The Long Arc of Justice.

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

--Martin Luther King, Jr., “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.” Speech given at the National Cathedral, March 31, 1968 (four days before he was murdered)

The moral universe, which is to say, the creation as made and intended by the Creator, which is to say the Truth, has a direction.  That direction is justice.  Not the corrupt, retributive, coercive legalism society defines as justice, but the true justice of the Creator, which is about inclusion, equality, compassion, and freedom.  That is: Restorative justice, the justice in which the high and mighty are brought low and the marginalized and poor are lifted up. 

Dr. King here articulates the Bible's view of history, epitomized by the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.  All the prophets say much the same thing: as bad as it may get in the meantime, the ultimate victory belongs to God.  All the prophets temper their dire predictions of disaster with glorious (if often brief) sections about hope and redemption.  The Truth always wins in the end.  Always.

God places the Church here as a living witness to, and anticipation of, this Truth.  We point to it.  We look for it.  We organize ourselves to embody it in advance.  We call others by our example.  Martyrs died rather than succumb to the lies in which the world is immersed and by which it is enslaved.  To live in hope is to live in the light of the justice towards which the arc of the moral universe inexorably bends.

And the shape of this justice is clear, first in the life and teaching of the Lord Jesus.  Indeed, beginning with his mother's hymn in Luke 1, and continuing with characteristic passages where he sets out his mission, like the passages in Luke 4, Matthew 11 and Matthew 25, where justice emerges in social reversal: the sick are made well, the blind see, the lame walk, the slaves are freed, the hungry fed, the rich sent away empty, and the dead are raised.  Add these to additional New Testament witnesses like the Apostle Paul in Romans 12, and the writings of the apostles James and John, we see what justice means for Jesus and his followers.  It means love, as demonstrated by the humility, compassion, gentleness, service, and generosity we see in the Lord's Sermon on the Mount. 

God's justice is revealed in the barrier-shattering oneness we see in Galatians 3:28, which is accomplished in the self-emptying love of Philippians 2.

Meanwhile, the arc is indeed long.  J. R. R. Tolkien spoke of history as a "long defeat."  And yet with every loss and setback, we hold even firmer to the hope of final victory... because in Jesus Christ we have seen in, and may participate in it together in advance.  Because the disintegration and collapse of this world of sin and falsehood, characterized by selfishness, blindness, and violence -- and rampant injustice and oppression -- is inevitable.  

Last month, at the Wild Goose Festival, the opening night's preacher was Rev. William Barber.  He told a story about our history.  In 1857, after the Supreme Court's catastrophic Dred Scott decision, denying the legality of citizenship for African Americans and upholding slavery, the defeated abolitionist leaders assembled.  Across this depressed and despondent gathering, Sojourner Truth stood up and loudly called out to Frederick Douglass, "Frederick, is God dead?"  In other words, Does the triumph of evil mean that God has been finally defeated, even killed?  Does it mean that God isn't real and hope is futile?  Does it mean we should all give up and go home, submitting to the obscenity, atrocity, and inhuman violence of human "justice"?  

Of course not.  God does not leave the Israelites in Egypt, nor the Jews in Babylon.  Neither does Jesus Christ stay dead when the Romans execute him.  God always wins.  That's what Dr. King is saying.  It may take a while.  Ego and Empire remain strong.  But they always lose.  

Last week, we heard the teaching of Dr. Jerusha Matsen Neal on "Exilic Hope for a Land in Crisis."  She reflected on a faithful response to the Climate Crisis, especially from the perspective of the people with whom she has ministered in Fiji, whose lands are being swallowed up by the rising sea level.  In the end, she said, we do good and follow Jesus' example of simplicity, not because it delivers instant results, but just because it is the right way to live according to the will of the Creator.

In these days, when democracy, freedom, the fate of the planet, and even truth itself are under grave threat, we have to realize that nothing is more important or consequential than following Jesus.  Not talking about Jesus, or thinking about Jesus, or carrying flags and signs about Jesus, but actually following him.  Actually living together according to his compassion, humility, inclusion, forgiveness, non-violence, liberation, and joy.      

That is all that matters.  That is all that has ever mattered.

+++++++