Charity and justice
Friday, February 3, 2006 at 11:42PM From Sojourners: Bono's Best Sermon Yet:
God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill. I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff. Maybe, maybe not. But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.
God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. "If you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom with become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places."
It's not a coincidence that in the scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It's not an accident. That's a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions...
A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord's blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it. I have a family, please look after them. I have this crazy idea...
And this wise man said: stop.
He said, stop asking God to bless what you're doing.
Get involved in what God is doing - because it's already blessed.
Well, God, as I said, is with the poor. That, I believe, is what God is doing.
And that is what he's calling us to do.
Reader Comments (7)
Good words by Bono but unless I'm missing some nuance he's got Charity and Justice backwards. Justice doesnt require anything but strict fairness. It is a legal category. Charity, in its full Christian sense, requires loving one's neighbour as oneself, with my time, my affection, my labor and my money.
It's way too often that I find myself so busy in seeking God's blessing in what I'm "doing" for Him. Bono's words are a good kick-in-the-pants. I need to seek out God's heart ... abandoning my own "wisdom."
Roger, I think you are limiting your definition of "justice" in associating it solely with a legalistic approach to fairness. It can also be taken to mean "doing what is righteous," and in my opinion goes hand in hand with charity,... in "charity's" broadest definition, as well. It is obscene, again in my opinion, that Exxon, (and other corporations like them,) can make billions of dollars in profit while people in Niger, Sudan, Ethiopia, Chad, Rwanda, to name but a few places, die of hunger every day. Profit, I might add, that exists only on paper. There really isn't any actual currency to back up the numbers. To make it worse, there are people,... children, in our own cities going hungry. New York, New Orleans, Toronto, Oshawa, Washington,... while a select few earn and squander millions of dollars, or hoard them, or put them to work to make even more money they cannot even hope to spend in an entire life-time. I am not advocating a totally socialistic approach to the problem. If one were to take all the money in the world and re-distribute it evenly among all the people in the world, within a few months 20% of the people would once again control 80% of the wealth. Such is the system. That's the way it works in a sinful world. What I am saying, is simply this: When is enough enough, and when is it too much? Why shouldn't we share with those who are less fortunate, whether by circumstance or their own sloth, some of the blessings God has bestowed upon us either as individuals or as a nation? "Where a man's treasure is, there is his heart also." God's treasure, and His heart, is with His People, the beings He created, and loved enough to die for. Sorry, Roger. This isn't directed at you in particular. I have no bone to pick with you and I am not judging the condition of your heart. I am putting into words something I have been grappling with myself, and formulating my own position even as I do. What is remarkable to me, (and what will probably astound Darryl to no end,) is that just a few months ago, I would have argued that the poor would always be with us, and it was probably their fault they are poor to begin with, so why bother? Perhaps the conclusion I am coming to is that I, ME, MYSELF, need to be doing more. Do I really need that new car, or can I make do with what I have, and share what I would have spent with someone else, and thus be "the hand of God extended" to make thier life a little easier, their cross a little lighter? Each of us has to make these decisions for themselves according to the dictates of his/her own heart. No easy task, is it?
David Fitch has a good section in his book "The Great Giveaway" on the biblical meaning of justice. I think the notion of justice is much bigger biblically speaking. Mike Todd also has some good thoughts on charity and justice here and there on his blog (miketodd.typepad.com). He's talked about it a few times. I'm becoming more challenged in this area too, Arthur. Sounds like we're all growing.
Hey Darryl, When I heard the audio to hear people clap and the President laughing etc I thought it had more impact. Here's the audio from American Rhetoric, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/bononationalprayerbreakfast.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/bononationalprayerbreakfast.htm Rob
I'm not really a Bono or U2 fan but I give him credit for his unrelenting pursuit of aid for the poor. I had hoped to see some emerging/Christian liberal types give Pres Bush some credit for inviting Bono to speak in the first place.
Jacob: Bush doesn't actually organize the prayer breakfast (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Prayer_Breakfast) so he can't take credit for inviting Bono, but I give them credit for how they seem to work together.