I Believe in Justice

From any point of view, justice is a tricky subject. Does it mean, simply, being fair to others? This is hard to do, if only because unfairness is often (perhaps always) more than what someone does to you. It is relatively easy to fix such personal injustices by saying something benign like “Don’t worry” or the like.

But, truth be told, unfairness is almost always a matter of some built-in nasty habit in the larger surrounding social worlds with which we all must live. When a group of people is treated unfairly in, for example, access to housing or harsh treatment by police, these are obdurate injustices that are hard to quell by ordinary people without political or judicial power. Then too,  even those with these powers too often abuse their authority by turning a blind-eye to the unfairness limiting or injuring others.

            So when we say, as Christians, “I believe in justice,” what do we do? One obvious answer is: look to Jesus. We know from the Gospels that He was at least fair-minded and usually brilliant in putting those who challenged or threatened to injury him or others in their place. On the Cross, He said “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do!” That must have turned a few heads.

            But none of us will ever be in that position, nor any other of the ones He dealt with when his authority was challenged contemptuously. The most famous of His rebukes to those corrupting the life of others was to the money changes in the temple: “It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.” That gets closer to something we could do—except for the fact that few of us have the public status to make such a denunciation stick. We’d be laughed at.

            So what remains for us today—in a world vastly more complicated than the world Jesus lived in? There is an answer, a surprisingly simple one: Join with others to protest when we encounter the unfairness of housing conditions for the homeless or the mistreatment of those abused by public authorities, and such like. Justice is indeed about fairness—but fairness amid the structural circumstances of life with others. If we believe in Justice we must believe in others with whom we might do something about the unfairness all around us, every day, everywhere.