What Happens When It's All Connected?
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)
In my world, one group desires justice and one group wants to avoid the ways of this world. James says both and seems to connect the two together as a practice. I'm often stuck between communities who use a rhetoric of justice and people who have a category of "pollutants" and stay away from them. James pushes us with his language. What if justice has to be more than rhetoric, bumper stickers, facebook groups, desires, and even future ambition? What if it has to be now? And what if the pollutants of this world is anything that prevents you from helping orphans and windows? It could be your current budget that prioritizes movies, the amount of time you spend with church folks in safe spaces, the unhealthy relationship you have with your partner, and the way your critique encourages fear of action.
This verse is burning in me right now. Haven't we heard this before? People desiring faith and a connection with God, but hating what they see as options. Are we even living out a desirable path for ourselves let alone others? It seems like there's a virus infecting us to divide the call for justice and holiness. Their paths are connected and each corrects the extreme version we might have been offended by in the past.
Justice is not stringent ideology without human connection. It is rooted in an extension of the family of God. We cannot love our neighbors without knowing them. We cannot truly celebrate any changes in their legal or systemic condition without being connected to their communities.
Holiness is not a dress code or moral perfection. It is the understanding that God is not confused; God is still God: pure and true. Holiness aims to let us share in that clarity instead of being lost. We can build practices that will help clarify our life through the lens of God, so we do not become polluted to the fact that our true call is to love God and to love neighbor.
They work together. Try being present with someone when your personal life is a mess. You can't. Try caring about an issue, when you don't even know the people surrounding it. You feel fake. We cannot be satisfied with a divided gospel or a divided self.
Abba God, help us integrate our lives with your people and remove this persistent confusion that surrounds us.
posted by Joshua @ 7:44 AM
4 Comments:
Amen! So true. You did a really nice job of putting into words what is often a frustration of mine! We often seem so divided in the Church--placed into different camps based on our "interests." In my experience, it is largely a Conservative holiness group and a Liberal social justice group, but I know there is middle ground (because I dwell there!). This is certainly something to further consider. What does social justice look like in this world in light of the biblical aim for holiness, and vice versa. To me, the joining of the two will lead to a third way of living that may be counter to both the world's and the church's current cultures!
you're writing again!!!!!!!!!! (celebration dougie)
something I've been thinking about: fear in the way of justice. thanks for writing, josh!
I've been reading Gary Thomas' Sacred Pathways, and so far it's been a really excellent book. While reading it today, I actually thought of this post. One of the spiritual pathways Thomas describes is that of the Activist, and it seems like the desire to bridge together justice and holiness would be in-line w/ the Activist's gifts. You should check out the book--I would recommend it to anyone going into ministry!
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