Courage to Be Defiant to Man But Obedient to God
The legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr is inseparable from his fight for justice. That includes those who fought alongside of him, including the many women who joined the fight for justice because their faith prompted them to action. Dr. King referred heavily to Scripture and the concept of justice, including in his famous “I Have a Dream Speech” a verse from the prophet saying, “we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” 1
DO JUSTLY
Justice is woven throughout the Bible and Jesus’ ministry while on earth. Micah tells us that the Lord requires us to “do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God”. 2 In Isaiah 1:17, the prophet wrote, “learn to do what is good. Seek justice. Correct the oppressor. Defend the rights of the fatherless. Plead the widow’s cause.” The prophets were very clear about the importance of justice. Isaiah, in chapter 28, wrote about the “cornerstone”– Jesus – as a sure foundation such that the person who believes in Him will be unshakable. The very next verse he wrote, “And I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the mason’s level.”
RIGHTEOUSNESS & JUSTICE
The righteousness/ justice word duo, found in the Hebrew Bible some thirty times3 is used throughout Judaic history in various ways often intertwined with words such as “truth” and “kindness”. The definition of the term has evolved and its use is fluid. Righteousness can refer to a legal concept, such as a judicial proceeding; or the covenant between God and man; or to social justice. To some scholars, it is summed up to one all-encompassing concept: salvation.
Righteousness is a “basic ethical demand for humans living together , a concept central to Jews and Christians”.4. The biblical use of the term “refers broadly to ‘doing, being, declaring, or bringing about what is right.’”5. The linking of “justice” and “righteousness” and the interchange of the terms throughout Scripture is intentional.
Doing Justice
Christ-followers are commanded to provide for the needy, protect the weak and help those who are oppressed. Those principles date back to the patriarchal period, where “justice and righteousness” are first seen as a word pair wherein Abraham and his descendants are charged with doing righteousness and justice.6. These teachings form the basis for the use of righteousness and justice within the social context that is to perform acts of righteousness and justice. The concept of doing justice took root and deepened at a time of class warfare and saw a religious sect arise whose leader spent most of his time with the poor and oppressed and taught that these people were blessed. That religious sect? Christianity.
What Is Just Is What Is Good
In the Old Testament, “what is just is intrinsically bound up with what is good… justice is ordered toward righteousness; in particular, it is directed toward the establishment of right relations between people and God.”7. Righteousness and justice are concerned with the deliverance and liberation of the oppressed, the poor, destitute and indeed of all of humanity. It is redemptive and salvific. It is the “’foundation’ of God’s throne, the fundamental ground of the cosmos.”8.
Salvation
There are exhortations to do justice; that is, to perform acts of kindness and charity and to treat others justly. However, first and foremost, the idea of righteousness and justice is an extension of God’s design to deliver man from sin.9. When the term righteousness is used outside of the legal concept, it is inherently a term associated with the sense of “right order, a situation that is according to God’s will, design, plan, way and ordination . . . a righteous action is one that either maintains or restores the right order.” 10. God’s righteousness is salvific; it’s deliverance, a saving action. Jesus was the embodiment of restoring right order both vertically and horizontally, of righteousness and justice.
SOCIAL JUSTICE
To the prophet Isaiah, justice and righteousness is about action: “releasing the bond of the oppressed, giving bread to the hungry, giving the unhappy poor people a home, and clothing the naked.” 11. According to Siefrid, “for the biblical writers, the demand for social justice derives from God, the divine king, who has determine to secure the good and beneficial order of creation.”12 “To do righteous” occurs 24 times, “righteousness and just judgment” occurs 26 times while “to judge righteously” occurs only 14 times and “righteous judgment” occurs only 9 times.13. The establishment of justice began with God, then to the king, and then to all of the people, “especially the socially powerful.”14. It was then that the vertical relationship between man and God became a horizontal relationship, requiring men to treat each other justly.
Social Unrest
I introduce the woman who became my hero when I read about her for a paper about women in the Civil Rights Movement: Fannie Lou Hamer. After hearing James Bevel of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference preach on August 27, 1962 from Luke 12:54 about discerning the time, Fannie Lou Hamer, at the age of 44, responded and began her activism, with an emphasis on registering blacks to vote, equating the freedoms being sought by blacks in America as being what the Lord required.15.
Hamer Beaten & Jailed
Hamer’s faith was quickly tested when she was arrested with others in Winona, MS. Her reputation as an outspoken leader had preceded her and she endured the harshest beating of all of the arrestees, suffering internal damage that remained with her until her death many years later. While in jail, however, she lead the other women in singing “When Paul and Silas Were Bound in Jail”, she repeated Bible verses that she thought would help her and the others remain calm and sustain them through the ordeal and she even asked one of the jailers who participated in her beating, “[Did you] ever think or wonder how you’ll feel when the time comes you’ll have to meet God?”16
She, like King and many others, were jailed for their marches, voter registrations, and otherwise peaceful assemblies, simply for demanding equality with their white brothers and sisters. (If you’ve never read King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, now is a great time to do it). She, like so many others, were beaten for their desire for equality. In my home state of Birmingham, water from fire hoses was blasted onto the backs of kids and teens marching for equality and dogs were used to attack marchers. King, Hamer, and others pressed on despite consequences because they believed it was what the Lord required.
CONCLUSION
As we honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, in the middle of civil unrest of our own, have we – as Christians with our own thoughts and opinions on what’s happening in our country – stopped to think, “how will you feel when the time comes to meet God? How will you say you treated his children?”
(Excerpt from my upcoming book, Equal Protection Under God)
Sources
Amos 5:24.
Michah 6:8
Marlon, Hilary. ““Justice for Whom? Social and Environmental Ethics and the Hebrew Prophets” in Ethical and Unethical in the Old Testament: God and Humans in Dialogue. (ed. Katharine Dell; New York: T&T Clark International, 2010), 104.
Henning Graf Reventlow and Yair Hoffma, eds. Justice and Righteousness: Biblical Themes and their Influence. (Sheffield: JSOT Press,1992), 163
Marshall,Chris The Little Book of Biblical Justice, Good Books (2005): 11
Marlon
Bell, Daniel M Jr. “Jesus, The Jews, and the Politics of God’s Justice”. Ex Auditu (2006): 87-112, 100
Mashell 23
Campbell, John. “The Righteousness of God.” Affirmation (September 2013): 78-92, 80
Weinfeld, Moshe. Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995): 18; Isaiah 58:6
Isaiah 58:6
Siefrid, Mark A. “Righteousness Language in the Hebrew Scriptures and Early Judaism.” Justification and Variegated Nomism Volume 1, The complexities of Second Temple Judaism (2001): 415-442, 426
Siefrid 428
Siefrid 427
Ross, Rosetta E. Witnessing & Testifying: Black Women, Religion, and Civil Rights. Minneapolis: Ausburg Fortress, 2003,91
Ross 106