In other words...

I'm not satisfied with the way my last post turned out- my logic on the whole issue of justice was unsound and it made my cause weak. This is not something I can afford to be weak about, because nothing, absolutely nothing, has ever seemed so viatlly important as this does right now. Maybe I'm just feeling emotional because I just read another article about the things going on in Haitti and it's gripping, compelling, heart-wrenching stuff.

And you know what it is that gets me the most about these stories? It's not just how absolutely awful everything is- although that is certainly the reason why we need to be doing something about it. The thing that brings tears to my eyes is the way the people in this situation, both the volunteers and the victims, have hope and joy and love for one another in spite of everything. I mean, that sounds corny, but it's true. I remember that about the stories Pastor Elbourne would tell when we Emmanuel people were in Lakeshore, Mississippi. Sometimes people are really selfish and they want you to replace their refrigerators before someone else even has somewhere dry to spend the night. But other times, people open their doors to one another and share even the few things that they have left to them.

There was one story in Readers Digest about a boy who was burried under rebel in Haiti with his sister and dead brother for eight days, and when resuce teams finally found him, he came out with a huge grin on his face. They asked him why he was smiling and he said, "I smiled because I was free. I smiled because I was alive." It's just ridiculous, because we're all free and we're all alive, but not very many of us are smiling when one tiny little thing doesn't go our way.

In truth I can't pretend to understand why God would let something like the earthquakes in Haiti and now Chillie to happen to nations of people who already had so little. As I pray about it, it's sometimes hard for me to accept the will of God in this area. I mean, why not smite America with something like this? It's not fair, by my own ideas of fairness.

And yet even here, I am selfish in my human nature. It's like I don't want the responsibility of having a happy family and plenty to eat and a healthy body and tons of time because everything is so perfectly provided for me. The guilt of it weighs me down and I tend to feel like it would be easier to be the victim, which probably shows just how little I actually understand about what it's like. That's one of the reasons I want to be involved somewhere where there is great need, so that I can better understand what suffering really is.

But I'm learning that this is not a matter of justice. Nothing, no matter how bad it is, has happened yet that is as bad as we all deserve it to be... if anything, these catastrophies only open the door for mercy to be shown, both by well-off people who would otherwise be self-absorbed in their own lives or by God himself, in sparing the lives of those that he did. Catastrophies are not the place where God's justcie can be contemplated, but rather His mercy.

The idea of injustice comes in, as we discussed in the comments on my last post, in asking the question, why are these people so poor to begin with? Is the government corrupt? Are people being forced to do things they shouldn't have to do? These questions are the things that should take us to the root of the problems, where we can fight with a zeal that is Godly- His indignation burns against these things much more than ours ever could.

I'm realizing my personal "calling" (if you'll excuse the expression) is not so much to the work of justice but to the work of mercy- I want to give food and warm blankets to those who are victimised by the system, and therefore even more victimised than they would be otherwise by providential disasters- rather than attacking the system at it's core. But it is very, very important that people be doing both. And that we all learn to be content with less and to think of others as more important than ourselves. That's basically what it comes down to.

Any last thoughts on the subject? Do you agree that there are two kinds of missionary works that need to be done in the world- one of justice, and the other of mercy? And that these reflect two co-existing elements of God's perfect character, and that it's right to emulate them both as much as we can in our daily lives?