Social Justice

Social justice is the greatest evangelistic opportunity of the 21st century. Men and women of all ages desire to make a difference in the world and to respond to the gross injustice that they see around them from the prison system in the United States to sex trafficking in Thailand. When given the opportunity, as people engage in acts of justice, they will have the opportunity to encounter Christ. It is not surprising that worship and justice go hand in hand. Music has the potential to capture one’s heart and soul and to propel people toward action, sustaining them in times of hardship and suffering and motivating them to take steps forward to provoke positive change. I appreciate the articles that you printed recently about musicians such as Jars of Clay, Sara Groves, and Steven Curtis Chapman and the way their music is raising awareness about the need for social justice as a way that one lives out their faith. However, I am more compelled by the untold stories of local musicians and others who do not have the same magnitude of platform. There are many men and women who are faithfully using their gifts in worship to raise awareness and propel people to action because of their faith and belief in the Gospel. For example, Justin McRoberts is a singer songwriter from the East Bay, California. He has decided to use his voice to provoke change by becoming an advocate through Compassion International. At concerts and shows, Justin features children who can be sponsored through Compassion. He and his wife carry boxes of unsponsored children in the trunk of their car and they tell people about them whenever they have the opportunity. The McRoberts are faithfully using their gifts to encourage the church to get involved and to make a difference. Justin says, “If the Church is serious about its role, we must earn the right to be heard by caring for the poor and the oppressed.” Local churches and pastors must be committed to seeking out and encouraging local artists to further the cause of compassion and justice. My hope is that readers will know you don’t have to be a big-name musician to be able to make a difference. However small the step, whenever people are compelled to respond to the call of Jesus to meet the needs of the ‘least of these’ (Matthew 25:40), it is a true act of worship.

Junia - Esteemed Among the Apostles

In Romans 16:7, Paul greets Andronicus and Junia as “esteemed among the apostles.” Andronicus and Junia are described by Paul as having been in prison with him and that they had come to faith in Jesus before he did. The Biblical role of apostle represents someone who had a first hand encounter with the risen Christ.[1] From this verse, it is clear that Junia is someone who fulfilled the criteria for apostleship (1 Corinthians 9:1). It is possible, because Junia’s leadership role as an apostle corresponds with female leadership roles within ancient Judaism (and as the head of the synagogue or elder) and within other Greco-Roman religions), that Junia was already carrying out leadership functions within the Jewish community before becoming an apostle of Christ.[2] Historically, there has been some question about the gender of Junia, because some Scripture translators interpreted the name as “Junias” (the male version of the name) instead of Junia. Early church writers almost explicitly interpreted Junia as a female name. John Chrysostom praised Junia among the apostles. In addition, extra-biblical sources prove that the name Junias is as of yet unattested in ancient inscriptions. The female name, Junia, however, appears over 250 times among inscriptions from ancient Rome alone.[3] Critical scholars today increasingly interpret the name as the feminine Junia. Her identification as “esteemed among the apostles” is valuable evidence that women were empowered in positions of leadership within the early church.[4] The mention of Junia among the apostles does not indicate whether or not any type of ordination was common practice in the Acts church and whether or not she participated in any such ceremonious act.[5] Nonetheless, she is an example to all of us that women played a critical role in the spreading of the Good News of Christ after his death and resurrection.

[1] Meyers, Carol (General Editor). Women in Scripture. Eerdmans Publishing. Grand Rapids, MI: 2000.
[2] Ibid. Meyers, p. 107.
[3] Ibid. Meyers, p. 107.
[4] Apostleship, as mentioned, was the highest position of leadership and authority, because it was directly linked to ones personal encounter with the risen Christ.
[5] It is important to note that the Apostles experienced some type of commissioning from Jesus (Acts 1:8) but were not necessarily ordained within the church. This is probably similar to any commissioning that Junia may have received.

Ministry Profile: Focus: HOPE

One of the most successful job programs I have ever seen is based in Detroit out of non-profit ministry called Focus: HOPE. Co-founded in 1968 by Father Cunningham and Eleanor Josaitis, Focus: HOPE pledged to the following vision:

"Recognizing the dignity and beauty of every person, we pledge intelligent and practical action to overcome racism, poverty and injustice. And to build a metropolitan community where all people may live in freedom, harmony, trust and affection. Black and white, yellow, brown and red from Detroit and its suburbs of every economic status, national origin and religious persuasion we join in this covenant."

The 1967 riot left metropolitan Detroit sharply divided along racial lines. By early 1968, shock had deepened into bitterness and hostility. New words described the new reality: polarization, white backlash, black militancy, flight. It was in this atmosphere that the Focus: HOPE co-founders felt compelled to make a difference. They wrote a mission statement and inspired a movement. The material resources available to them were minimal. But the human resources - extraordinary people from all walks of life with a dedication to the ideal of brotherhood, with courage and determination to endure - proved abundant. Focus: HOPE was born, and remains, a movement of minds, hearts, and wills committed to "intelligent and practical action to overcome racism, poverty and injustice."

I first met Eleanor when she was a guest speaker at Willow Creek’s Leadership Summit in 2005. I had the privilege of hosting her for the weekend and her passion, drive, and unwavering desire to see those who are hurting find hope and relief was awe inspiring. I don’t think that anyone who encounters Eleanor will ever be the same after meeting her. She is full of spunk and challenge and has poured herself into life and ministry in the city of Detroit. Focus: HOPE now has nearly 350 colleagues and is supported by 51,000 volunteers and donors. The ministry partners with the automotive industry in Detroit and helps assure job placements for graduates who complete their Fast Track, Machinist Training Institute, Center for Advanced Technologies, and Information Technologies Center programs. Board members consist of some of the top business leaders in the community including the COO of Chrysler Financial, a retired president of Ford Motor Company, and a Vice President from General Motors North America. Focus: HOPE offers comprehensive and holistic support for under-resourced individuals, families, and communities. The ministry addresses responding to people’s immediate needs by offering compassion through their food distribution programs, their daycare and child support initiatives; development through job training and skills improvement; and social justice by working to change the institutionalized systems. For more information visit: http://www.focushope.edu/.

Incarcerated Youth

My first encounter with the penitentiary system was Illinois at the Illinois Youth Center for boys in St. Charles, Illinois. I was a newly hired pastor at Willow Creek and prison ministry just happened to be one of the ministries that I had inherited in my new role. The people who served in that ministry had a tendency to be a little bit distant from the mainstream culture at the church – incredibly passionate about their ministry interests and not always wise about the way that they pursued getting their agenda accomplished. As I drove through the gates at the youth facility, I didn’t have much context except that the team leader of the ministry had been serving for over 10 years leading a Bible study for the boys on Friday evenings. The kids who attended the meetings came by choice and were only allowed on the list if they had good behavior and had stayed out of trouble during the proceeding week. Of the two dozen kids who attended, most were kids of color – African American and Latino – only two or three were white. I went to the Bible study and engaged in an evening full of study of the Scriptures, active dialogue, story telling, and conversation. I met one young man who told me that his father was incarcerated, his brother was incarcerated, and his grandfather was incarcerated. He shared with me his fears that once he got out of “juvie” he would be going right back into an environment where he felt he didn’t have any choice, but to continue in the activities that got him put away in the first place. I talked to another young man who told me that he was raised by a single mother who was never around because she was always at work trying to make ends meet. He was the primary caretaker for his younger siblings and felt like he couldn’t take all of the pressure. Another young man shared about how he had to carry a weapon and to protect his interests when he was on the street, because otherwise he would be killed. He said his choice was to ‘kill or be killed.’ Some of the stories that I heard were very difficult for me to relate to, but I couldn’t help and feel that the young men who I spent an evening with that night were just kids! Kids who were trying to ‘make it in the world’ and had made bad decisions. I was struck by how overwhelming the circumstances were to predispose those young men to act out the way that they were acting. Can you imagine being the third generation of people in your family to be incarcerated? Should we expect things to be any different? As I drove out of the gates that evening, I started to weep. I felt like I was leaving a part of my family behind the chain linked fence and security gates. I was overwhelmed by how little support and encouragement those kids were receiving in their home environments. I couldn’t help but think that any one of those young men could have been my brother or my son. My brother has made some poor decisions in his teenage years. However, my family has had the means and resources, both financial and otherwise, to keep him (for the most part) out of the system. How could these young men ever make it without family around them to support them? How could they get good legal representation to fight their case and advocate for them if their families couldn’t even afford to keep food on the table? I am not saying, in any way, that they should not face the consequences for the poor decisions that they have made. Some of those young men have done some really terrible things. Nonetheless, as I encountered bits and pieces of their stories, I left with a firm conviction that God has called the church to stand in the gap where society and people around them have failed. What would it look like for the church to walk alongside young men and women in detention centers and speak words of hope, encouragement, and affirmation while also offering practical tools, support, and programs to help them live differently when they transition back into society? The questions that are raised by these types of encounters are not easy ones to answer, but I do not believe that the church has the luxury of sitting back and not responding. May Christ’s love compel us to ‘get in the game’ and to extend His mercy and grace to the young men and women who are behind bars.

Encounters with the Homeless

One day I was traveling downtown for a meeting that I had with a mentor in the city of San Francisco. I had taken the train into town and was walking a few blocks through the financial district on my way to the meeting. It is not uncommon, during those walks, for me to encounter the homeless lying on the street corners, sitting and asking for money, or trying to sell street newspapers in order to make a small amount of money. On this particular day, I was early for my meeting and was taking my time absorbing the life of the city. A few blocks into my walk, I came across a man lying against the newspaper boxes. He seemed to be sleeping on something, but it was hard to tell what. He had a few of his possessions around him. It was difficult to tell what was his clothing, his bedding, or his body, because he was so incredibly filthy. His hair was matted and in disarray. He seemed to be sleeping. My heart went out to him when I encountered him… not only because he was so dirty and seemed to have so little, but also because he was lying on the side of the street and his butt was completely exposed. As I was approaching the place where he was sleeping, my spirit was so torn within me. I kept thinking of all of the verses that talk about feeding those who are without food and especially about James 2 that says, “what it is it if you tell him ‘go and be well’”… but I was completely at a loss as to what to do. I thought of the verses about if you have two cloaks – give your brother or your sister the extra one, but I was wearing a suit – high heels, a skirt, and a jacket that I am sure would not have done him any good. I thought about waking him up, but was fearful of what he might do to me if I aroused him from his slumber. I thought about the good Samaritan who saw the man by the side of the road and took him to an inn and paid for his stay. I looked across the street and there was an Omni Hotel right there. I then envisioned what a fool people would think of me if I attempted to take this dirty, disheveled, and smelly man into their posh hotel. I didn’t care as much about what people would think – although the thought crossed my mind – but I continued to rationalize that the man lying there certainly would have rejected my kindness if I had offered. As I continued to walk, I knew in the depths of my being that God was stirring in me… and yet, even acknowledging His presence, I did nothing. I was immobilized. So, when I think about Jesus saying “whatever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me” – I know that on that particular day, I totally walked right by Jesus. I continue to think of that man, what has become of him, how he might have responded to me if I had acted differently. But, even more than that, I ask God to forgive me for the ways that my stupid pride, my world of excessive luxury, keep me from responding to Him in my daily encounters.

Biblical Context of Poverty

Poverty is mentioned over 2,000 times in Scripture. Yet, the meaning of poverty can be elusive. The people of God, throughout the Old Testament, had clear mandates about how they were to respond to those who were poor. Consider Deuteronomy 15:11, “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward those of your people who are poor and needy in your land.” The anger of God toward the fasting and sacrifices of His people is expressed in Isaiah 58. God did not desire for the Israelites to only manifest religious duty, but also to respond to the needs the poor. He says about the type of fasting that He has chosen: “Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor with wander and shelter – when you see the naked, to clothe them, and to not turn away from your own flesh and blood?”(Is 58:7). The people of God throughout the Old Testament had clear laws about how they were to provide for those living in poverty.

In the Gospels, Jesus called attention to those who were hurting and in need – both physically and in the spiritual sense. When Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount and said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:3), what did he mean? The tag line of that verse “poor in spirit” is written and spoken about by many scholars, thinkers, and preachers. Charles Finney identified with being poor in spirit and said, “Being poor in spirit implies that we see in its true light the tendency in us to every thing evil--that we understand that the habitudes of our minds, that our appetites and propensities, that nearly the whole power of the sensibility continually tends to selfishness.”[i] To be poor in spirit refers to the deep longing within us to be filled by something other than ourselves and the baseness of the world around us – the poverty that exists when we do not have the greater purpose of being in relationship with the God of the universe.

This leads us to ponder whether or not Jesus’ words in Matthew have the same meaning as when Luke writes, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Lk 6:20)? Is Luke referring to a different kind of poverty? Sometimes when we talk about poverty, we are referring to the physical lack of resources – fundamental human needs such as food, clothing and shelter. Is there any correlation between those who are poor in spirit and others who are physically poor?

Physical poverty is something that is concrete, observable, and for the most part measurable. In speaking of material poverty, Gustavo Gutiérrez, a Peruvian theologian and Dominican priest wrote: “Concretely, to be poor means to die of hunger, to be illiterate, to be exploited by others, not to know that you are being exploited, not to know that you are a person. It is in relation to this poverty – material and cultural, collective and militant – that evangelical poverty will have to define itself.”[ii] One of the questions that we must ask as followers of Christ – is what are we supposed to do, if anything, about this kind of poverty? As we grapple with that question, our pursuit of personal righteousness and Christ-likeness is a part of the motivation that compels us out of our own spiritual poverty.

Jesus had a lot to say about material poverty. There is great evidence indicating that He cared not only about His follower’s internal righteousness, but also about those who were considered the least of society. Jesus’ ministry begins with Him calling attention to His role in fulfilling all righteousness (Mt 3:15). When he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, He reminds his tempter that physical bread is not the source of life that people need, but instead, “People do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). The juxtaposition in this passage of the pursuit of righteousness (obedience to every word that comes from God) and human’s physical need for sustenance and food (bread alone) reminds us that our connection and intimacy with God is of more importance than the needs of our physical and temporal selves. The most important needs that a human has are not physical, but deeply spiritual. The moment that we begin to ignore spiritual needs in the midst of material poverty, we have lost the battle. We must never seek to save our physical selves without care for the spiritual wellbeing of our souls. Nonetheless, Jesus calls us to not ignore the physical needs that we see around us. He says responding to the least of these is the equivalent of responding to His needs (Matthew 25). This idea is expounded when James talks about our faith in action. He says, “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (Jas 2:15-17). This chapter is full of suggestions about how we as believers can respond to the physical needs and poverty that surrounds us.

Guttiérrez takes his understanding of poverty even further and suggests that we as Christ followers must adopt a new kind of poverty – evangelical poverty. Evangelical poverty embraces what the Messiah talked about in 2 Cor 8:9: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich.” We know how generous the Lord has been to us, thus we must not close our eyes and ignore the horrors going on around us, but engage and work to solve them. We must work to make a difference, one small step at a time by loving those who are poor and even those who are dirty, smelly, ugly, and rejected by society. By living alongside the poor, we will be witnesses of Christ’s love to the world. In fact, we will be spiritually transformed when we have direct encounters with the poor. Through their lives, stories, and experiences, and Christ working in their midst, we receive a great gift that we otherwise would not have known. Guttiérrez says it well: “Christian poverty, an expression of love, is solidarity with the poor and is a protest against poverty. It is a poverty lived not for its own sake, but rather as an authentic imitation of Christ; it is a poverty which means taking on the sinful human condition to liberate humankind from sin and all its consequences.”[iii]

[i] From the Gospel Truth – the Oberlin Evangelist. Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit. Prof. Finney, December 4, 1844. Copyright (c)1999, 2000. Gospel Truth Ministries. Taken from: http://www.gospeltruth.net/1844OE/441204_poor_in_spirit.htm.

[ii] Gutiérrez, Gustavo. A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation. Maryknoll, NY: The Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, 2000, p. 164.

[iii] Ibid, p. 172.