Yesterday I wrote about horizontal versus vertical relationships and Jesus’ call not to “exercise authority” over others in part one of a multi-part post about how Christians should relate to other people. Today I want to talk about the concept of “Justice,” a word that I’m sure we misunderstand quite a bit.
Justice (Value for Value)
After part one of this discussion you might be thinking, “I understand that we aren’t supposed to dominate others, and that we are equals with everyone we meet, but what about all the verses that say I’m supposed to make myself lower than everyone? Aren’t I supposed to put everyone above me?” Philippians 2:3 says, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” And Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant” (Mt 20:26). You already know that no one is supposed to be your head, that no one is supposed to personally dominate you. But how should you see others? How should you look at other men and women who you are supposed to “consider better than yourselves?”
The word justice is the right word for beginning this thought process. God has created us in his image. He is perfect. A key part of the Gospel message is that God’s justice is impeccable, perfect. Because of this, he had to send his Son to die for us, to redeem us, justify us, save us. The fact that God’s justice is perfect means that the justice in the universe is perfect. It doesn’t always seem like it, and indeed, the Psalmists complain about that (Ps 58). But time is the key ingredient. No one ever gets away with anything. This is why confession and repentance is so crucial. By confessing and repenting you can clear the decks. Your confession is your not getting away with it. The universe, that is, the creation is a just place because the Creator is just. When we live in his image and pursue abundant life as his delegates, we are to pursue justice.
Justice is a misunderstood term. Social Justice means many different things to many different people, but very often it has the unfortunate circumstances to be misapplied. When there is a perceived injustice, often well-meaning people seek to correct it. There is nothing wrong with the desire to correct injustice, but because we are so twisted and broken, we often create greater injustices by our attempts. Social justice and how to go about it are beyond the scope of this post, but for my current purposes, I’d like you to see justice in light of how we relate to all people around us.
Honesty, integrity, and love must go together in each and every single, solitary interaction that you have with a fellow image-bearer.
Your spouse, your children, your friends, coworkers, neighbors, highway sharers, shoppers, and anyone else, deserve your integrity and love. This means that when you face them, whether it is for one half of a second, or until death do you part, you must be just in your interactions. You must be honest. You must trade with them horizontally, value for value. You must remember that God loves them more than you do. You must see them as God sees them, an image-bearer with the potential to be saved. You must show up on their radar screen with total integrity.
Those Closest To You
Remember that part of what we have been created for was relationship. Everyone you interact with is a relationship of some distance. You cannot be equally close with everyone, so you have had to make some choices. One the one hand, you should treat everyone the same. Everyone deserves your honesty, your courage, your kindness and love, your exhibition of the image of God, that is, your Christlikeness. Everyone deserves your integrity and your authenticity. And this is not for their sake alone, but for the sake of justice, and for your sake. If you have to pretend in any sphere of your life, you will be damaged. The less time you can live being your true self, the more difficult it will be to live the life that Jesus was trying to give you when he died for you and told you to lose your life to find it. When you are being your most honest yet loving self, you are “finding your life” (Mt 10:39).
Let’s see what this looks like with your spouse. If you don’t have one, imagine that you do. You approach the relationship as someone whose identity is in Christ. You know who you are. You know where your happiness lies. You did not get married in order to become happy. You got married in order to share your happiness with another, and to accomplish God’s purposes with someone who you have entered into a one-flesh, permanent-for-this-life union, most likely (but not definitely) for the sake of producing godly offspring for the glory of God and the good of the world.
With your identity, that is, your sense of self, and your purpose and happiness rooted already in God, you come to this person ready to give love and support and ready to trade value for value. Does this sound like a business transaction? It is similar in kind in that true value is not a zero sum game. Capitalism gets a bad name because of those who engage in it dishonestly in order to steal from others. But that is not capitalism. It is theft. It is crime. True capitalism can and should be perfectly loving. Consider that you have an old drill you don’t need because your friend gave you a new and better one. You don’t have room in your garage for two, so you decide you need to get rid of the old one. You thought you might give it to your other friend, but it turns out he has a better one already. You also realize you’d like to take your wife out for dinner, but you don’t have the money set aside for that. Maybe you could sell that drill you don’t need anymore to someone who needs it and has expendable income he’s been saving for a drill. You advertise online and within a day you get an offer that is acceptable to you. You meet up and trade the drill for dinner with your wife. You no longer have the problem of an extra drill and no money for dinner. Your “customer” no longer has the problem of no drill. Value has been created by the fact that not only has neither party taken advantage of the other, but dinner for you and your wife is more valuable to you than the drill was. The drill is more valuable to the other guy than his money was. To top it off, your wife, who gave up nothing at all, gets treated to dinner.
This is how capitalism should work, on the basis of justice and value for value. Why is this so? Because that is how God designed all just relationships to work. I’m not saying that a marriage or friendship should be modeled on a business transaction. I’m saying that a right relationship is a right relationship. An honest relationship is an honest relationship. It makes no difference whether two people are married or meeting one time in a parking lot to trade cash for a drill. How you show up as a true human is the very same. The only difference is in the degree of closeness.
So with my spouse, everything should be totally honest. I also believe that I should love everyone, especially her. So all my interactions with her are not only to be honest, but loving. I should want the very best for her for the sake of justice and righteousness in all our interactions. This costs me nothing, because no godly transaction is zero sum, meaning it is not win-lose. It can only be win-win, and value can only be created, not diminished, when conducted this way. If you conduct all your relationships the same way, the only difference being the commitment to closeness with those you’ve chosen to be closest to, you will have all great relationships, especially your marriage relationship.
Tomorrow let’s look at the word “discrimination” and see if there is not a good way to discriminate that is just.