Photo by torbakhopper

By Ajung Sojwal

The yearning to comprehend justice is particularly poignant this season after Christmas, having heard bold proclamations from the Prophet Isaiah like, “His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forever more” (Isa.9:7). As I examine our general sense of justice, I am increasingly unsure if any human being or any profession truly understands what justice is. I find that the older I get, the more I am ready to toss out my imaginations of justice. I am coming to terms, rather sorrowfully, that justice — that is, the kind prophets dare to proclaim — continues to be an apocalyptic imagination.

It is profoundly telling that the prophet’s proclamation of the Messiah’s reign pairs justice with righteousness, a very different image from the one we are used to — lady justice with a blindfold and a scale. Jesus pointed to the blind being able to see, the lame walking, the lepers cleansed, the deaf hearing, the dead raised, and the good news brought to the poor, as the markers of the Messiah in our midst. For the Messiah, justice is never blind and his method of measurement seems never to align with our earthly scales.

As a pastor, called to proclaim the good news to the poor, I question every day, how is justice a hope for the young mother from Mexico walking into my church asking for some paper, any paper, to justify her need for asylum from the pimps and drug lords of the shantytown she and her son escaped from? How is justice a hope for the desperately poor teenager who in a moment of insanity stabs a stranger for a pair of sneakers and lands on the doorsteps of our “criminal justice” system?

In a world where justice is much about determining consequences and retribution, I find myself reticent to engage in the prophetic call to all of God’s children — “to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with our Lord.”(Micah 6:8). Again, I am struck by the pairing of justice with kindness and the attitude required of me to practice this prophetic call — humility. Biblical justice it seems, is not focused on punishment of all and everything we identify as delinquent and corrupt. Rather, it seems to be a way of being — marked by everyday acts of kindness and humility.

To see justice paired inextricably with righteousness and kindness may not be a reality now, but I must, with the innumerable poor and disenfranchised, yearn and learn to do justice that is redemptive and not retributive. This I can ponder and practice in my personal life — to do justice and to love kindness and to aspire towards humility. Learning to live into this prophetic call, I suspect, will somehow open my eyes to the workings of the Holy Spirit ushering in the Messiah’s reign of justice filled with kindness and righteousness — redeeming what we have wronged and destroyed. In the midst of my sorrows, I choose to hold on to the foundation of my faith that Christ has died, Christ is risen, and that Christ will come again.

Ajung Sojwal is Rector of St. George’s Episcopal Church in Hempstead, NY.