Transcript
How do we live and respond to suffering and oppression as people of the Kingdom of God?
Especially when we aren’t the ones who are suffering.
Many of the New Testament early Christians would find this a perplexing paradox. A world where many Christians enjoy civic privelege and safety and protection and rights? The letters written to their churches were written by people suffering to people who were suffering. What would it mean to be a Christian living in privilege and safety? There are not New Testament letters written to us on this subject. There is no blueprint.
To find out what God expects of his people when they hold privelege and power we need to go right back to the Old Testament … before Jesus.
From the formation of the nation of Israel as they camped at the base of Mt. Sinai and God gave them their laws to live by as a society … we see written into their code a concern for the poor, the widow, the orphan, the traveler and the outsider. Over and over and over and over and over again.
And when they entered the promised land. Ruled intermittently with judges, within 1-2 generations God’s people threw the poor, the widow, the orphan, the traveler and the outsider under the proverbial bus.
God had warned them in no uncertain terms what would befall them if they turned away from his law that upheld justice and mercy and order. He lays it all out very specifically over several chapters painting a very clear picture of what life awaits them if they reject his law. Destruction. Plagues. Overcome by their enemies. They will become the ones oppressed. They will be sold into slavery but no one will want them. They will be dispersed.
And in a very sad, intimate moment, God speaks directly to Moses. When they walk over Jordan river into the promised land, they will forsake God and his law. And all these curses will come upon them. He gives him a song. He tells Moses to write it down and teach the people the song. So that they can remember the blessings and justice that come along with his law and be taught to remember the curses awaiting them if they don’t.
In the Old Testament, we have a picture of a society of a people who reject God’s law AND neglect the poor, the widow, the orphan, the traveler and the outsider. We see them fluctuate over and over again between turning to and away from God and ultimately being dispersed across the nations.
The prophets warned them over and over again. Repent! Not just from following other gods but to specifically repent about how they treated the vulnerable in the society.
Amos gets rather specific in his lament and call for repentance:
He calls them out on taxing the poor for their straw and their grain while they build stone mansions and vineyards. He says the accept bribes and deprive the poor of justice in the courts. And in all of this they still celebrate the religious festivals that God gave them to remind them of their own oppression and the justice and mercy that God gave them when he brought them out of Egypt. And to them he says:
“I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
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!
“Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings
forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel?
You have lifted up the shrine of your king,
the pedestal of your idols,
the star of your god
which you made for yourselves.
Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,”
says the Lord, whose name is God Almighty.
The prophet Jeremiah called out the religious leaders. He said:
They dress the wound of my people
as though it were not serious.
‘Peace, peace,’ they say,
when there is no peace.
And then Jesus. Jesus comes in a moment of history where God’s people are living in oppression and he reveals that he is the fulfillment of this good law that God has given his people. To love God and love one another.
Jesus said “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
And when we look at the early church, the people drawn together by God’s spirit to live as prophets, priests and kings in this world representing Jesus the perfection of the law of God. We see the poor, the widow, the orphan, the traveler and the outsider leading the way.
It is not right for a people who have found mercy with their God to not extend mercy to their neighbour.
James warns Christians who are content with merely knowing their Bible and their theology and going about their religion. He warns them that it’s not enough. God’s people must not only identify with his kingdom. They must also BE his kingdom.
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1: 27
We can learn from the people of Israel. If we ignore the mourning and the cries for justice of people who are oppressed and marginalised in our societies and we have the ability to use our privilege and power to bring them justice and mercy … we should vote. We should listen and understand. We should repent when we’ve got it wrong. And we should be a voice for the voiceless and do what we can to seek change.
We are kingdom people. We are prophets, priests and kings in this world representing Jesus to the nations. We must care for the oppressed.
Proverbs 31 begins with the wise words of King Lemuel’s mother to her son who held the highest place of privilege, power and comfort and safety:
Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy.
At University Fellowship of Christians we are in a unique position to speak into the University realm of conversations and ideas and worldviews and point those who are questioning, confused by the world's lack of answers where authenticity becomes the ethical standard.
Christians and churches (both local and further afield) partnering with us in this important work makes a massive difference in young people's lives as staff and students are showing up and are here for these types of conversations.