Preaching this weekend on Nehemiah 5, where our man Nehemiah stops the oppression of the poor and demonstrates a more generous way of life, elevating communal responsibilities over individual rights.
In the message I’ll talk a little about how charity is different from justice.
- Charity builds a homeless shelter, justice asks why these people have no homes.
- Charity gives food to the hungry, justice examines why these people have no food.
- Charity mops up the mess, justice wonders who made the mess and how we can avoid messes in the future
- Charity deals with the symptoms, justice goes for the root issues.
There’s a famous statement, you may have heard it:
“Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, but teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.”
Which would be true if there were no such thing as injustice. But justice finds it necessary to ask a further questions, such as:
"Who owns the pond?"
"Who polluted the pond?"
"Why aren’t there any more fish in this pond?”
And justice demands we ask these kinds of questions, because our world is more and more interconnected. The new clothing factory miles away can pollute the drinking water for thousands. Wars are started and maintained because of high-demand exports to the Western world, etc etc.
The justice question was one that Nehemiah found it necessary to ask. He didn’t just give the poor a little more food, he figured out why they were poor, and he confronted the forces of greed and exploitation that were oppressing them. It seems to me that God consistently sides with the weak and vulnerable, and asks the same of us. There are actually some fairly amazing promises for those who do (in Isaiah 58 for example).
On some level, I need a personal connection with person/peoples in order to be consistent in a particular behavior. It’s been a process over the last couple of years for this connection to begin to solidify. I’ve been experiencing what you describe…going from only sending money to build/dig something, to ‘what part of this story have I played to cause/sustain this injustice?’ My current issue is, ‘How does my addiction to consume affect my brothers and sisters living across oceans, living in my community?’ Recognizing that I thoughtlessly consume has not been easy. I’m not saying I look at each and every purchase, at least not yet, but I’m becoming more aware of what is taking place, and it’s not always something positive.
For myself, another thing I try to keep in mind is the reality that not everyone else is where I am. Others are much, much farther along in the process than I am, and I can’t expect myself to feel/behave the same things that they do, because I’m where I at, that’s just how it is. Then there are others who are not yet where I am, and I need to grant them grace if they don’t yet understand why I embrace the beliefs I have in this area.
I’ve heard, ‘Paradoxy is Orthodoxy’ and there seems to be so much about the kingdom of heaven that exists in holding together two things in tension, and it shines a brighter light on the need for grace, grace, and more grace.
this is an intersting perspective and probably gets at the heart of why that teach a man to fish comment always gets on my nerve.
mmost people who make such statements often are giving fish our fishing lessons.