“Acts of Justice”
Psalm 52
Sandpoint United Methodist Church
July 18, 2010
Stan Norman
Please pray with me. May the words of our mouths, the meditations of our hearts, and the conduct of our lives, be always acceptable to you, O God, our strength and our blessed redeemer. Amen.
Last week we talked about Acts of Mercy, the personal side of what John Wesley, Methodism’s founder, called Works of Mercy (we used the term Social Gospel), the top two quadrants in our illustration of a balanced life in Christ. The public side of the Social Gospel is Acts of Justice. That’s our topic for today. Last week we read from the book of the prophet Ezekiel. Specifically, we read of Israel’s False Shepherds and of God, the True Shepherd, in Ezekiel 34. Does anyone remember what God said God would feed to Israel’s false shepherds when he came to be the people’s one true shepherd? It’s in verse 16: “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.”
Here’s what the Psalmist says that looks like: “God will break you down forever; he will snatch and tear you from your tent; he will uproot you from the land of the living.” Doesn’t sound very pleasant, does it?
Then the Psalmist says, “The righteous will see and fear [the Hebrew word for “fear” can also be translated as “respect” or “worship”, English just doesn’t convey the full scope of meaning of many Hebrew words]. “The righteous will see and respect God, and will laugh at the evildoer [as you heard John read, in The Message, Eugene Peterson translates “evildoer” as “Big Man”; what was it that Micah said, “walk humbly with God”]. The righteous will see and respect God, and will laugh at the big shots saying, ‘See the ones who would not take refuge in God, but trusted in abundant riches, and sought refuge in wealth!’” Why do you suppose, the founders of our nation chose to put the words “In God We Trust” on all of our currency and coins; maybe as a reminder and warning?
Accumulation of wealth and “stuff” for our own use and prestige is a huge stumbling block to our balanced walk with God through life! Trust me, I know what of I speak! John Wesley called it the “Danger of Riches”. From the Wesley Study Bible:
According to Wesley wealth is dangerous because it can corrupt and lead to sin. Whatever our level of income, desiring more than is necessary to sustain our families and ourselves is morally destructive. Riches lure us from sharing with those in need and toward exploiting and isolating the poor for selfish financial gain. The dangers of wealth also harm the rich by leading into a self-centered life style, [Remember who is at the center of a balanced Christian life?] a false sense of moral superiority [“I earned mine, let them work for theirs.” Kind of hard to do when you don’t have a job or even the opportunity to get one.], a distorted understanding of divine favor [“God must have wanted me to have this money, or he wouldn’t have given it to me.”], and to the destruction and negligence of those in need [“Let the welfare system take care of them, that’s what I pay taxes for.”]. These traits are in absolute opposition to God’s character and God’s expectations of God’s people. When blessed with more than what we need [not want]…When blessed with more than what we need, the excess should be shared.
Speaking of money:
Did you hear about the two bills that were worn out and were being removed from circulation? One was a twenty dollar bill and one was a one dollar bill. They were talking as they waited for processing. The twenty dollar bill had traveled the world. It said, “I’ve had a good life. I’ve been able to travel to exotic vacation spots and I’ve spent lots of time in Vegas, and Disneyland, and places like that.” The one dollar bill said, “Wow, I didn’t get around as much as you. Mostly I’ve been to churches, Methodist churches, Presbyterian churches, Episcopalian churches…” The twenty dollar bill said, “Excuse me. What’s a church?”
When I served as student pastor at Browns Point United Methodist Church in Tacoma, one of my assignments was to establish Covenant Discipleship Groups. Covenant Discipleship groups are based on John Wesley’s small group model – the Methodist Class Meeting. Ideally, Covenant Discipleship groups are groups of 5-8 committed Christians who meet weekly to hold one another accountable for meeting the covenant commitments that they have developed together. The covenant must contain practical, doable works in each of the four quadrants: Acts of Mercy, Acts of Justice, Acts of Devotion, and Acts of Worship.
Covenant Discipleship groups are not support groups or Bible study groups, and they are not for everyone. They are for Christians who want to make sure that they are continually growing in their discipleship and leading a balanced Christian life. We set up five groups that met once a week for a year. One or two of those groups may still be meeting, seven years later.
Anyone want to guess what area was most difficult for each and every group? Acts of Justice was the toughest area for us to get our heads and hands around. There are probably several reasons for this, but the one that I heard most often was, “We don’t know where to start! The problems are so big and difficult that we just can’t find practical ways to approach them.” Anyone want to guess what obstructions are the hardest to overcome for our Circles families trying to claw their way out of poverty? Of course…it’s the big systemic problems that seem beyond our control. Tackling “world hunger” on a weekly basis seems fruitless. But, with God all things are possible, and what makes us think that God expects us to solve world hunger by ourselves, anyway? Let me share a modern parable that illustrates what I think God expects from us:
The Rock
A man was sleeping at night in his cabin when suddenly his room filled with light and the Savior appeared. The Lord told the man he had work for him to do, and showed him a large rock in front of his cabin. The Lord explained that the man was to push against the rock with all his might.
This the man did, day after day. For many years he toiled from sun up to sun down, his shoulders set squarely against the cold, massive surface of the unmoving rock, pushing with all his might. Each night the man returned to his cabin sore, and worn out, feeling that his whole day had been spent in vain.
Seeing that the man was showing signs of discouragement, Satan decided to enter the picture by placing thoughts into the man’s mind: “You have been pushing against that rock for a long time, and it hasn’t budged. Why kill yourself over this? You are never going to move it.”
Thus giving the man the impression that the task was impossible and that he was a failure, these thoughts discouraged and disheartened the man even more.
“Why kill myself over this?” he thought. “I’ll just put in my time, giving just the minimum effort and that will be good enough.” And that he planned to do until one day he decided to make it a matter of prayer and take his troubled thoughts to the Lord.
“Lord”, he said, “I have labored long and hard in your service, putting all my strength to do that which you have asked. Yet, after all this time, I have not even budged that rock by half a millimeter. What is wrong? Why am I failing?”
The Lord responded compassionately, “My friend, when I asked you to serve me and you accepted, I told you that your task was to push against the rock with all your strength, which you have done. Never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it. Your task was to push. And now you come to me, with your strength spent, thinking that you have failed. But, is that really so?”
“Look at yourself. Your arms are strong and muscled, your back sinewed and brown, your hands are callused from constant pressure, and your legs have become massive and hard. Through opposition you have grown much and your abilities now surpass that which you used to have. Yet you haven’t moved the rock. But your calling was to be obedient and to push and to exercise your faith and trust in My wisdom. This you have done.”
“I, my friend, will now move the rock.”
At times when we hear a word from God, we tend to use our own intellect to decipher what He wants, when actually what God wants is just simple obedience and faith in him...
By all means, exercise the faith that moves mountains, but it is still God who moves the mountains.
In 1896, Charles Sheldon wrote a little book called “In His Steps”. That little book has sold more than six million copies and gave rise to the “What Would Jesus Do” movement – you have probably seen or heard of “WWJD”. Sheldon’s book is about a reawakening of the Christian church in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many of the injustices that the Church took on are still with us: hunger, prostitution, alcohol abuse, gambling, unfair business practices, and loan-sharking, to name a few. These were big problems then and they still are, but by working together and trusting God, great progress was made. I believe it is time to reawaken the Christian church to its power and potential. As the Apostle Paul reminds us in his letter to the early church in Rome: “If God is for us, who is against us?”
Instead of wringing our hands and complaining that our problems are just too big for us, let’s roll up our sleeves and start pushing on some big rocks! If we do what we are called to do, who knows what mountains God will move for us!
Amen.
