I didn’t hear much about injustice growing up. Most of my formal education took place in various private Christian schools. I attended church every week. I went to Sunday school. I even took a missions trip to Mexico. I still didn’t hear much about injustice.
When I was in first grade, my family lived in Senegal, Africa, for ten months. You might think I’d have been greatly impacted by injustices in that context. But I wasn’t. Or if I was, I didn’t understand it until later. Most of my memories from Senegal are of the delicious fruit, the fascinating trees, and the delightful terrors of the rainy season. Real fear, abuse, inequalities, and poverty existed there, I know it. But either my parents did an impressive job of protecting me from it, or I in my seven years of impregnable wisdom simply didn’t see what was right in front of me.
In junior high, I wrote a report on the Bosnian War. I remember thinking that the people fighting seemed to be involving a lot of people who would rather not be involved, and it made for quite a bit of senselessness. That and “Czechoslovakia” was a ridiculous way to spell any country’s name.
This is all I remember of worldwide injustices affecting me in my formative years.
However, if I missed the global crime scene, I recognized it well enough in my own environment. It was quite simple, really. I learned about it in junior high, like most of us do. It all boiled down to bullying. I saw it at school frequently, and I hated it.
Kids making fun of other kids because they’re different. The football stars purposefully getting rid of the extra chair at the lunch table so the awkward boy can’t sit with them. The name calling when the popular team beat the rejects on the basketball court at recess. The chubby girl suffering the undisguised snickers of the cheerleaders.
It made my blood boil.
Sometimes I yelled at the offenders. Yelled when I would much rather have punched. But, honestly, most of the time, I didn’t do anything. I watched and hated and cursed the tormenters, then retreated into my safe, silent shell and let the world drag itself to Hell.
As if I was going to bother stopping them!
And that is how I passed high school.
For the other six billion people on this planet? Well, I didn’t read the paper all that often, so I didn’t really know much about them.
What was going on at that time?
War. Famine. Earthquakes. Tsunamis. Floods. Suicides. Starvation. Illness. Murder. Rape. Theft. Death.
Pretty much life as usual.
While I drove to work and saddled up my horse for a ride and watched football games and played cards with my friends all night.
I was a teenager. What did you expect me to do?
Well, apparently, no one really expected me to do much of anything. It’s hard enough growing up in the American culture, turning yourself out all right. Never mind about helping anyone else come out okay.
For six years after high school, injustice would remain a rather vague issue for me.
I don’t really map out my future very well. I’ve tried it a couple times, but the map never seems to turn out in reality the way I drew it in my head. I’ve decided that means I ought to save myself the trouble and quit mapping.
I didn’t really map at all after high school graduation. What followed was a long string of highly unusual jobs and experiences. Some of them I enjoyed; some of them I didn’t. Teaching kindergarten at the age of 19. Flying to Hong Kong for 18 months as a volunteer secretary for a Christian retreat center (They spell it “centre” over there). Sorting packages for Fed-ex. Counseling and giving riding lessons at a youth ranch in Oregon. Being a para-educator for a special needs elementary boy. Supervising roomfuls of hyperactive 3-year olds at day care. Directing a full-length stage production of “Robin Hood.” Waitressing.
Like I said: unusual.
In the midst of these experiences, I bumped up against examples of injustice.
Teens in depression because of their families’ destructive choices. Missionaries being mocked and harassed for trying to help. Children with obvious behavioral issues being ignored or, worse, spoiled by frustrated parents. Teachers labeling preschoolers with a success level that will stick with them until graduation. Spouses abused in manipulative relationships.
It wasn’t really anything shocking I was seeing. Just life, you know, same as everyone else. In fact, I’m pretty sure most people in their circle of friends see worse things than I did. We bore it the best we could, we lost some on the way, and the sun kept rising every morning, so we kept getting up too.
But the injustices were still relative to my little corner of the world.
I do remember at one point after high school going to the Dollar Store and spending $100 on gifts for Operation Christmas Child. It’s a part of Samaritan’s Purse that lets you give presents to children around the world who won’t get anything otherwise. My sister and I were really excited because we were going to get the longest receipt we’d ever seen.
Did I miss that $100? Did not having it hurt me in any way? Did I have to go without food for even a single meal because I spent that money?
No.
No, it didn’t really affect me at all.
And that is my first point: What we in America give is not affecting us. Not just in the realm of money, although that’s a big one. In time, in resources, in knowledge, in skills, in long-term relationships. Very rarely do we give any of these until it actually costs us something. Skipping out on a night at the movies. Staying at home instead of going on vacation. Wearing the same two pairs of jeans for a year. Not eating for a day.
And no one expects us to give more.
We are rich. I know we don’t use that term. When we hear “rich,” we think movie stars, politicians, and basketball players. But most of us have the ability, like I did as a teen, to spend $100 at the Dollar Store and never miss it. And our friends and family will say, “Oh, $100! You are so generous! I’m so proud of you!”
But are we really generous? Should we really be proud?
Remember Jesus. He saw the religious leaders lugging their bags about, clanking their coins, and hefting them into the temple treasury with as much attention as they could muster without seeming gaudy. And Jesus said basically that their piles of gold were meaningless. “They’re giving out of their wealth,” He shrugged.
And then a widow came and put in the sort of coins you find on the sidewalk outside Walmart. And Jesus said she’d put in more than anyone else. Why? Because she gave all she had.
Hey, I’m just repeating here. Jesus said it first. It’s a little uncomfortable though, isn’t it? When you’re poor and all you own in the world is a measly two dollars, it’s not so difficult to part with. It’s only two dollars after all. You can earn that at McDonald’s without even working a full hour.
But if you’re rich and own two hundred thousand dollars . . . oh, now that’s a very different story, isn’t it? Suddenly, it’s much harder to part with two hundred thousand. Very questionable. Highly unreasonable actually. You wouldn’t want to throw it all away, after all. And, besides, no one really expects you to give up such a fortune.
Give a tithe to the church by all means. Give twenty percent if that’s what you want! I’m sure you’re very generous either way. But no one’s asking you to give it all.
. . . Or are they?
Is He?
Now, I’m well aware that you are probably not on either extreme here. Most likely you fall somewhere in the happy medium, slightly (eh-hem) less than two hundred thousand dollars but over the pitiful two. I also realize that God does not call every Christian to literally write a check giving away their very last penny. And I am quite aware that we will not solve all the world’s problems by throwing money at them.
The solutions get so complicated so fast, don’t they?
Let me simplify it for you. We’ve been talking about money, because that’s arguably the biggest thing Americans struggle to give wholeheartedly to God. But I want to ask you a question that includes money but goes way beyond that: When was the last time you gave until it hurt?
When was the last time you gave of your time or your talents or your resources until it really cost you something?
Do you remember the last time? Was there a last time?
Now I want you to think about the poor. The pastor in Korea who rides his bike dozens of miles a day at the risk of his life to preach the Gospel. The teen in the Vietnam refugee camp who smuggles Bibles to friends, knowing the police will throw her in prison if they catch her. The young student, fresh out of seminary, who takes his Bible in his hand and walks into the jungle, well knowing that he will probably never return.
These people don’t have a lot of money. In fact, often they don’t have any money.
But they’re doing on a daily basis something we have a hard time doing here in the States. They’re giving it all.
They’re counting the cost and lugging their crosses out to the road that leads to Golgotha and staring hard at the dirt until they see the bloodied footprints of their Savior who walked this way before them. And then they’re following. They’re following after Jesus.
Are we going to follow after Him too?
Or is it too nice being comfortable?
