The next two blogs I plan to write involve subjects I consider myself fairly ignorant about. In fact, I am ashamed to write about things I know so little about and have suffered for even less. I would much rather expose myself deeply disciplined, passionate and considerably sacrificed for these things. The desire to be exposed at our best is our shame controlling us. I have learned that this is a negative feedback system that I have seen to control myself and others; we don't expose ourselves so we don't enter into important discussions and the transformations which only come from letting our embarrassment go, and thus we are stuck. I'm tired of being stuck and am becoming desperate for more growth and understanding. I expose myself, my inadequacies and my ignorances here hoping to grow and be transformed as a result.
With that said...
Something that has really been on my mind quite a lot since I took a trip down to Mexico was the idea of justice and compassion. The trip I took was with 21 friends of mine to Juarez, Mexico. We have another friend, Brandon Culp, who has taken a full time position with an organization called Casas Por Cristo building houses in Juarez. I admire greatly the sacrifice that Brandon has made and the work that he is doing in Juarez. Brandon suggested that we get a group together and come down, so we did. I think that the idea of a trip, a huge road trip to another country with 20 friends, was more important and exciting to me than being compassionate. Actually, I think I was more excited to eat burritos than be compassionate as well. So my priorities were set: Friends, roadie, burritos, compassion.
While I was in Juarez I saw things in a way that I hadn’t remembered seeing them the time I had been there before. I saw hurting people. I saw homes that hardly seemed worthy of being called homes and people without even that. I saw people without cars or other means of transportation to get to jobs. I saw people who were sick and couldn’t work and therefore couldn’t afford to pay doctors. People stuck. I also saw massive and extravagant shopping centers that modeled something quite like America's suburbia. I saw huge houses with multiple cars parked outside all surrounded by barbwire and steal—a message that exclaims ‘this isn’t for you.’ I saw large scale poverty and corruption in a system that offered no other alternative than choosing one of these.
So to the jobsite we went. The twenty of us were able to build an entire house, from the foundation up, in 4 days. The three room structure was to be used by a neighboring church for school, Sunday morning classes and visiting pastors among other things. I felt very accomplished about what we had done. Where there had been nothing there was a house. Where there was a need it had been filled. That structure will undoubtedly serve the people in that community for years to come and I feel great about what we accomplished during that week.
The last day of our build Aaron and I went into town to get paint and painting supplies because we figured we’d probably have enough time to paint the inside before we left. On our way back to the jobsite we were discussing the state of the colonial and I mentioned how much it seemed like shooting a spit ball at a freight train. This house, no matter how amazing we made it, did little to slow the beast that kept this community’s members in extreme poverty. Aaron lamented that though our deeds were compassionate but they did little to serve justice and that only half of the gospel had been fulfilled in our efforts. There was compassion without justice.
I sort of shrugged off what he was saying, probably pointing out a funny looking dog on the side of the road or something. As I thought about what he had said throughout the build that day I realized that justice and compassion had sort of become the same thing to me in a lot of ways. Both things just kind of seemed to be entries on a list of qualities I wished to reflect from the gospel. A list that looked something like; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control...and compassion and justice. I’d never really thought too hard about it but I guess I just lumped compassion and justice together. Since then I have thought more about what these two things are and how they are the gospel in their own, different way.
I think that compassion is an act of mercy or selflessness usually for those who are in need. Serving at homeless shelters or buying a hamburger for someone who’s hungry come to mind. Jesus was compassionate. He healed and helped pretty well everywhere he went. I think that building that house was an act of compassion and was the gospel in that way.
Justice, by a common definition, is getting people what they deserve. We often think of judges and court buildings when we think of justice. These are institutions that ‘give people what they deserve,’ serving fines, probations and jail sentences to those who have broken the law. This is justice, but justice and ‘getting people what they deserve’ is a lot broader than this. I think Justice is working to dismantle the machines which create injustice. I think it means breaking down the structures and systems which leave, for example, people hungry and homeless in Juarez, Mexico. I think it means working against racism, sexism and heterosexism. I think it means breaking down barriers that prevent understanding. I think it means questioning the roots of our comfort and the roots of other’s discomfort and asking why.
Justice is a hard discipline. ‘Working for justice’ is something that I have had a hard time understanding and an even harder time doing. However, I do think that compassion acts as medium to understanding justice. I did not even realize that unjust systems existed in Juarez before the trip to Mexico. I didn’t realize there was such a large homeless population in Longmont before I served with COrES. I don’t understand the systems of injustice which keep parts of Africa in political turmoil and its people starving and dying of HIV, but I can respond compassionately with the visions of organizations like Blood:Water Mission.
As a response to the gospel I feel like we are brought through different disciplines in refracting and amplifying waves. Through the medium of compassion we discover injustices and are given the opportunity to respond with justice. Jesus says to the Pharisees in Luke, “Woe to you Pharisees because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.” It’s time that I realize how much I am like the Pharisees with my legalisms and trendy Christian ways and stop neglecting justice.
I don't imagine ways to be just will just start magically appearing to me. Just like I never would assume I could be infinitely joyful or compassionate. In fact, it has been hard to see injustice and I imagine that it will continue to be harder to react to what I see. Still, I feel that as a response to the gospel and to Jesus, the Jesus who worked to change the ways in which the world saw prostitutes, beggars and the homeless, I need to try.
So, consider this a part of the conversation and please continue it. Let's, as people who desire to be followers of the gospel, talk about what it means to do so and spur each other towards that.
Micah 6:8, "...act justly and love mercy and walk humbly with your God."
