When we mature, God moves from being merely an object of our affection to becoming present in the world around us. Every human becomes an icon for the hidden face of Christ in our midst. The first stage of spiritual awakening is to see God as the focus of our adoration as we encounter Christ’s love and forgiveness. However, those initial feelings and zeal can wane. Rather than thinking we are taking a backwards step in our faith, we might recognize the invitation from God to allow God to move from being an object of worship to permeating the world around us, most profoundly seeing Christ in the face of our fellow humans. God becomes the lens through which we see the world - when Christ embodies himself in “the least of these” he is inviting us to seek out new revelation of himself in those who need our help.
Our repentance is evidence that God’s mission to reveal His justice has pierced our very hearts, and our participation in God’s mission to reveal His justice to this world is the evidence of our repentance. At the moment we hear the message or glimpse a vision of the world that God is recreating, and begin to discern the dissonance between that world and ours, is the moment that God’s kingdom reaches into our heart. If repentance is entrance into the world made right, then the church is the glimpse of that world made right.
God is not limited to only working through Christians to bring justice upon the world. We can bless wherever we see God’s justice coming to the earth, and we can speak up when we see unjust practices perpetrated by human institutions. Part of our struggle is that we are so entrenched in politics because it’s the new religion - it gives us a sense of belonging, meaning, and a concrete worldview. Even as American Christians we can see “justice” through a partisan lens that may become a blindspot to advocating for human dignity. Part of the work of salvation is, as we are found more and more “in Christ”, we are able to see what is going in the world about us and critique political claims that run contrary to God’s will.
Justice, in the eyes of God, is the great leveling of humanity towards a “common good”. After the Fall, fear and competition settle in quickly, we become in-human, negating the image-of-Godness in our fellow humans. We create whole systems that scatter and show favorability, mountains and valleys of human value. Biblical justice is primarily seen as restoration of dignity for all image-bearing humans, and not simply retribution for wrongdoing. Righteousness (tzedekah) and justice (mishpat) are related terms that speak of our legal obligations and moral aspirations towards those who are in the valley. Any type of “justice” that increases human disparity is not God’s justice.
When we are lulled to sleep by the evil of the present moment, we must lift our eyes to the horizon to remember what is Good, and where we are heading. It is so easy to believe that what we are perceiving now in the fog is all that is true, and that this world is irredeemable. Scripture invites us to lift our heads above the fog to gain perspective - looking back to remember what God considers good, and looking forward to see our destination, so that we might be ready to advocate for good against evil in our present moment.
It is not enough to merely sing songs and celebrate our holy days. These things should prepare us to partner with God in the healing of the world. It’s easy to critique “the Western Church” for hypocrisy - but what about us? Real worship reminds us of God’s character and will; conforms our will to God’s; and then prompts us to do the work we have been given to do in our day. We address the pain of the world from the perspective of God, not modern ideologies.
We participate in lifting up the world to God in our hearts through our intercessory prayers, saying “Your will be done”. Some of us think we’re bothering a still-faced God when we pray; but to intercede is to carefully consider what we know God’s will to be and to come into agreement with it - we look at the world through the lens of Christ. Sometimes the anxiety we feel about the world around us is the groaning of the Spirit within, and an invitation to intercede. Intercession, when rightly held, spurs us to right action - we are formed by the “amen” to God’s will and set out to become God’s hands and feet.
Our faith is not merely an exchange of ideas, but of tangible actions through which we connect God to the world. The laying of hands in prayer is symbolic, but it means more than that. In a world marred by no touch or bad touch, healing touch repairs and restores. We become more vulnerable, more open when we are connected tangibly. When lay hands on one another, we become the hands of Jesus to bless, heal, deliver, and empower.
Confession opens us up to the continual forgiveness of God so we might choose back into love. We are not what we do. However, what we do speaks of who we think we are. And who we really are is determined by Who gave us the gift of life. Sin is not what separates us from God; it is what draws God close to us so we might be reconciled. It was the human God’s merciful solidarity that healed shame and guilt, climaxing in the cross: “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”.
By naming both our passions and limitations, we are better able to discern how God is inviting each of us to help repair the world. We often suffer from paralysis when it comes to justice - we can’t do it all, so sometimes we do next-to-nothing, keeping our heads down. Yet God created us with limitations that we are meant to bless, not as an excuse but to embrace our smallness and better discern how we can contribute.