Timothy Stoner

A Cry For Justice

Posted on 17. Jun, 2009 by Tim Stoner in Essays, Justice

What remains with me is the sound of clapping. I go to Uganda with my wife and some friends and come back with the sound, not of grief but joy, and gratitude, and an honor that is so weighty it could crush your bones.

Our fledgling organization, Orphan Justice Mission, has been helping a small, desperately poor church that meets in a ramshackle structure whose pillars are skinny, three-inch thick tree trunks, supporting a roof made of corrugated metal sheets. The rains brought the structure down before we arrived and they rebuilt what they could with what could be recycled. There are large gaps in the roof, still. When it rains the people get soaked. The name of the church is Glory of Christ. The location is a small rural town in Rakai, a district which is considered by the WHO to be Ground Zero for the AIDS pandemic. At one point 30 percent of the population was infected. Most have died. Almost a whole generation of mothers and fathers has been wiped out, leaving behind thousands of children without parents. You go to church and out of 5 or 6 hundred people maybe 30 are older than children and younger than grandparents. The median age in Uganda is 15, in Rakai, it’s younger.

We have been sending funds to pay for nine teachers who are educating about 450 children, around 300 of which are orphans. The children have also been receiving one meal per day. It is not much of a meal. It is a gruel that looks like thin porridge. We want to do much more but are a small, start-up non-profit and know we must start somewhere and do what we can, even though it be little. What we saw when we arrived is that it may be precious little indeed, but it means the world to an orphan without hope and without future.

We rented a 40-passenger bus for the 11 travelers and our dozen duffle-bags stuffed with individually bagged gifts for the teachers and their pupils, and a load of school supplies. When there is nothing, everything is needed and anything can be put to use. And where a child has never received a present in their whole life, the smallest item, even a 10 cent page of shiny stickers, can bring a smile that will shatter your heart. Those are the times where your knees wobble a little and you wonder if you can bear up under the inequity. You walk around feeling as though you are being born down to the ground by a load of damp sandbags piled on your head and shoulders and you think maybe coming was not such a good idea after all. You even start to walk a little hunched over. Maybe you’re just bending down to place your hands on their mostly bald heads and maybe you just are starting to cave in under the pressure.

You are not really sure whether you can keep the tears at bay. You think, if I stopped to think, to really think, about what is happening here, I will begin to cry and I don’t know when I will stop. So you reach out and hold the thin brown hand and smile back at the face that is shining with delight and at a smile that is sometimes so bright that you can barely look directly at it for very long. It can burn your eyes with its brilliance and as I blink my eyes I wonder if what I’ve really seen is Jesus.

We trudge up the hill after parking our bus at its base where the rutted road wore itself out. That’s where we hear a sound that is unusual but unmistakable. It is the sound of hundreds of hands striking against each other in unison. It is a clapping that somehow carries with it the timber and cadence of honor. It reminds one of a royalty or the return of mighty heroes from a glorious and successful campaign. It rings on our ears and as we climb it strikes us in the chest with percussive blows. It grows louder as we climb and then we see rows upon rows of children, in files organized from small to tall. Their hands to not break rhythm and their faces beam with delight and more. Their eyes and smiles glow with such joy and gratitude. You want to ask them to stop. You know you are not worthy of such a cascade and brilliant profusion of honor that is washing over you. You want to lower your eyes and cry but as your eyes meet theirs you know really can’t, so you smile back and your heart sings back, it’s Jesus, it’s Jesus, it’s Jesus. It’s Jesus in you, and it’s Jesus in me. It’s Jesus in us the hope of glory.

I’ve been captivated by the concept of glory for years, ever since reading one of the most profound essays written by one of the most incisive thinkers of the western church. The title is “The Weight of Glory” by C.S. Lewis. Doxa is the Greek term for glory and, according to Lewis, a Greek (and Latin) scholar of international repute, at its root is not so much the concept of luminosity, “heaven is not where we glow like light bulbs” but fame. It speaks of honor, praise, approval, recognition–applause, even. Glory is what triumphant generals wrap themselves in when they return from battle. It is also what beautiful, elegant flowers display and it is what they elicit. He reminds us that we cannot enter heaven unless we become like little children and there is nothing that distinguishes a good child more than his innocent pleasure in receiving praise, especially from his father.

So is my incapacity to bear the thunder of appreciation at once both evidence of humility and of pride? It is the mentally-challenged, reduced to perpetual childhood, who beam with unalloyed delight at approval or who, after being complimented, acknowledge, very matter of factly, that, yes, they had bagged the groceries with exquisite and noteworthy care. While the little child hops about with happiness: “did I really do good?” the now older and more restrained, waves the diffident hand and says “no, no, I am really not worthy.” I want to be more the child and less the man. I want to be able to accept doxa and not feel so utterly unworthy. Because the glory that comes is the glory that is His. He is the one saying well done. He is the One who has given the desire, who planted the idea, who provided the means, who changed a selfish heart. And He is the One who is clapping and beaming and then singing over me. And it is a banner of love under which we walk. And it is His light that shines in those beautiful black faces.

And it is His love that is breaking my heart. So it is all about Him. So may I raise my hands and drink in the joy of my happy Father and dance with Him and stomp and shake my hips and thrust out my shoulders and arms in an elegant, princely, ancient abandon. May I twirl under His red banner and put my own hands together and join in the clapping, and clap and clap some more.

“It is written that we shall ’stand before’ Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son–it seems             impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain.             But so it is.” C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1979) 10.

As I think about the crushing weight, not of glory but of the increasing number of orphans (some put it as high as 150 million), I have been asking myself some hard questions: How shall we then live in this age of AIDS orphans and abandonment? What are we to do in the midst of the overwhelming need of the fatherless? How are we to make sense of the gross inequity of too much for a few and too little for the many? Is there something God wants from us?

I went to the Bible and looked at every single place where the word orphan appears and I was left stunned. I grew up in the church, the one where you attend a minimum of three times per week, the one where your eternal standing was directly related to the frequency your little buns landed on the varnished, oak pew. I have easily 8,000 sermons under my belt. I have seven years of theological training. I was raised in a tradition that taught me to honor, study and love the Bible. Yet, never did I hear even a whisper about caring for the fatherless. It is a terrifying testimony to the power of paradigm. “Of course I believe the Bible! I have read it from ‘kiver to kiver’ a score, at least, of times. God said it, I believe it and that settles it for me, thank you very much.” But, nothing ever about the 45 verses that call us to take to heart God’s passionate commitment for the fatherless. I am of course left to wonder what else is being filtered out. I am reading the Gospels again real slow. That has been a shock too.

I believe this is what the Father wants: children who love Him with their whole hearts and who reflect His loving character to others. Lives filled with love, not religious activity (Hos. 6:6, Mt. 9:13). That is why He says, “To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice” (Pr. 21:3 ). All the social rules He established for Israel had one basic purpose: to teach His children that those who truly know God (intimately, from the heart) will demonstrate it by active compassion. For this reason He says: “What is good has been explained to you, man; this is what Yahweh asks of you: only this, to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God (Mic. 6:8 JB).

In Israel God’s established a system in which His character of compassion and His love for justice was put on display as a testimony to the surrounding pagan nations (Is. 44:23). That is why every 7 years all debts were to be forgiven and servants freed, and why at least once in every person’s lifetime, if they had lost their land for whatever reason, it would be returned to them. (Deut. 15:1,12; Lev. 25:28). The poor were to be fed by the generosity of those with plots of land (which included almost everyone) who were under orders to leave the corners of their fields un-harvested and any dropped sheaves unattended (Dt. 24:20,22; Lev. 19:9-10). Even the Sabbath, that religious act which uniquely set Israel apart from her neighbors, was motivated by God’s heart of compassion for the poor. (Dt. 5:14-15; 14:28-29). So intent was God about this that every 7 years He required a Sabbath for the whole land “so the poor could get food” (Ex. 23:10) and every 3rd year the tithe was not to be taken to Jerusalem but stored in their towns to feed the alien, the orphan, and the widows.

Why did God impose these inconvenient obligations on His people? I think it was because He wanted to teach them to become like Him: generous, loving dispensers of blessing. In fact, the first promise He made about Israel spells this out. They were to be a blessed people so they might pour out God’s blessing on others (Gen. 12:2-3). But, God knew that when He privileged His people economically they would be tempted to become proud (Dt. 8:14) so in His great goodness and wisdom He left them reminders of who they were and who they had once been and, more importantly, Who they were to be like.

He allowed the poor in the land so the Jews could never forget where they had come from and how compassionately God had treated them in their poverty (Lev. 15:11). The poor were God’s means of protecting Israel from arrogance and promoting humble gratitude and lavish generosity. God wanted them to clearly understand that their religious system was not to be a private, personal affair of faithful Temple attendance and Torah study but was to be displayed in a life-style of kindness and sacrificial love for the neediest in their midst. They were never to forget where they had come from: poverty and slavery in Egypt (Dt. 5:15; 10:19; 24:22).

However, this was to produce more than warm grateful feelings. Gratitude was to lead to giving. The reality of their thankfulness would be exposed by the depth of their compassion. He was saying to them: “Give out of gratitude. Give out of love. Give to protect yourselves from the hard slavery of self-sufficient pride. Give that you may revel in freedom, not so much political but economic: freedom from Mammon as well as Egypt. Give that you might broadcast to the nations the character of your gloriously compassionate God.”

As good children the Israelites were not only to show gratitude but were also to imitate their Father who is compassionate and gracious and “loves justice” (Ps. 11:7 ). This merciful Father describes Himself as a defender of the fatherless and the oppressed, who hears the desire of the afflicted, listens to their cry and encourages them (Ps. 10:14, 18), providing for their physical needs out of His (and His people’s) wealth (Ps. 68:5,10). He is the One who defends their cause, loves them, giving them food and clothing (Dt. 10:18). He “watches over the aliens and sustains the fatherless and the widow” (Ps. 146:7,9 ). He is their refuge (Ps.14:6), the helper of the fatherless (Ps. 10:14,18). For this reason, the justice God exhibits and requires of His children, is displayed in bending down, reaching out and providing whatever assistance is required to meet the needs of the needy, the destitute, the abandoned–most especially the fatherless.

The orphan is at the very fringes of society. They are the easiest to exploit, abuse, debase, and ignore. Among the members of any society they are the ones who can be overlooked, demeaned and treated as non-persons with the greatest ease and with the greatest frequency. They have no power, thus they have no significance. Therefore, they are deprived consistently of justice. This is why the “fatherless” (those who lack parental protection either through abandonment, abuse or death) are at the very forefront of the Father’s ‘endangered’ list. By definition, among all the “needy in the land” they are the littlest, the weakest, the poorest, the most desperately vulnerable. Not only must they do without food or money, they lack something more basic: the comfort, nurture and protection of parents. They are not only destitute physically and economically, but socially and psychologically as well.

Since justice means caring for the weakest, God makes these demands on His people: “Defend the cause of weak and fatherless, maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked” (Ps. 82:3-4). “Take your wrongdoing out of my sight!” He cries out through the prophet Isaiah, “Cease to do evil. Learn to do good search for justice, help the oppressed, be just to the orphan, plead for the widows” (Is. 1:15-17 JB). In other words: “Do what I do. Act the way I act. That is true justice!”

The bad news is that according to Isaiah, the entire nation abysmally failed to do justice. They failed to encourage the oppressed, they refused to defend or plead the cause of the fatherless and the widow, so as a result “their hands are covered with blood” (Is. 1:15 JB). What infuriated the Lord Almighty is that His people, who had themselves been rescued out of poverty and received material blessings innumerable, grasped these gifts tightly to their chests and refused to come to the aid of the needy. Rather than administering true justice, they turned away so they would not see and stopped their ears rather than hear. They made their hearts “as hard as flint” to the plight of the widow, the fatherless, the alien, the poor (Zech. 7:11-12). Apparently, fleeing into the suburbs, or the mountains, or the loft apartments, for that matter, is not going to provide a lot of insulation or justification or defense.

What incited God against His people was not, as one would expect, merely active cruelty and overt oppression, His wrath was prompted by passive indifference, unconcern; charity omitted not only cruelty committed. The principle is that it is not only outright brutality that stirs up God’s anger but inactivity and unconcern in the face of the injustice of fatherlessness and poverty. Ezekiel makes this clear. He explains that what compelled God’s judgment on Sodom was not homosexuality, or blatant immorality. The fire fell because that they were “arrogant, overfed and unconcerned: they did not help the poor and needy” (Ezk. 16:49). According to God’s prophets, those who conveniently turn a deaf ear and distance themselves so as to be able to ignore cries for help make themselves out to be as guilty as those who act with callous and calculated malice. Failing to plead the case of the fatherless (Jer. 5:27), not granting them the justice they deserve (Dt. 27:19), opting for personal pleasure over rescuing the weak and oppressed (Jer. 21:12) is an active evil that God despises. Ignoring the derelict and abandoned, least of these aroused Him to “great anger.” (Zech. 7:12)/

Jesus takes up this theme and carries it further by calling His followers to let their light so shine before men “that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 5:16). What is this light? Clearly, not nice words, or correct beliefs or private devotions. According to Isaiah 58:7 it is when God’s people share food with the hungry and provide shelter and clothes to the needy that their “light will break forth like the dawn.” Thus, ministering to the needs of the poorest and the weakest produces light which is meant to prompt others to worship our compassionate God. We could properly say that when Jesus commanded our light to shine, what He meant was, “Let your good works of compassion be so compelling that your very lives will be the evangelism.” Peter lends supports to this by challenging Christians to become so well known for good works that their pagan neighbors would see their “good deeds and glorify God” (I Pet. 2:12)

Jesus does not want us to guess about what we are specifically being called to do. In order to remove all confusion and avoid all misunderstanding about what is expected of us He tell us through His half-brother James, “religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress” (Jas. 1:27). This is at the core of genuine Christianity. Regardless of what other values have been elevated by our religious communities, genuine, pure, truly authentic religion, in the estimation of the only One who matters (the one lawgiver and only Judge “who has the power to acquit or to sentence”– Jas. 4:12) is providing for the concrete needs of the neediest, the lowest, the most vulnerable. This is what the God of Justice does. He chose and rescued the nation of Israel, but He did not stop there, He adopted them, welcoming them into His family and called them “sons” (Ex. 4:22).

Our Father, whose heart still beats with adoptive love has rescued us out of slavery that we might receive the “full rights as sons” (Gal. 4:2-5: Eph. 1:4) and pours into us the “Spirit of sonship (adoption). And by Him we cry, ‘Abba, Father’” (Rom 8:15). James concludes that if we ignore the pleas of the fatherless, of the hungry or naked, our religion is utterly and completely dead (Jas. 2:14-26). The basis for this assessment is that hardness of heart exposes our own lack of sonship or adoption. Failing to partner in our Father’s adoptive mission and act out of the power of our Father’s adoptive Spirit betrays our own lack of adoption. “If one of the (little) brothers or one of the (little) sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them, ‘I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty,’ without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that? Faith is like that: if good works do not go with it, it is quite dead.” (Jas. 2:15-17). If we have experienced His adoptive love we will reflexively reach out to the fatherless. In other words, like Father like sons.

Jesus’ last words before leaving the earth were, “Go, and make disciples of all nations” (Mat. 28:19). He was telling His disciples to imitate the God of Justice who sent His Son to care for the spiritually and materially poor, sick, and hungry. In essence He was telling them: “Go, and bring the good news of the gospel to the poor! Go, and show my compassion to the lost! Go, and execute justice on behalf of the oppressed! Go, and show my mercy to those who have been thrown away! Go, and feed the hungry in my name! Go, and bring my glory to the nations! Go and take in the orphan who has no one to advocate for him, no one to protect and hold him and call him ‘my son’. Embrace him and enlarge the circle of blessing; extend sanctuary and shalom to these desperate abandoned little ones. For that which is yours is yours only by my gracious favor. So, as you have freely received, freely give. As I have reached out to you who were naked and lost and abandoned, do the same to those who’ve been left destitute and alone”.

The answer to the foundational question: what is it that these needy ones lack? is given in the very term the Scripture uses to describe them: “fatherless.” This is what they stand most in need of, more than even food, clothes, and a bed. This term includes the protection and defense of a father and the nurture and encouragement of a mother. God discharges both tasks on behalf of the orphan. He is both their “defender” and “refuge” He is also their “helper” who “hears” and “encourages” them. Thus, what these needy ones cry out for is the strong and tender arms of a mother and father who will provide sanctuary and belonging. We must take to heart the words of James who exposes the bankruptcy of the faith of those who give a sympathetic pat on the head to little one who with desperate eyes, pleads: “I don’t want to be alone any more! Will you hold me and love me and tell me that I belong?” As they look up into our faces their question is simple: “Will you be my father? Will you be my mother?” At the end of the day, the question we will all inevitably have to answer is: “what did you say when I asked you for comfort, for cold water that would quench my thirst for a home?” Will we murmur in shame and defensively respond, “When did you ask. . . ?” or will we say, “we opened our arms and invited you in. . .? We heard your cry in the plaintive sobs of the orphan who had no family and we rescued him, we took him into the embrace of our family and, like You did to us, we called him son.”

Not all can provide a physical family, but all can assist, all can collaborate together in providing for the needs of the orphan. We all can encourage, we can all pray and can also help pay. Pastors can advocate, model and preach. They can exhort the people to be a people of justice. They can take seriously the words of God. They can confront the people of God with the Holy One of Israel who trumpets: “Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:23-24). They can remind us and we can remind ourselves that religious activities, no matter how heroic, are insufficient, for at the last day there will be many who relied on these and to them Jesus will say: “Depart from me I never knew you!” (Mt. 7:23). Those whom Jesus knows (has an intimate, love relationship with) are those who do the will of the Father (Mt. 7:21); who obey the teaching of Jesus (Jn. 14:23) and display it by obedient lives of compassion, for, after all, “Is this not what it means to know Me?” (Jer.22:16).

So, what can we do? We can press on to know the Lord by embracing His “chosen fast”; His true spiritual disciplines: loosing chains of injustice, untying the tight yoke, setting the oppressed free, sharing our food and shelter with the hungry, naked, wandering street urchin (Is. 58:6-7). As if the joy of obedience was not enough, the Lord promises us that if we do this, if we share our food and clothing with the hungry and naked orphan, the ostracized alien and the oppressed widow, our light will break forth like the dawn and our healing will quickly appear; our righteousness will go before us, and the glory of the Lord will be our rear guard. When we call, He guarantees us, He will certainly answer; we will cry for help and He will draw near and say to us: “Here am I”; though we may pass through dark nights, they will become like the noonday for He will guide us always; He will satisfy our needs in a sun-scorched land and will so strengthen us that we will be as fruitful and lovely as a well-watered garden, as delightfully refreshing as a spring whose waters never fail (Is. 58:6-12). The lavish rewards of justice are lives drenched in the delights of intimacy with God and joyful, soul-satisfying productivity and blessing.

So, what is our calling in this age of AIDS and abandonment when 10,000 children are left orphans every day? How shall we then live? Quite simply, we are to glorify God with lives of lavish mercy and sacrificial obedience. We are to live as authentic disciples of Jesus by looking after “the orphan and the widow in their distress” so that we may stand before Him and hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servants! As you did it to them you did it to Me, enter into the joy I’ve prepared for you.”

With the sound of all those rhythmic hands still resonating in my ears I can say that what our good Father is calling us to is not to duty, or guilt or condemnation, but joy. He is offering us an invitation to enter into a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory. It is the joy of blazing smiles and hope-filled eyes; restoration of destiny and dignity and the glowing brilliance of resurrection. It is, oddly enough, of our own joy at the dizzying delight of giving our lives away for something that Matters, and of becoming a vessel, a dispenser of grace, God’s grace. It is a three way joy, for in it is also the offer to enter into the expansive and infinite joy of our Father who loves justice and mercy and dances over us with singing as we go in His name to take His loving care to the least of these. And as we go we can hear His applause. As St. Paul tells us, this is a “weight of eternal glory” that far outweighs our trivial, momentary afflictions (II Cor. 4:17 JB).

The cry for justice thus becomes a song for hope, for thanksgiving, for rejoicing, for entering into the joy that is coming and the joy that is here. It is actually a shofar proclaiming an open but paradoxical invitation to the True Fast and the Feast of Plenty, of Welcome, of Family, of Love, of an Eternal Belonging in an Eternal Embrace and a delirious dance that will never end. It is the sound of Shalom being longed for and welcomed and advanced. For the cry for Justice has been heard and it will not go unanswered. We have our Father’s word on that.

Soli deo Gloria

Timothy J. Stoner

Used expressly by permission.

The author may be contacted at t_stoner@sbcglobal.net

Unless noted, Scriptural quotations are from the New International Version.

Tags: justice, mercy, orphan, orphan justice mission