Previous Post – How Our Church Was Born Out Of Mission

Due to the nature of our lives and the ministry we do and the inner city neighbourhood that we call home, it is only natural that a great deal of our time and energy is directed towards those aspects of God’s mission that confront and transform issue of injustice- poverty/affluence, racism, sexism, exploitation, etc.  While not a replacement of the work to live and proclaim the Gospel, being a people who “do justice” is central to our identity and call as the Body of Christ.  Some times this injustice is systemic in the wider culture, sometimes it is found in the spheres of Christian culture.  It is my firm commitment to address these issues, even with prophetic rebuke, that I want to premise the following thoughts on.

Yesterday I posted a comment on my Twitter that didn’t get much of a response (probably because it lacked qualification.  It said “As Christians, if our fight against injustice is designed to acquire power, we will often find success to be self-defeating”.  What inspired this comment was a growing tension I am feeling in respect to my engagement of justice activism from a Christian context.  While I again unwaveringly affirm God’s command for us to confront injustice, it is becoming increasingly common for people to form their identity on their victimhood.  As a result, we can use this identity to pursue change and acquire power through the use of guilt and shame.  I once heard this approach called “the ultimate form of moral blackmail”.

As Christians, we are called to active engage and transform the world, including facing and correcting injustice.  It is the means, however, that makes the way of Christ so radical.  Phillipians 2 clearly calls us to follow the example of Christ, who put aside everything to taking a position of submission and even subjugation in obedience to God- a choice that led to suffering and death.  The great paradox of faith was that by becoming nothing and embracing suffering and death, Christ transformed them and the world around us.  In the same way, the model for our engagement of injustice is to be identification (even incarnational embrace) of “the least of these”.

I acknowledge that as a white male in North America I represent the ultimate in privilege.  Please know that I am not unaware or insensitive to the historic and very much present suffering and injustices faced by others throughout the world.  Every day I clumsily seek to meet the great expectation that come with that great privilege, longing to follow the example of Christ in humility and submission.  A great deal of my time and energy in life and ministry are invested in open the eyes and the hearts of Christians to the great suffering we have (and continue) to cause through unjust systems, be they ecclesial, political, economic, racial, etc.

However, when Christians who are victims of injustice use their suffering as bargaining chip in effecting change, I deeply fear that they often do more harm than good, both to themselves and to the privileged and the victimizers.  The position of powerlessness and suffering is the place where we best identify with the person and work of Jesus Christ.  While I am not suggesting that victims remain content in their suffering because “that’s what Jesus would do”, identification with Christ in that place brings a power and authority that is found truly at the Cross.  To fight for power can often distance the victim from the sacred place they hold in Christ’s Body.  When we leverage our powerlessness in order to acquire power, we risk becoming the very thing that we so fervently seek to change.

The point I am trying to make is this: It was from His position of the suffering, powerless victim that Christ was able to defeat the enemy.  When He was weak, then He was strong.  Jesus was a victim who saved and forgave.  It is to this pattern that I long to see the church move, especially in respect to the many injustices we are addressing in the world.  The only victimhood from which we should draw identity is that of Jesus, who calls us to share in His suffering and death so that we might be resurrected together as One in His Body, bound and empowered by His Holy Spirit.  When our victim identity is rooted primarily in socio-ecominc, gender, race, etc. we end up tangled in the power struggles that are the powers that be.  I am not advocating a denial or ignorance of these specific expressions of injustice, but rather call for them to be submitted under the Cross of Jesus Christ through which we become His Church.

If we are to be one Body, then we must see that every injustice harms us all.  Yes, many of us have benefited (and continue to benefit) from injustice against others, and while those victims ultimately felt the suffering far more acutely, we must acknowledge that the wound was ultimately to us all, because the wound was first and foremost against Christ.  When we are the victim of prejudice, exploitation, racism or hate, the suffering, the wound are not first ours- the first and true victim, is ALWAYS Jesus Christ.  This paradigm will transform the way in which we engage injustice and relate to each of as sisters and brothers in God.

When I consider the examples of people like Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero and others, I see in them a clear embrace of this truth.  While they worked for reform that would establish equality in the lives of people from all walks of life, they did so, not as victims demanding compensation, but as the wounded healers who saw that our salvation is caught up together.  They actively embraced the Cross and in it found victory.

Let me close with some wise words of Richard Rohr:

“The message of the cross wrongly appear to most people to be passivity, heroic suffering, the cult of martyrdom, doormat theology or refusing to fight, somehow giving up or giving in, but for God.  This is very hard to change or renew in people’s minds.  Maybe that’s why I I find most people really don’t believe in the message of the cross as anything practical, desirable or even attractive.  It’s just something Jesus did once to resolve some heavenly metaphysical transaction that was needed, but it wasn’t really an agenda for us or for now.  It’s something Jesus did to prove God’s love for us, and we should therefore admire Jesus.  That imagery is powerful and I wouldn’t want to take it away.  But it’s not the whole picture.  The cross is about how to fight and not become a casualty yourself.  The cross is about being the victory instead of just winning the victory over somebody else.” <emphasis mine>

Please let me know what you think.  Does this make sense to you?  Any push back?