When one looks at the broad array of social justice issues, one
sees things like biotechnology, the arms trade, abortion and stem-cell
research, child tax credits and welfare reform, food security and the
death penalty, affirmative action and care for the earth.
One could search the Gospels high and low without finding
specific teachings from Jesus on these issues.
At the same time, each of these justice issues flows out of the
life and ministry of Jesus, precisely because so much of Jesus’ life and
teaching revealed a commitment to justice for all.
This justice teaching is first of all rooted in love.
He gave us the Greatest Commandment as well as the second that is
like it, uniting love of God with love of neighbor forever.
He makes it clear that if we fail to do justice to our brothers
and sisters, we fail to love God.
“If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a
liar.” (1 Jn 4:20) How did
Jesus live out this love of neighbor?
One of the most fundamental ways that Jesus challenged the
structures and customs of his time was in the people he spent time with,
those he spoke to, those he dined with, those he healed and called to
salvation. He was
criticized repeatedly for eating with those deemed unacceptable by
“proper society”, the tax collectors and prostitutes, the poor and the
unwashed. He spoke to the
Samaritan woman at the well, even though “nobody does that”.
He healed the daughter of that Caananite woman in the region of
In all of this, Jesus breaks down the divisions that we so
readily establish between “us and them”.
And he proclaimed repeatedly, in word and action, that God loves
“those others” as much as he loves us. He even broke down the barriers
of family and clan (loving only those who look like us) by offering
kinship to all “who do the will of my Father”, calling these brother and
sister and mother to him. In living and ministering in this way, he
rejected any and all forms of discrimination because of race or creed or
color, even going so far as to teach us that any and all discrimination
against women was unjust and unjustifiable.
But his teaching goes beyond rejecting the treatment of some as
“less than” or “less equal”.
He even went so far as to tell us on what basis we would be
judged. When we ask, “Lord,
when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or
in prison, and not minister to your needs?”, he replies to us, “Amen, I
say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not
do for me.” (Matt.
25:31-46) This concern for the “least ones” in the life and ministry of
Jesus goes beyond the demands of equality, and challenges us to practice
what the Church calls “the preferential option for the poor”.
We are to pay particular attention to the neediest in our midst:
the immigrant, the addict, the mentally ill, the obnoxious and
the ungrateful. Why, he
would even have us love our enemies, for they may be most in need of our
love and forgiveness. Going
two miles instead of one, giving up shirt as well as coat, turning the
other cheek (Matt. 5) are all demands of the Gospel we would probably
rather forget.
This is a Gospel that is truly radical, in the sense of going to
the very roots of who we are and who we are called to be.
And it is a radical Gospel that challenges us to examine the
structures of government, the customs of our society and most especially
the attitudes of our hearts.
“Everybody’s doing it” will not suffice as justification or
excuse.
There is a sense in which the commitment to justice, this option
for the poorest of the poor, is rooted in the mystery of the Incarnation
itself.
Yet Jesus was the one surrendered completely, humbling himself,
becoming obedient even unto death.
He surrendered even his own will, stating clearly that he was
with us to do the will of the one who sent him. (Jn 5:30)
This is the one whom we claim to imitate, and so must we do, in
the halls of government, in the workplace, in the home, and yes, even in
the voting booth.