In the prophet Habakkuk, God's answer to a cry against
injustice is "The just man will live by his faithfulness." In our experience, questions about justice
invariably begin with someone asking why someone else is being unjust.
But when God is questioned about matters of social justice, his reply
has always to do with faith – our faith.
Faith means living in utter dependence upon God, who
has called us and shown himself to us. It is in such faith that the just man
lives. This is a difficult point for many modern Christians. In days gone by,
when we were less able to take care of our material needs, much more the
victims of weather, disease and wars, we were more aware of our dependence upon
God. Since then, modern technology has changed our lives. As we have learned to
look after a lot of matters we formerly thought beyond our control, we have started
to think differently. We have become less willing to allow God a role in our
lives, because more and more we have begun to think we can do it all ourselves.
Today, some people even think that they can do without God, and explain
everything through science.
For someone of Habakkuk's day, who was much closer to God
than modern human beings, it was very easy to understand that the sin of the
human heart was responsible for the injustice that befalls the world. Before
our time, justice was understood as a quality of a human being, not a situation
in society. It is when a man is made just by faith that his sin cleansed from
him. When he abandons to the mercy of the living God, he lives according to the
will of God. The great social advances in England during the Nineteenth Century
were made by Christians who lived like this, who expended themselves in service
of the suffering of society. Such people were the only ones who really and
disinterestedly fought for the poor and oppressed. The power of God at work in
them changed the lives of millions dramatically for the better.
It is in the state of the human heart, not in the structures
of society, that sin and evil lie. Because justice is directed towards God, it
is the state of our heart that determines true justice, for true justice resides
within the human heart. Habakkuk learned it from the very lips of God.
If the world is to be made just, we must become just men and women. For
it is only when the righteousness of God is alive in our hearts, that we will
be able to change the world as so many great Christians have done.
Fr Phillip.
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