
The word of the day is JUST.
I’ve been thinking about it a lot for the past two weeks because we hear it so much in the media these days. And here’s the thing about this small but powerful word: It can elevate humanity or diminish it.
First the elevated.
We're in the midst of an awakening, calling ourselves and challenging ourselves to rethink what is fair and just. Can we find a path to treating all people—not just the ones who look, sound, think, and believe like us—with justice and respect? We don’t all agree on what “just” looks like, but we’re at least talking about it, aspiring to it.
It might help to revisit the “just” that God calls us to:
Defend the poor and fatherless:
do justice to the afflicted and needy.
Psalm 82:3
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just,
whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report;
if there be any virtue,
and if there be any praise,
think on these things.
Phillippians 4:8
[Christ speaking to his disciples]:
A new commandment I give unto you,
That ye love one another;
as I have loved you,
that ye also love one another.
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples,
if ye have love one to another.
John 13:34-35
For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty;
only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh,
but by love serve one another.
For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this;
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Galatians 5:13-14
Loving each other as Christ loved us, which is to say, unconditionally and sacrificially—that goes way beyond the human definition of “just,” which we generally take to mean what we deserve as human beings, what we have a right to. Christ said give love even when it hasn’t been “earned.” Even when you don’t think it’s deserved. Give it freely. Put others before yourself.
It’s such a short command but such a high one: “Love one another as I have loved you.”
And now for the diminishing “just.”
It's an all too human one, I think, because it's a way of keeping a very scary contagion at arm's length: It’s just the elderly. It’s just people with other health problems. It’s just poor people without good doctors. It’s just the deaths we need to pay attention to.
Most of us could name plenty of elderly friends and family we aren't ready to give up, people who have lived long and rich lives, with still more to give, more life to enjoy, and plenty of wisdom to share. We know young people with preexisting health conditions. We have middle-aged friends and family who are otherwise healthy except for one manageable chronic issue. We have sense enough to know that struggling communities deserve our help, not our scorn.
I don’t shock that easily any more. None of us do, given the barrage of media coming at us every day, all day long, but “just the deaths” shocks me every time I see it.
“The deaths” aren’t numbers, they’re people—somebody’s mother, father, son or daughter, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, or grandparent. Each one of them represents a family that will never be the same.
Health care workers and first responders aren’t risking their lives and the health of their families for the dead, but for the living—to try and keep them that way. And in the process, some of them become one of “the deaths.”
Next time you hear or read “the deaths,” replace it in your mind with “beloved family members tragically lost.”
JUST.
My prayer, this Sunday morning, is that we can embrace “whatsoever things" are honest, just, pure, and lovely—God’s “just”—and banish the other from our hearts and our vocabulary. We're called to love and never diminish each other, now more than ever.