Justice

Right now I am sitting at my favorite cafe in Peterborough drinking coffee and listening to the rain fall gently. It is so beautiful here and quiet and still. August is my favorite month of the year; I love the way the sky hangs heavy and the entire world becomes lush and thick.

This summer I have spent a lot of time hanging out at the local homeless shelter. It's called the Brock mission, even though it's not on Brock street anymore- its on Murray. A lot of people, actually, don't know where it is, but a lot of people do; hundreds of people. I started hanging out there in the winter time because some of the teenagers that go to the youth center I vollunteer at eat there. I love these kids with all my heart and so I started going there to share a meal. It was a simple thing, but to me, meaningful. I would go with a friend or two, and we would pray for the people we'd be meeting and that the kingdom of God would come and touch us even in a small way that night. Then we'd sit at an empty table and wait, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes trying to meet new people, often greeting old friends. By the end of the night the seats around us would be full of an assortment of people, laughing and teasing eachother and smiling, full of food and joy and I would thank God because I knew that his kindom had come to us, even in a small way.

Sometimes after work I would go and bake for the shelter or work on some painting projects we were doing to make it look a bit nicer in there. I realized that as school got out and the summer went on, there were A LOT more kids that hung out there. Way too many. One day when I was serving these giant pies I'd baked, I realized that maybe half the long, long lineup where young people I knew- and that disterbed me.

You see, ive been troubled with the concept of "social justice" lately. Im not quite sure what the goal is. I study International Development in school and we learn about economics and polical democracies and food programs- and then I hang around homeless kids on the weekend, and sometimes I get very different stories.

From what ive seen , mainstream 'social justice' has a lot to do with making people comfortable and happy; it is unjust that someone has to sleep on the streets, so we should get them some food and housing. Vaild. However somehow in this version of 'social justice' it's okay that we tuck people away into the basement of a dirty old building thats in need of a massive renovation, a lot of extra staff and a lot of extra love. It's a victory, really, that 'these people' have a place to go, a place to recieve a hot meal and some freedom.


At the Brock mission, the doors are wide, wide open to teenagers because it is more 'caring'- it is unjust to have them wandering the streets with no place to go. Valid. But I talked to a girl today, she is 16 and has been working with a traveling carnival, but showed up at the mission at 8:00 in the morning to see "whos around" while she was visiting town- its the first place she came. When I asked her who she was looking for she just said "people"- and as I watched her during the course of the day she conversed with older men- in their 30 and 40s- chatting and picking up the latest news. 16 year old girls should NOT be hanging around older men to form thier social groups, but this is one of the many distructive threads that make up the tapestry of 'social justice', it appears, and I see it over and over again.


In this version of socail justice, It doesnt matter if someone is sitting in an unhealthy or abusive relationship for years without ever getting told of what real freedom looks like, it doesnt matter that a health condition that could be relieved with some love and attention and prayer is being left to fester- As long as 'they' are happy, as long as 'they' are comfortable, to whatever measure you and I have deemed acceptable for 'those people' who are living on the street. 'Us and them' can still exists in this version of social justice.


Ive known a wealthy alcholic; but its not really a sin against society until it's an unwealthy alcholic on the street. Then its a problem. Then we need some "social justice". Even in the context of our best intentions, "social justice" is to give money to 'lift people out of poverty'; people who are living below the status quo, who don't have enough money to survive in our society. So then in this version of social justice, the main deffinitive quality is MONEY. Its deffined by how much is consumed, how much is spent, how much is maintained- to save a persons soul.

In the bible, justice is usually talked about with righeousness. If social justice is to be served, then righeousness is an outcomming quality. There is something that connects a righeous way of living with justice- and God LOVES justice. So ive started thinking that maybe we have a very limited understanding of what real justice is. Ive come to think that social justice has less to do with money and making people comfortable, and happy, but maybe social justice is the restoration of a whole person: to themselves, to their communities, and to God. And in this version of social justice, maybe it's not just about a certain demographic living in the "them" category that needs social justice- but maybe social justice is the restoration of ALL people to themselves, thier communities, and to God. Because if justice is just the restoration of a persons wallet to the ways of clean and normal living- if the goal of social justice is comfort and contentment then really a little basement room to be a daytime home to a hundred people in the winter is enough.


"When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?" Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water." He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back." "I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."


I know a girl who might be pregnant with her fourth baby who hangs around the shelter. I think she is 19. Her first three children were from rape, but this one she will know the father. She seems comfortable and happy, and she laughs whenever I see her; but I can't even begin to get my head around the amount of healing and love that needs to take place in her life for 'social justice' to be served.


What if social justice is restoring these relationships? What if when it comes to social justice, in a very big way, or even in a small way, God has something to do with it? Maybe then it could be true that social justice isn't administered by "us" "to them"- but that I need social justice too, that I need to be restored: to myself, to my community, and to God. Maybe then we can see some of the walls that seperate us based on our pocket books begin to crumble down, because they arnt based on our pocket books at all anymore, but our humanity. I like to believe that this is the way it is- that there is something greater we are fighting for then just to make people, even ourselves, more comfortable, and happy. There is joy, and there is restoration, and there is freedom, there is healing. And as part of that, there is something greater I am living for too.