Our Hunger For Justice

Recently when I was in Chiapas, Mexico, one of the host families offered a brief prayer over the meal before we ate. They said a common prayer in Spanish-speaking countries which goes, “God, to those who have hunger, give bread, and to us who have bread, give the hunger for justice.”

Our readings today offer us some reflection on what we are hungry for and what we may be willing to do or sacrifice to get it.

In the first reading from 1 Maccabees, we’re told about people who appeared in Israel who were “breakers of the law” who “seduced many people” into wrongdoing and abandoning their customs. But, we’re also told that there were many in Israel who “resolved in their hearts not to eat anything unclean [or] preferred to die rather than be defiled…or profane the holy covenant.” And some did die.

Of course very few of us will likely find ourselves in such stark conditions like those described in Maccabees. Many of us are not threatened with the penalty of death for standing up for our beliefs, yet we may face other social consequences. I think about some of the people who – at great personal risk – blow the whistle on certain corporate practices or take a public stand related to an injustice that they know will make them a lightning rod for criticism. And so, for me, this first reading asks implicit questions about what sacrifices I might make (or am willing to make) because of my faith/value convictions – especially when I know that there will be consequences.

The reading from Maccabees also highlights the ease with which some people in Israel abandoned their customs and principles and accommodated a way of life that they knew compromised them. This may hit a little closer to home for us – and especially for “church folk.” It can seem very hard to identify anything that differentiates our churches from the wider culture in terms of behavior, economic choices, social justice, etc.

Earlier on in Christian history, Christian communities were easily identified because of their counter-cultural behaviors, their willingness to break unjust laws and their willingness to tend to the poor and disenfranchised. To this end, I have always loved Peter Maurin’s Easy Essay called “At A Sacrifice” (Maurin was the co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement along with Dorothy Day in the 1930’s). Maurin writes,

In the first centuries of Christianity
the hungry were fed at a personal sacrifice,
the naked were clothed at a personal sacrifice,
the homeless were sheltered at personal sacrifice.
And because the poor were fed, clothed and sheltered
at a personal sacrifice, the pagans used to say
about the Christians “See how they love each other.”
In our own day the poor are no longer
fed, clothed and sheltered at a personal sacrifice,
but at the expense of the taxpayers.
And because the poor are no longer
fed, clothed and sheltered the pagans say about the Christians,“See how they pass the buck.”

Now I am not saying that we should not have government programs! What I am pointing out, however, is that in prior times Christians were identified because of how they lived. In our current era, it seems that most of us (as followers of Jesus) may have learned to accommodate and adopt a culture that we know compromises our values (and I put myself in this category) because it’s easier and/or more convenient.

As if this doesn’t give us enough to think about…

In our gospel from Luke 18, we hear the story of the blind beggar sitting by the roadside who “disturbs the peace” when Jesus passes by because he wants Jesus to engage him. People try to quiet him but he yells all the louder.

Jesus pauses and asks him one of the most powerful questions in the gospels, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man says, “I want to see…” Immediately, the man is healed, and starts following Jesus.

“What do you want me to do for you?” How would you answer that question these days?

Of course this is one of the great reversals of the gospels. The blind man is actually the one who wants to see clearly and those with sight and the ones who seem to be content with obscured vision. 

A theme that unites these two scripture passages today is the fact that we exist in a culture of great distraction that often seduces us to compromise many of our principles and might encourage a certain “spiritual blindness” to the world around us.

A question that arises from today’ s readings is, “How hungry are we to see and take in the realities of the world that we are living in? And what are we willing to do once we have seen those realities?”

Theological animator, Ched Myers, asks if we are willing to “see our weary world as it truly is, without denial and delusion: the tough realities of and inconvenient truths about economic disparity and racial oppression and ecological destruction and war without end. And to see our beautiful world as it truly could and should be, free of despair or distraction: the divine dream of enough for all and beloved community and restored creation and the peaceable kingdom.”

What would this mean for us if we were willing and desiring to allow all of this in?

Today might have us reflect a bit more on the “costs” of discipleship, not as some kind of moral purity test, so much as an ongoing question about what it might mean for us to be a follower of Jesus in this world. What, in fact, are we willing to risk in a culture that (in the words of the famous 1986 Michelob Lite beer commercial) promises us that “Who says you can have it all?”

Maybe the risks we take are about speaking up about injustice we’re witnessing. Maybe these risks are about becoming more real and transparent in a relationship that we’re in. Maybe these risks are economic in that we decide to give away more of our income or share more generously. Maybe these risks are in loving people whom we find hard to live (or forgiving people whom we find hard to forgive). Maybe these risks are related to giving more of our time and energy to others.

Taken together, today’s readings remind us of people who were willing to act “at a sacrifice” and invite reflection on what that might mean for us today.