Standing Against Injustice

When I taught school — in another lifetime — we met periodically for faculty meetings where the principal would list transgressions of various teachers: being late, not wearing proper attire, not showing up for various extra duties. Invariably, everyone in the room looked around to see who it was he/she was talking about. In some cases, we knew exactly who it was — and he/she was “never talking to me.” Everyone was convinced it was someone else.

Addressing problems in an anonymous way is easier, like writing letters without signing your name. We’ve received a few here over the years. One even managed to arrive without a postmark. Remaining anonymous protects the critic, and sometimes that can be important. Employees often feel reluctant to voice too many concerns for fear of losing their jobs. However, sometimes those “in power” have no idea a problem exists or the extent of the harm being done if nobody tells them. It harkens back to the fairy tale where a child was the only one who could honestly say “the emperor has no clothes.”

As a church, we protest when injustice exists in the world. We cry out against abortion, capital punishment, the lack of opportunities available for people of the world. We protest the use and abuse of child labor and sweat shops in other countries; we stand up for undocumented immigrants who, we say, should be treated with dignity and respect. We cry foul and respond when we see people who have inadequate food and shelter. We collect food, clothing and medicine to send to the Third World. We call racism a sin. We denounce materialism and consumerism, rampant in our society. We are good and faithful about protesting external social ills, and we should be. We are called to stand for justice in a world where people are seen as more disposable and less human.

What about the internal injustices that occur within our church — what I would like to call exclusivism? Specifically, exclusivism can be passively ignoring people or actively excluding them from fully participating in the life of the church. Christ invited people to the table; he didn’t build barriers, create more rules to keep them out. His rules were pretty simple and straightforward: love God; love your neighbor. If we believe we are the church, the living arms and legs of Christ in the world today, we must reach out in love. Any time a part of the body of Christ bleeds, we must tend the wounds even if some of those wounds are less conspicuous — although none-the-less hurtful — than others. Saying “we hear you, we see you are hurting,” — and truly meaning it — can open a line of communication that may assuage the wound even if it can not now be healed.