Recharge: Bible Study

The Full Monty: Luke 18:1-43 To read if you have time to take in the whole story and its context

The Continental Option: Luke 18:1-8 Read this if you only have time for a few, key verses

One Shot Espresso: Luke 18:7 ‘And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?’

Justice

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere

Solomon Northup was an African American and a free man - the son of a freed slave. He was a skilled carpenter and violinist who lived with his wife and two children in New York. In 1841, he was tricked by an offer of work as a violinist and kidnapped by slave traders. He was renamed ‘Platt’ and sold as a slave to a plantation owner in Louisiana where he was transferred from one owner to another and held in captivity for 12 years. Northup’s story is powerfully told in the Oscar-winning film 12 Years a Slave. His first owner, Ford, was relatively kind and gave Northup a violin in gratitude for the good work he did. However, Northup was sold onto an evil man, Epps, who believed that the Bible said he had a right to abuse his slaves. Years later, Northup worked alongside a Canadian man, Bass, who was vocal about his opposition to slavery. Northup confided in him about his true identity, and Bass agreed to take a letter back to his friends and family, risking his life in the process. Thanks to this letter, Northup was rescued in 1853 and returned to his family. He sued the slave traders who had kidnapped him but lost the case as it was illegal for him to testify against white men because he was black. The injustice of Northup’s story is stark and enraging, but even more so is the whole system within which his story is set. The slave trade and the ownership of black people by white people is a deep injustice that has scarred humanity irrevocably. Technically, justice is about fair treatment under the law, but where laws are unjust - such as the one that prohibited Northup from testifying against his captors – they don’t produce true justice.

God is not like…

Jesus showed people through his words and actions what the kingdom of God looked like, demonstrating a different way of living that put into practice the love of God, neighbour and self. To help people grasp the counter-cultural nature of God’s ways, he often told stories that would inhabit people’s thinking like an earworm, until they had figured out what he was talking about. A farmer sowing seeds, a woman searching for a lost coin, a father looking out for his rebellious son to return – these all give us insights into God’s character because we can understand that God is like someone in the story. This parable of the persistent widow and the unjust judge is different. Rather than a protagonist mirroring God’s nature, this story features someone who is the opposite of God. The judge is an influential man who holds the power of life and death in his hands. He doesn’t care what people think about him because other people need him far more than he needs them. The widow is in stark contrast. She was culturally insignificant and desperately poor in a society where a woman’s status and livelihood was dependent on her husband’s. The judge could have carried on ignoring her; there was no ombudsman to appeal to over a miscarriage of justice, but the woman’s persistence and her insistence on true justice wore him down. Her pleas niggled at him until he granted her request and gave her what she wanted – fair and reasonable treatment. God is not like that, says Jesus. He’s not a reluctant, distant, unpredictable megalomaniac who needs to be appeased. He’s on the case, listening to those who cry out to him for justice and making sure that they get it.

God loves justice

Look at where the Bible mentions justice and it is clear that it’s embedded in God’s character; it’s part of who he is. The Lord is known by his acts of justice, says the psalmist (Psalm 9:16) while righteousness and justice are the foundation from which he rules the earth (Psalm 89:14). God calls his people to act with justice, particularly those who are powerless or vulnerable: ‘Do not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge’ (Deuteronomy 24:17). Jesus, who shows us what his Father is like, came to proclaim justice to the nations (Matthew 12:18), and in his ‘manifesto’ reading at the synagogue at the start of his ministry (Luke 4:16-21) commits himself publicly to bringing about justice through setting the oppressed free and proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favour.

• Can the same be said of you?

• How important is justice to you?

• Do you need to catch more of God’s heart for justice?

Discrimination stands in the way of justice

A key to treating others with justice is the recognition that they share a common humanity with us and should have the same rights, opportunities and responsibilities. It’s easier to justify the unfair treatment that some people receive when we put them in a different category to ourselves. The unjust judge was able to ignore the widow because her life only intersected with his in the court. He didn’t know her as a person, or have to interact with her in everyday life. She was different to him. The toxic nature of the discourse around poverty in the UK at the moment revolves around this ‘othering’. People on benefits are lazy scroungers, who are poor because they deserve it. If we forget that they are people like us and that we are a few lost pay cheques away from being in the same position, then we don’t need to treat them like we would want to be treated. Young people often suffer from the same disconnect, being portrayed as people-in-waiting who will one day fully join the human race rather than people in their own right. A 16-year-old girl, despairing at the articles about teenage brains that purport to explain their strange behaviour, wrote an angry letter to The Times recently which said, ‘I would like adults to treat us as not as strange people from another world, but as human beings with intelligent thought.’ Epps justified his evil treatment of his slaves by seeing them as distinct and different to himself and his family. It seems incredible to us that someone could treat a fellow human being with that degree of savagery, but to Epps it felt right because, perhaps wilfully, he didn’t recognise his slaves as people just like him. It took someone like Bass, who was prepared to recognise Northup’s common humanity, to listen to his story and put himself in Solomon’s shoes, to break the cycle of injustice and to put Solomon back in his rightful place with his family, on an equal footing with everyone else.

• What glasses do you wear that blind you to the need for justice? Ask God to show you the common humanity that you share with those who suffer injustice, and what you can do to bring about change.

Justice needs perseverance

Jesus promises that God will bring justice for his people who cry out to him, but he doesn’t promise it will be quick. Job, in a place of unbearable suffering, wavers in his thoughts about God’s justice because his misery seems so unending. At times he feels that God has denied him justice (Job 34:5) while a few verses later he reminds himself that it’s unthinkable for The Almighty to pervert justice (Job 34:12). Northup had to endure the injustice of slavery for 12 long years, even though all it needed was something fairly simple – a letter in the hands of the right person – to secure his release. That can be hard to bear when the cause for which we’re fighting might seem so glaring, but just to us; why don’t other people get on board? Paul, writing to the Romans (5:3-4), reminds us that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character; and character produces hope. We need to be faithful in pursuing justice, not just for the sake of those who are suffering injustice, but because in securing victory for them we will be achieving a more just world for all of us. Securing victory for those who are suffering injustice will achieve a more just world for all of us God is on the case, listening to those who cry out to him for justice

Jenny Baker is development manager of Church Urban Fund and a marathon runner. Her book Equals: enjoying gender equality in all areas of life was published by SPCK in March 2014. She’s on Twitter @runningjenbaker and writes a blog http://www.jennybaker.org.uk