Social Justice

This is a homily I delivered at a "first service" at my Methodist Church, earlier this year. With the Republicans finally taking the first big step toward destroying the historic social safety net we have had in America since the Great Depression, these thoughts came to mind.

Some years ago, I saw a clip from Fox News, in which a popular right-wing scourge, Glen Beck, issued a stern warning to Christians: “When you’re in Church and hear the words “social justice,” run as fast as you can in the opposite direction.”

He obviously thought of “social justice” as code words for revolution, communism, the great, destructive leveling that all right-thinking people should fear. The storming of the Bastille. Mobs run amok, putting heads on spikes. Not a nice vision. Or a peaceful one.

Of course the first leveling, that of the tiny Christian movement in the decades after the crucifixion of Jesus, really was . . . kind of peaceful. What does it say in Acts 2: "All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need."

Those early Christians set a pretty high standard. They didn’t come up with it on their own, of course. They remembered what Jesus had said to the wealthy young man, who approached him, asking how to obtain eternal life, who said that he had kept all the commandments. Jesus, as recounted in Matthew 19, advised him that it was not enough to keep the commandments: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had a great many possessions."

What Jesus was talking about, and what his early disciples did, was follow practices that, carried to their logical conclusion, embody the idea of Social Justice as we understand it today. In simple terms, you could say that a good society is one in which everyone has a piece of the action. One where everyone gets to sleep at night with a full belly and a roof over their heads. Social Justice, it seems to me, is the moral core of Christianity – taking those who are marginalized and bringing them to the center of society.

That said, I feel for that young man, who had led a righteous life following the commandments, but hesitated to give up the wealth that he enjoyed. I too, if not what you would term “wealthy,” live in comfort, and go to bed with a full belly, and with a roof over my head. It’s easy for me to posture as a Christian, to tithe, and to abhor the “conspicuous consumption” of the one percent. But I want for little, while around me I see evidence of people who want for much. How could I have any hope of meeting the standard Jesus laid down in Matthew 19, and practiced by those early Apostles, as recounted in Acts 2?

That is a question I can’t answer, yet. I have a sense, though, that Social Justice, if we can bring it about, is the only way to bring peace. This is not by any means an easy path to follow. As our Canadian friend Gordon Lightfoot sang, “To wear the crown of peace, you must wear the crown of thorns.” Do I have that in me? Do you?