him like Jesus or Paul.

It takes a pulpit to craft a people.
Which means what’s coming from the pulpit has to change.
Forgive me for decrying the preaching. But what a misshapen self-absorbed people we have become and there is more than just one part-time preacher to blame.
As congregations we’ve got the Jesus died in our place part of the gospel. What we’re missing is the part about our dying for Jesus; a threat to the existing ‘powers and principalities’ the same way he was. We have forgotten that part of his invitation to come and die with him, to carry our cross as he carried his, to be worthy of such a cross because we are as contrary as he is to the way things are.

The upside is that most preachers get it. For them, looking through old sermons is like wading through pablum. Their congregation should be overflowing with teachers but instead there are infants warring in the pews. Their congregation should be stirring the pot but instead they are leaving the pot be. Their congregation should be making inroads among peoples of differing faith, cultural and socio-economic groups, but instead they vigorously keep to themselves.
Time to move from pablum to chili. The kind of spiritual food that when it passes through the body is likely to offend, even as it inspires the kind of action whose signature is courage, creativity and love.
April 14, 2009