Justice

Gregg’s Reflection

I am an Enneagram 8. The Enneapp telle me that 8’s hate injustice, and have an inner sense of justice; and fight for the underdog. 8’s are the Challenger, quickly pointing out the flaws in our systems, in our logic, in our ability to ignore systemic injustice that is baked into our culture.

For decades, I took credit for any success that came my way, proud of my ability to set goals and achieve them, to make my way in the world, to run a business and grow it. What I ignored as I took credit, and worked hard to prove myself worthy to my father and to God, were the advantages that allowed me to be successful.

I was born the white son of an entrepreneur in Atlanta in the time of greatest prosperity the world had ever seen. I went to the best public schools in the state, and had parents who could afford to send me, my brother and sister to any college we chose. I am 6’7” tall, and height correlates to success in our culture. I have a decent brain, but who put that brain in my head? Only as I waded into the deep end of the pool in my spiritual journey have these things come to light. In my move from False Self to True Self, the role of privilege in my life became clear.

Privilege is a charged term these days. Many of my Christian friends have been taught to focus on personal sin, and to ignore the sin baked into our system which perpetuates poverty, war, racism and misogyny. As an 8, I am wired to see injustice, but it took decades for my heart to soften and acknowledge my own complicity in the brokenness of our culture.

As Saint Francis walked away from a life of privilege, he demonstrated a life committed to the way of Jesus, the way of justice for the least, the lost and the last. So, wade into the wisdom of Scripture, the saints and mystics as they all embrace justice. Blessings.

Journaling Prompts

In what ways has our system benefited you in your education, career, and family? Where can you see systemic injustice that makes success a distant dream for so many in our country? How in your life have you taken a stand for justice, to call out injustice?

Scripture

When God’s will is not immediately and absolutely clear, then we know we are responsible and will be judged by God’s measure of justice and the plight of the most vulnerable. We are God’s creatures who are called to love, mercy, justice, good works and obedience.

RENOVARE Bible. Notes on 2 Kings 8:11-13

It is unthinkable that God would do wrong, that the Almighty would pervert justice.

Job 34:12

The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.

Psalm 33:5

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you.

Psalm 89:14

The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.

Psalm 103:6

The Lord maintains the cause of the needy, and executes justice for the poor.

Psalm 140:12

When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous.

Proverbs 21:15

Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.

Isaiah 1:17

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Hosea 6:8

But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!

Amos 5:24

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

Matthew 25:40

Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay”, says the Lord.

Romans 12:19

Ancient Writings

Justice is the virtue that gives each person his due; it is what makes us treat people with fairness and equity.

Augustine of Hippo

No one can be made just unless he is in the faith... Justice is the embodiment of that faith.

Ambrose of Milan

The bread which you hold back belongs to the hungry; the cloak which you guard carefully belongs to the naked; the gold which you keep to yourself belongs to the poor.

Basil the Great

Conscience is the chamber of justice.

Origen

Scripture urges and warns us that whatever favors we may have obtained from the Lord, we have received them as a trust on condition that they should be applied to the common benefit of the church.

John Calvin

Modern Writings

There is a spirit abroad in life of which the Juddo-Christian ethic is but one expression. It is a spirit that makes for wholeness and for community....It broods over the demonstrators for justice and brings comfort to the desolate and forgotten who have no memory of what it is to feel the rhythm of belonging. It knows no country and its allies are to be found wherever the heart is kind and the collective will and the private endeavor seek to make justice where injustice abounds.

Howard Thurman, The Luminous Darkness, p. 22-23

The stagnation of my prayer life...is due to deep involvement in the collective sin of American society and American Catholicism a sin of which we all refuse to be aware. Do we come to God in prayer as an act of justice when I am living in injustice? An injustice which pervades the whole world and is even greater in the camp of those who can see that we are exploiters. They are worse.

Thomas Merton

The problem of apathy among Christians is rampant in the First World, where consumerism dulls the human heart amidst an ecological crisis while a massive humanitarian crisis of poverty and hunger is ravaging many parts of the Third World.

Raimon Panikkar, Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution, p. 86

In the West, the concept of a “contrite heart” has come to refer only to personal experiences of guilt and the willingness to do penance for it. But, if the catastrophic events of our days, the wars, mass murders, unbridled violence, crowded prisons, torture chambers, the hunger and illness of millions of people and the unnamable misery of a major part of the human race is safely kept outside the solitude of our hearts, our contrition remains no more than a pious emotion. Only when our mind has descended to our heart can we expect a lasting response to well up from our inner self.

Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out, p.54, 58

People who are oppressed or poor know every day that the current system is not just. They have little to lose and much to gain by seeking justice. People on the top invariably support the status quo. Why wouldn’t they? It’s working for them.

You will always “conserve” the system that has got you where you are. Scriptures consistently show a rare bias toward the bottom of society as the necessary starting point. Any other starting point has far too much to protect and cannot hear or speak what is necessary for the common good.

Richard Rohr, On the Threshold of Transformation, p. 94

We have confused justice and charity. Charity was traditionally considered the highest virtue, popularly thought of as a kind of magnanimous, voluntary giving of ourselves, preferably for selfless motives. As long as we rose to this level occasionally by donating food, gifts, or money at the holidays or in times of crisis, we could think of ourselves as charitable people operating at the highest level of virtue.

What has been lacking is the virtue of justice. Justice and charity are complementary but clearly inseparable in teachings of Doctors of the Church. The giving and caring spirit of charity both motivates and completes our sense of justice, but the virtue of charity cannot legitimately substitute for justice. Persons capable of doing justice are not justified in preferring to “do charity.”

Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 10/31/21

Jesus’ social program, as far as I can see, is a quiet refusal to participate in almost all external power structures or domination systems. Once we have been told this, we will see it everywhere in the four Gospels. His primary social action is a very simple lifestyle, which kept him from being constantly co-opted by those very structures, which I am calling the sin system.

His three-year ministry is, in effect, offering free healing and healthcare for any who want it (Jew and non-Jew, worthy and unworthy). He consistently treats women with a dignity and equality that is almost unknown in an entirely patriarchal culture.

Then, at the end of his life, he surrenders to the punitive systems of both empire and religion by letting them judge, torture, and murder him. He is finally a full victim of the systems that he refused to worship. Is this not a much more coherent explanation of why Jesus died? Think of Christianity as a giant act of solidarity with all of creation.

Richard Rohr, What Will We Do With Evil? p. 71-72, 82

The Five Conversions to solidarity with the poor and oppressed:

The First Conversion to solidarity is to have basic compassion for the poor in general, or one poor person. Sadly, there seems to be many Christians who don’t even have basic compassion for the poor. In the United States, we are pretty much trained to blame people who are poor, immigrants or refugees, victims, or gay, lesbian, or transgendered people. Far too many seem to think, even if to themselves, that if “those people” would simply work a little more, do things the right way, change their minds, stay hidden, or just “pray a little harder,” we’d all be better off. The first conversion is where we must begin. Our hearts must be softened, and we must experience basic sympathy, empathy, and recognition of another person’s pain.

The Second Conversion to solidarity is anger at the unjust situation that caused their poverty. Many people never reach this stage of anger at injustice, especially in the United States. Our cultural worship of individualism and “bootstrap” mentality deprives us of the capacity to empathize with people in need and recognize systemic oppression. When we are in the middle or upper tier of privilege, it is almost impossible to see the many ways the system helped us succeed. We cannot recognize or overcome this “agreed upon delusion” as isolated individuals, mostly because it is held together by the group consensus. The dominant group in any country or context normally cannot see its own lies. We have to pay attention to whomever is saying “I can’t breathe” to recognize the biases at work. Anger is a necessary, appropriate, and useful response to this kind of injustice. Yet anger can be dangerous, too. When it hangs around too long, it becomes self-defeating and egocentric. The question of true conversion and solidarity is, “How can I work through my anger and get to the other side, so I can be a life-giving presence with and for those who are most suffering?”

The Third Conversion is when we idealize some of the virtues of the poor that we ourselves do not have. When the lens is cleared by our initial awakening to injustice, it is much easier to focus on people’s admirable qualities, especially those that might be lacking in our own group. This was certainly true for me. In my travels to India, the Philippines, and many Global South nations, I saw plenty of people who were happy, generous and grateful with the little they had. By contrast, I could be entitled and grumpy whenever the littlest things went wrong! It was so humbling.

The Fourth Conversion is a deepening recognition of the impact of systemic oppression. This tends to come about as a result of disillusionment and disappointment with the poor, especially when one sees how they have been socialized to a worldview of failure and scarcity. This is internalized oppression. As Paulo Freire puts it, “so often do [the oppressed] hear that they are good for nothing, know nothing, and are incapable of learning anything . . . that in the end they become convinced of their own unfitness.” From the very beginning, the systems we operate in either support us or tear us down.

The Fifth Conversion to solidarity is a choice to walk with the poor and oppressed, to be taught by them, and to love them as equals, each of us bearing the Divine Indwelling Spirit within. 

Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 5/25-5/28/20

Love is the motive, but justice is the instrument. Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) My work with the poor and the incarcerated has persuaded me that the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice. I’ve come to believe that the true measure of our commitment to justice cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and the respected among us.

The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned. We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated. An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation. Fear and anger can make us vindictive and abusive, unjust and unfair, until we all suffer from the absence of mercy and we condemn ourselves as much as we victimize others.

Bryan Stevenson, CAC Morning Devotion, 9/11/20

Ten Ways to Live Restoratively

Take relationships seriously, envisioning yourself in an interconnected web of people, institutions, and the environment.

Try to be aware of the impact potential as well as actual of your actions on others and the environment.

When your actions negatively impact others, take responsibility by acknowledging and seeking to repair the harm, even when you could probably get away with avoiding or denying it.

Treat everyone respectfully, even those you don’t expect to encounter again, even those you feel don’t deserve it, even those who have harmed or offended you or others.

Involve those affected by a decision, as much as possible, in the decision-making process.

View the conflicts and harms in your life as opportunities.

Listen, deeply and compassionately, to others, seeking to understand even if you don’t agree with them. (Think about who you want to be in the latter situation rather than just being right.)

Engage in dialogue with others, even when what is being said is difficult, remaining open to learning from them and the encounter.

Be cautious about imposing your “truths” and views on other people and situations.

Sensitively confront everyday injustices including sexism, racism, and classism [and other examples of systemic and intersectional injustice.

Howard Zehr, Changing Lenses: Restorative Justice for Our Times, p. 257-258. CAC Morning Devotion, 9/12/20