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Tabernacle Presbyterian Church Rev. L. John Gable “THE
THE SOCIAL JUSTICE TRADITION" A number
of years ago I was leading a Bible Study in which the question was
asked, “If Jesus was to return today would we recognize Him? Would
we know Him now?” That question then morphed in to another
question, “Where would we go to look for Him?” Would
we go to find Him in the marketplaces or might He come to the synagogues
and churches? If so, would He come to the mega-churches, the neighborhood
churches or the store front churches? Underlying all of these questions,
we wondered, “Would He come to our church?” Finally
all speculation ended when someone in the class said, “I know where
we’d find Him – down at the soup kitchen, with the folks
sleeping under the overpass on the highway, in line at the rescue mission.” This answer lies at the heart of the fourth great tradition of our faith which we are looking at today – the social justice tradition. During this season of Lent we have been looking at the six great streams of our faith which have encouraged and enabled believers down through the ages to “follow hard after Jesus.” As different as each tradition seems to be from the others – the contemplative, the holiness, the charismatic, the social justice (which we will look at today), the evangelical (which we will explore next week) and finally the incarnational - we can see that each is a necessary expression of our faith and, curiously, each is a compliment to the others, although the differences between them have often driven even people of good faith apart. It would be safe to say that the social justice tradition is grounded in every expression of the Judeo-Christian faith. We would be hard pressed to find any teaching of Scripture, Old or New Testament,that does not include some instruction and commandment to care for the needs of others. In every age of Christian history, from the 12th century and St. Francis of Assisi and his followers abandoning their established lives to go out and care for the sick and the poor, to the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s, to Mother Theresa and the Sisters of Charity caring for the destitute of Calcutta, the church has always been about “doing” the Gospel. The social justice tradition is borne out of a certain “yeah, but- ness” of our faith. When people start talking about what it means to believe and what it means to have faith and what we must do to be saved, whenever the discussion becomes “so heavenly minded that it is no earthly good”, those with a bent toward the social justice understanding of the faith will say, “yeah, but… don’t we actually have to do something to show that our faith is real?” They will point to the letter of James where we read, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith, but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith, by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”(James2:14-17). Or they will direct our attention to our Scripture lesson for this morning, Matthew 25. This is the last teaching in Jesus’ public ministry. Last words somehow seem to carry added weight. Here Jesus describes the judgment of the nations and it is an awesome, awe-inspiring, spectacle. He speaks of the shepherd (He, Himself, for in the last days Jesus will be given the role of the judge), separating the sheep from the goats, the righteous from the unrighteous. And on what basis will this judgment be given? According to this teaching, curiously it is not on the basis of the rightness of our testimony or the correctness of our orthodoxy, but solely on the basis of whether or not we have extended hospitality to those in need. Jesus shocks His listeners, then and perhaps now, as He identifies Himself completely with those who are in need, the least, the lost, the lonely and disenfranchised. In His final judgment He describes the acts of kindness which have been either extended to Him or withheld – drinks of water, plates of food, clothes to wear, visits when sick or imprisoned. He is not talking about miracles or magnificent outpourings of generosity here, but little, seemingly insignificant, hardly memorable, acts of kindness. The meaning of His teaching is clear: we mustn’t belittle little acts of service to those in need because in the final judgment Jesus doesn’t. Yet listen to the way both camps, the righteous and the unrighteous, respond to His citing of services rendered or not rendered, “Lord, when did we see You (emphasis on YOU) thirsty, hungry, naked, sick or imprisoned?” They weren’t asking when did we do these things, or not do these things, but when did we see YOU? To those who served the ones in need without even recognizing Jesus’ presence, He gave His blessing. He says, whether you realized it or not, “when you did it to the least of these, you did it to Me.” Again, His meaning is abundantly clear: each of us has access to Jesus through someone who is in need. (Bruner) Friends, while this is admittedly a great challenge, it can also be a great comfort to us. Any who are struggling with faith right now or having trouble piecing together the puzzle of theology. Any who are wondering what you really believe and trying hard to find the “real Jesus” in the pages of Scripture, are given a very clear answer. All we need do to discover a real faith and have a real encounter with the Lord Himself is get up and go out and find someone who is in need, and there we will find Jesus. “I see the face of Jesus in disguise”, says Mother Theresa about the dying beggars she would invite into her home in Calcutta, “sometimes a most distressing disguise.” The social justice tradition is borne of the impulse, when in doubt, do something. Find a place of need – Jesus is waiting for you there. Yet isn’t it rather curious that those who didn’t respond to the needs of others ask the exact same question of Jesus as those who did, “Lord, when did we see You?” The implication is, “Lord, if only we had known it was You, of course we would have done something. It’s really not my fault, Lord. You came too well disguised. You looked too ragged, too unsafe. You smelled too awful. You acted too unkindly. You lived in such a bad part of town. Next time let me know it is You and we’ll do things up right. Just let us know and we’ll take good care of You.” We all have our excuses, don’t we, as to why we don’t respond to our neighbors in need. Yet, of course, we would, if only we knew it was the Lord. Surprise! The high Lord is found in some pretty low-down and dirty places. (Bruner) Jesus tells us, in no uncertain terms, that every time we do not do it – do not give a drink, or food, or clothing, or attention to those in need, we do not do it to Him, and on the basis of this, we will be judged. Here we are reminded that our hospitality is a matter of life and death, not only for those we serve, but for us, as well. Here we are reminded that Jesus is repelled by our heartlessness and those who are heartless He separates to eternal punishment. Now wait a minute, we say, that’s rather harsh isn’t it? Those are rather dire consequences over something as insignificant as a little cup of water, wouldn’t you say? Yes, I would agree, but what I think doesn’t really matter much. Jesus’ message and meaning are clear: what we neglect to do to the seemingly insignificant ones around us does matter and ultimately may damn us. As I look at the history of Tab through the centuries I recognize that we have understood this calling of our Lord, even as we have wrestled with how best to apply it. The social justice tradition is part of our DNA here. I have told you before, and no doubt will again and again, this commitment to social justice, grounded in good evangelical teaching, is one of things that most attracted me to come and do ministry with you here, and my guess is, this is the reason many of you are here as well. Throughout our history in this community we have made the commitment to be Christ’s presence at the corner of 34th and Central when many others have chosen to pull up their stakes and move out. Friends, we must be only cautiously proud of this because it is not really our doing at all, rather it is in response to who it is we believe God is calling us to be and what it is we believe God is calling us to do. We are here not simply because we have chosen to be here, or because we think this is the admirable thing to do, but because we believe God wants us to be here, as His people, as His witness, doing the work of His Kingdom, and in our being and in our doing we are blessed to be able to see the face of Jesus in disguise in the faces of those we serve- down stairs at the Open Door Soup Kitchen, across the street at the Raphael Center, down the street at the Neighborhood Legal Clinic, over a cup of coffee at the Unleavened Bread Café, and the list goes on and on of the places in which we have and will continue to meet Jesus whenever we respond to those in need. As we have looked at each of these various traditions I have attempted to provide you with exercises you can use to try to actually put them into practice. There are two sides to your bulletin insert today. On one side are the exercises I’ll commend to you to try this week, and on the other is an excerpt from Richard Foster’s book, Celebration of Discipline, in which he helps us distinguish between “true service” and “self-righteous service”. Friends, let us be very clear about the message of our Scripture lesson today. One day there will be a test, and Jesus, our judge, is more than fair in letting us know exactly what will be on it. On that day, standing before the throne of glory with everybody who ever was or ever will be, we will be asked, “Did you do what I asked you to do? Did you feed the hungry? Did you give water to the thirsty and clothes to the naked? Did you visit the sick and imprisoned? Yes or no? On this we will be judged for either eternal reward or punishment. Which means that doing the seemingly insignificant thing is not an insignificant thing at all; rather it is a matter of life and death, theirs and ours, for as we attend to the needs of others we are in fact attending to our own salvation. If Jesus were to return today would we recognize Him? Would we know Him now? I pray we would, because everyday we have been given the opportunity to see His face in the face of the one who is in need. But the real question is not really whether or not we will recognize Him, but whether or not we will respond to Him, albeit in disguise.
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