Week 70: Justice - Let it Roll on like a River

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

A glimpse of Injustice

Picture taken from: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/

The government has recently introduced a law which would further tighten the country’s excessive restrictions on peaceful protest. If enacted, the Peaceful Assembly Bill 2011 would effectively prohibit street protests. At this writing, the Bill was passed by parliament on 29^th November 2011. "This bill is a legislative attack on Malaysians’ right to peaceful protest,” said Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific director at Amnesty International. “The Malaysian parliament should firmly reject this legislation.”

On a personal note, I’m totally against the Peaceful Assemble Bill (though they make it sounds so ‘righteous’ by using the word 'peaceful') because it is an open violation for people’s right to speak and thus, making us, Malaysian generally, aliens stricken by power-craze laws in our own homeland! This is not right! I’m totally against the Peaceful Assembly Bill!

This issue and many more are but a glimpse of injustice that happens around us...

Agent of Justice in an unjust World

We are living in the world where things are not what they should be. In our world, things are turned inside out and upside down. But as people who are aware of all these injustice, we should not be quiet about it. We should make ‘noise’, get busy with our ‘hand’ and on our ‘knees’ often. God throughout the Bible calls to His people to be agents of justice in the world. The Micah’s great requirement for justice is this;

“What does the Lord require of you?
To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8NIV)

What Justice may look like

If we submit to God’s great commission; “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” and obey to His great commandment; “love God and your neighbor as yourself” – in the light of Justice: we would be responsible to God and others is what we say or do, we would be a good steward of what we own, we would enthuse to support just causes through action and financial support (such as The Micah Mandate advocacy ministry), we would treat others impartially and fairly, we would provide for the poor, the needy and the oppressed through the means available to you (with what you have or in ways that you can), we would want to serve others probably thru volunteering in the local community. 

Adele Ahlberg Calhoun suggests, “We would be people who fought unemployment with job training, illiteracy with education, pollution with technology, oppression with legal protection, disease with medicine, danger with safety, poverty with help, chaos with order, fear with love, hunger with food... we would grieve over injustice and oppression. We would courageously use our gifts and talents to oppose the result of the Fall.”

Let Justice Roll on like a River

In his book Jubilee, Mel Lawrenz outlines 4 practical steps to becoming a Jesus-Justice Advocate:

1.      Open My Eyes to Injustice at the Personal Level

2.      Open My Eyes to Injustice in My Community

3.      Open My Eyes to Injustice Around the World

4.      Do Something about What My Open Eyes See

Let Justice Roll on like a River

And with that he concluded (and this is how I would like it to end), “I cannot straighten out the world today and never will. But any little thing I do today to straighten out something in my life and to help straighten out someone else’s life is a small victory in God’s campaign for order.” The truth is total justice will not happen, not until Jesus’ second return to bring back the fullness of God’s Kingdom order to the world. But even though there is no total justice is available, well, at least not yet, we as the followers of Jesus are to share our resources and work and with all the might that the Holy Spirit given to us to let justice roll on like a river  against the evil that robs the world of God’s care and love. 
Think Big. Start Small. Go Deep.

“But let justice roll on like a river,

Righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:24)