Faith Based Justice Part 4: Jesus was Made Man

I expect that Jesus’ humanity resulted in more enemies than his divinity.  That Jesus did not meet the expectations of a god or of a messiah* should not upset people who thought he was neither God nor messiah.  As a human, though, Jesus ignored social niceties to spend time with the bad folks.  That bothered people because he did not meet the expectations of a good person.  Jesus was made man and showed us, his fellow humans, what humanity is all about. This is why I am an advocate for social justice.     

Jesus so closely shared his life with marginalized people that his enemies called him a “friend of sinners.”

Talking about social justice and sinners is dangerous and clarification is necessary.  First, I do not believe that marginalized people are inherently marginalized based on their own sinfulness.  Jesus explained in John 9, as an example, that neither the blind man nor his parents sinned so egregiously to cause blindness.  

Second, I do not take the opposite view and say that sin is consequence-free.  Reading human history through the lens of Christianity shows clearly that sin does have consequences.  Sometimes we will encounter someone who made a bad choice that results in marginalization.  Let’s assume that a marginalized person is normally not marginalized of her own doing unless we have evidence to suggest otherwise, though**. 

Third, an advocate for social justice is not authorized to judge a person’s worthiness of compassion.  The question of responsibility is moot as it relates to compassion***.  Even when a person is indeed guilty of something that makes marginalization necessary – imprisoning a serial drunk driver for example – the responsibility of the advocate continues to ensure that a punishment is fair.

If these clarifications – perhaps even qualifications – are necessary when talking about sin and social justice, why take the risk and bring up that Jesus was a friend of sinners when talking about how his humanity effects what I think about social justice, then?  

I do so primarily because Jesus’ friendliness with anyone means I cannot say, “Well, so and so brought it on himself.”  Jesus did not say this to the woman caught in adultery.  He stood in the way of an unjust punishment that only applied to one person caught.  Jesus did not say to the woman at the well, “I rebuke you,” but rather sat with her and explained much of his purpose.  Jesus did not say to Zacchaeus – perhaps the very definition of an oppressor – that fellowship was broken.  Instead, they ate and Zacchaeus repented.  Bringing it on oneself does not mean a person forfeits his humanity.

A second idea that I want to propose is that Jesus let the sinner participate in making the unfair fair.  This goes beyond Zacchaeus returning what he unfairly collected.  Tax collectors were hated by much of the Jewish community in Jesus’ time and place.  Matthew was still asked to be an apostle.  We have no reason to think that he was different from his co-workers.  In Jesus’ just kingdom, some of the folks who worked to make the world unjust are part of turning it around.

Perhaps as important, we need to be sure that we use the word sinner properly.  At some point – probably recently – you sinned and I sinned.  It would be fair to call us sinners because we carry out a verb, similar to the way I am a writer because I put fingers to keyboard.  We are part of the group that Jesus would befriend.  

Sinner seems to have a deeper meaning in the accusation, however.  It implies a person who is inferior to the speaker in some way.  I suspect a fair paraphrase would be, “Jesus is friends with those kinds of people.”  Jesus was friends with tax collectors, with prostitutes, with Samaritans, with a woman who had several marriages and sexual partners, with lepers, with unclean people.  The list continues.  In this list, sin isn’t necessarily a question of morality.  It is a question of who the speaker is not.  

I have been trying to figure out what it means to be a friend of sinners.  An idea struck me while reading The Lost Highway by David Adams Richards: Jesus’ incarnation was, among other things, an illustration of what it is to be a loving and forgiving person.  I think this illustration is an example of justice.  

In Richards’ novel, Alex Chapman is a former seminary student who no longer believes in God.  He decides that forgiveness is irrelevant.  Instead, he wants approval – of his actions and presumably his motives.  He also judges people by this standard.  For Alex, disapproving of someone creates the sort of moral juggling that allows him to think that it is right to steal a winning lottery ticket.  (I’m halfway through the book and have no idea whether his thievery will be successful.)

I think that the people who accused Jesus of being a friend of sinners fall into the same trap of approval and disapproval that Alex Chapman does.  We never see Jesus overlooking sin.  His reaction to sin does not remove humanness, however.  Jesus offered forgiveness, the extreme opposite of the “those people” attitude that I suspect his accusers had.  Jesus wanted to restore humanity in spite of sin.  If we do the opposite – replace forgiveness with approval and disapproval – we have to judge whether someone is worthy of justice.  

Forgiveness assumes that everyone messes up and the assumption puts everyone on level ground.  Part of what it means to love justice is to do nothing to reduce a person’s dignity, while doing everything possible to help restore a person to her full humanness.  Forgiveness means we do that no matter what and Jesus’ life shows that this is indeed possible.  That is why forgiveness – being a friend of sinners – is a crucial component of social justice.  Even when so and so brought it on himself.

*Perhaps I should write “does not meet the expectations...”

**I wrote more about the intersection of justice and mercy here.

***The question is certainly not moot when considering other aspects of marginalization, however.  In particular, we better ask who is responsible for any oppression that we witness.