Justice (With A Capital ‘J’)
Behind almost all Christian development work being done around the globe is a strong, ever-present fixation on justice. We know that our God is just, and that we ought to be living into His Kingdom by seeking to do justice (Micah 6:8) and live just lives, whether that be through our ministry or even just in the day to day.
Caring for vulnerable children and families is no different. A frequently repeated line in the orphan care community is: “Everyone can do something.” All of us, through large and small actions, can contribute directly to justice for “orphans and widows”—those vulnerable children and families that are in all of our communities. Justice is as simple as offering to babysit for a single mom, or driving someone to a job interview, or offering up a prayer for a struggling family.
This is wonderful news! Whether or not we can adopt, foster, or work as part of an orphan care ministry in our church or community, we are surrounded by opportunities to help and to be a part of restorative justice for families in our communities and around the world. We can work to prevent family separation. We can open our homes to a vulnerable child. We can give money to ministries supporting vulnerable families. Every dollar, every prayer, every minute of service is justice.
That said, there are two important things to know about doing justice, one of which you’ve probably heard before, and one which is likely new to many of you.
The first is this: it is not enough to be passionate and have a sincere desire to help. Development work is often more complex than we’ve imagined, and doing justice can be far more complicated than we expect.
In his book When Helping Hurts, Stephen Corbett writes, “If we treat only the symptoms or if we misdiagnose the underlying problem, we will not improve their situation, and we might actually make their lives worse.”
That’s right. Worse.
Even with the best of intentions, trying to serve others is as infinitely complex as the number of people who are currently suffering injustices. As an NGO that is constantly working to understand and better serve the community of Huehuetenango, we know we haven’t always done things perfectly. The point isn’t getting it right every single time, but constant prayer, self-education, professional guidance, and a willingness to change. Doing justice requires an enormous amount of humility. It takes listening and learning, every step of the way.
None of us can step in knowing everything, but we can step in knowing enough to be confident in the steps we are taking. Before going on that mission trip to an orphanage, we can understand attachment disorders and trauma so that we can make sure we don’t exacerbate those problems. Before deciding what kind of project to do in an impoverished community, we can talk with community members and find out what areas they would like to see work done on. Before donating to a charity, we can read up on how they spend their money and what their mission and vision are.
Before we have to say sorry, or cringe as we look back on avoidable mistakes, we can do what we can to prevent them from happening in the first place. For those of us who really want to DO justice and not just have an exciting experience, this means doing the less glamorous work of praying, reading, and asking the important questions BEFORE we make the avoidable mistakes.
The second thing to know is this: It isn’t enough to fixate on one thing. Justice isn’t just a thing we do, it is the way we live. We are constantly bombarded with decisions that require us to make judgements that affect others. We have to see the bigger picture, even when it makes us uncomfortable.
The call to live a just life is harder than expected, but it is vital to seek to live as justly as we can. Seeking to live justly often means making sacrifices we don’t want to make. However, if we truly care about what we say matters to us, then we have to be willing to make those sacrifices.
If justice for vulnerable children and families is important to us, then we need to stop buying clothes that we know are probably made by children in sweatshops, or buying low quality products from industries that depend heavily on child labor, like chocolate and coffee. If environmental justice is important to us, then maybe we need to drive less and stop using disposable plates, even if it means doing dishes every day. If economic justice is important to us, then maybe we need to cut back on craft beer and entertainment and direct some of those funds towards micro-loans or other initiatives to lift people out of poverty.
As Wendell Berry puts it in a famous essay, we need to begin to “think little”: actively making small changes in what we do and what we don’t do so that our lives align better with our values (like Justice).
Not only that, but we actually need to care about all of these things, because the more we understand the world’s injustices, the more we begin to see that they are generally tangled together and inseparable. It isn’t about finding a balance of what we will and won’t care about. To live justly means to seek to live as justly as we can in as many areas as we can, changing our lifestyles as we learn more. “Everyone can do something” applies here, too.
Now that isn’t to say that we aren’t called to work towards justice in specific areas and in unique ways. God has given us unique skills and passions for a reason. The point is, we can’t settle for just caring about environmental justice or social justice or educational justice or orphan justice. Justice with a capital ‘J’ (complete and comprehensive) is what we ought to aim for.
Living just lives is a combination of those things we actively do and actively don’t do, day in and day out. Unfortunately, we have no excuse to only care when it is convenient, cheap, or fits our job description. Ignorance may be bliss, but it is no way to live in pursuit of holistic, transformational, capital ‘J’ justice. We have to continue to educate ourselves and seek to live with integrity in every aspect of our lives. Giving, and also giving things up.
Yet we know that there is never any true loss in seeking to follow Jesus. Though at times it may seem overwhelming when we realize how much work we have to do in our lives, our communities, and our world, the call to live justly and sacrificially is the kind of life that Jesus has called us to, and we can be sure that it is far better than any life we could have dreamed up for ourselves.
Because in the end, life to the fullest (John 10:10) is what we all truly want, isn’t it?
Written by Levi Bareither