Justice: Freddie Gray and the City of Baltimore

I live in Baltimore County, just a few miles south of the city that is currently in the aftermath of the death of Freddie Gray, who died while he was in police custody a little over 2 weeks ago. Initially there were protests, but then some people have used what happened as an excuse for violence. The family of Freddie Gray has asked that the violence stop because it does not honor the man whom they loved.

It seems like we have seen this movie several times recently.

Violence leads to more violence.

Pleas for peace emanate from community and government leaders.

Most everyone just wants everything to go back to normal.

But normal means we go back to not being able to have a conversation when something goes wrong, like it did on April 12th.

We have been trained by political campaigns and cable news not to listen to one another, but rather to shout over one another.

When somebody attacks you, you must return it upon them ten fold.

The 'other side' is not just wrong, but also stupid and evil.

Respect, compassion and understanding are signs of weakness. If you're right, you should have the power of conviction that would make it impossible to demonstrate these traits.

Justice, we have been taught, is something you must demand, and if it is not offered, it must be taken.

But even if we are pure in our intentions to seek justice, we are wholly unable to achieve it.

Does that surprise you? What I just said? Let me explain why I believe that:

Jesus said "God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied." (Matthew 5:6)

Do you notice here that justice is not linked with our own action? The implication we get from Jesus is that God will give justice to those who have longed for it.

It does not say be "justice makers", as in verse 9 where Jesus tells us to be peace makers.

It says we should hunger and thirst for it.

Why is God alone able to provide justice? Very simply because we don't know what is just.

How should the police officers who handled Freddie Gray be responded to? Should they be be punished? Fired? Prosecuted? Imprisoned? What was in their hearts at the moment of the incident? We don't know.

And what of the police officers who have been injured by people who are looting and attempting to riot? If their actions were not just (and they certainly seem not to be), then what response should they receive? What does justice demand for them? We will again run into the problem of every person creating their own answer.

So what we end up with instead of justice is retribution.

We will demand punishment for those who have acted wrongly. Those who cry out that the punishment is too light, will say that the punishment is unjust.

If we give the harshest penalty possible, wouldn't those on the other end of the spectrum likewise scream that the punishment was unjustly harsh?

Both sides will appeal to justice for completely different results.

We cannot give justice. Only God can. And that is why he calls us to hunger and thirst for it.

What can we do in the meantime, while we are awaiting God to set all the wrongs to right, to restore this fallen and broken world?

I would suggest we look at verse 9 where Jesus gives us an action step. "God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God."

We can work for peace as we await justice.

Peacemaking, as we already saw why, is not simply getting things 'back to normal'.

Peacemaking is much, much more difficult. It will involve seeking to work on the issues that cause such outbreaks. Why does violence so often occur in our cities? Why is there an undercurrent of frustration that can lead to civil unrest?

This seems like a daunting task. Baltimore is a large city and I am but one person. How can I work for peace?

Perhaps your level of peace making starts with stopping. With not 'picking a side' and using your words on social media to bash the 'other side'.

Perhaps it can start with choosing to pray for everyone involved and not for the people who you prefer.

Perhaps after the unrest has settled, as it eventually will, it will start with reaching out to organizations or missions in areas where there is no peace to invest some time, energy and/or money into the process of peace.

Black lives matter and blue lives matter.

All lives matter to God, and they should matter to us as a result.

So let us hunger and thirst for justice. Let us trust that God will set the wrongs to right. In the meantime, let us work for peace.

_________________________

(If you are interested in reading some excellent material about this topic, I recommend No Future Without Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu, Evil and the Justice of God by N.T. Wright, and Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf)

35@35 #8: Selflessness

TC's Guidelines and Principles for Life #8: "Never defend or justify yourself, let God do that. Just answer questions with honesty." So listen, this guideline will totally not work for everybody.

It will only apply to people who take Jesus seriously when he says "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me." (Matthew 16:24)

Those of us who have made the choice to follow Jesus have signed up for a life of learning to die to ourselves.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer says in Cost of Discipleship, "when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die".

I hate this part of following Jesus. Everything in me wants to be selfish and fulfill any appetite I may discover within myself.

Yet I have learned the value of not doing that. It's because of this that I'm participating in Lent this year. I have given up all electronic entertainment (TV, Netflix, Movies, Video Games, etc) for 40 days so that I can instead focus on reading and prayer. Activities that I know improve the quality of my life and help me grow closer to God.

But they are less instantly gratifying that entertaining myself, so I naturally neglect them.

How does this all relate to the guideline that I try to live by, not to defend myself?

It may sound like I'm advocating that we, as believers should be doormats. On the contrary, I believe it's easy and expected and instantly gratifying to defend myself. To try to get revenge on people who speak ill of me.

Indignation is like rage candy. "How dare you!"

I'm asking us to go beyond that. To make the choice not to pick up our weapons when insulted. That takes more courage that most of us commonly walk around with. It's the opposite of being a doormat.

It means not being passive aggressive, or fantasizing about putting people in their place.

Miroslav Volf, in Exclusion and Embrace, makes the argument that in a world where trying to pay back injustice with injustice creates a never ending system of...you guessed it...injustice.

"If you want justice and nothing but justice, you will inevitably get injustice. If you want justice without injustice, you must want love." (Volf, 223)

It is not until we are willing to let God have the last word by refusing to repay evil for evil within our own lives that we truly become the peacemakers that Jesus talks about in the Sermon on the Mount. (See Matthew 5).

When I seek to justify myself, it leads to angry emails or pointed conversations. But when I trust God to deal with any unfair or untrue accusations, I embrace what Henri Nouwen refers to as the 'downward mobility' that should exist in the life of every believer.

We fulfill the parable of the wedding guests who take a seat of low honor and are publicly honored by the host (Luke 14:7-14).

I've been reading the book of Job again recently, and the only mistake I see from Job is that he tries to justify himself. God, in his response to Job, never takes issue with any of Jobs specific points of argument. Rather, he appears to take umbrage with Job's tone.

Job's only mistake was his efforts to defend and justify himself against his friends (and considering what he went through, that's pretty impressive).

When we are attacked or criticized without cause (look, if you're not doing your job and your boss criticizes you, this doesn't apply to you. Do you job.), we have a choice. We can defend ourselves or let God defend us.

Personally, I like the latter choice. Because when we put ourselves in God's hands, not only are we safe from anything that he doesn't permit, but we make ourselves open to receive his blessings.

That's a much better alternative than me getting the visceral benefit of demonstrating my contempt or anger through criticism or insult.

___________________________________________

35@35 is a blog series by Thomas Christianson which involves 35 blog posts in 2014 on 35 things he has learned at the age of 35.

35@35 #6: Forgiveness

TC's Guidelines and Principals for Life #6: "Forgiveness is the core of Christianity." I've read several books in the last year plus that have talked about handling hurt and forgiveness.

No Freedom Without Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu talked about post apartheid South Africa.

Evil and the Justice of God by N.T. Wright dealt with theodicy - the discipline of explaining the existence of evil in light of an omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient God, which delves quickly into the reality being hurt and offended in this life.

Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf, a Croat who wrote with a context of the brutal warfare his country engaged to examine how we can create true community with one another.

Out of these texts, one of the most sticking take away point was this: that the defining characteristic of Christianity is the call to love one's enemy.

“You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.  ~Jesus (Matthew 5:43-45)

We live in a world of hurts, both great and small on a daily basis. You were out of milk for cereal this morning. You were cut off in traffic. Your boss/teacher criticized you in front of your peers. A rumor was started about you on social media.

Or maybe worse is going on. You're being abused. You were attacked. You've been robbed.

Our normal way of handling the feelings and frustration and injustice of these situations is to either pay it back upon our offender, or, when that isn't possible, to look for other ways we can vent our anger.

Often, this means we lash out at others who most likely had nothing to do with what wounded us. That's our nature. "Misery loves company" the saying goes.

When I have been hurt, if I cannot demand justice from the perpetrator because I don't know who they are, or they are too strong for me to hurt in the manner that I was hurt, then I will visit my pain on others. At least then others have to deal with my same issues and I can find shallow comfort in that.

When I was a child, I was taught that we should treat others the way we wish to be treated. My problem with this system was that a person who did not follow it would never be punished. I decided that the buck would stop with me. If somebody was being mean or selfish, I would give them a taste of their own medicine.

While my solution was foolish (I did mention I was a child, right?), I believe my logic still stands.

But Jesus answered this question in a different manner. He saw that at some point the tally sheet must balance. And instead of giving back to each person what they have stored up (though that will happen one day), at this time, he would stop the cycle of hurt and blame and offense and anger by failing to reciprocate it.

On the cross, his reaction was to forgive those who had hurt him (Luke 23:34).

By breaking the cycle of violence, and indeed offering forgiveness, he gave everyone an exit from the perverse merry go round of injustice.

That is why Jesus not only calls us to be willing to carry a cross, but he goes even further to say this:

"If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine." (Matthew 10:38)

If you can't make the choice to break the cycle of repaying hurt for hurt, you aren't able to build his kingdom. It would be impossible.

If you wish to follow Jesus, loving your enemy isn't optional. It's is absolutely central.

For that is what God did for each and every one of us.

Here's how Paul put it: "But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." (Romans 5:8)

If we wish to belong to God's kingdom, loving our enemies is not optional. Jesus wasn't making a nice suggestion or stating a hyperbole.

The message of the cross is this: God forgave you, now go forgive others.

When Peter bluntly asked Jesus how many times he had to forgive in Matthew 18, Jesus' response was essentially 'Don't stop forgiving'. Because when we stop forgiving others, we ourselves stop receiving it. (That's a pretty scary thought, right?)

That point, when you're no longer willing to carry a cross, is the point at which you can no longer follow Jesus. That doesn't mean he doesn't love you. I'm not going to talk about whether that affects your eternal destiny, because that is secondary.

If you're not following Jesus, you're missing out on what God has for you right here and right now.

Let us be careful each day to forgive. Not to become foolish doormats. If you're being abused, seek safe refuge. If you are attacked for a reason other than your faith in Jesus, seek responsible defenses.

But let us never stop offering the forgiveness that none of us deserves to those who have harmed us. In doing so, we expand God's Kingdom in a way that no violence could ever stop it.

___________________________________________

35@35 is a blog series by Thomas Christianson which involves 35 blog posts in 2014 on 35 things he has learned at the age of 35.