Show Notes
In this episode of Peaceable and Kind, Derek Vreeland explores the theme of justice through personal storytelling and biblical insights. He reflects on his emotional experience at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Dr. King Memorial, emphasizing the importance of understanding justice as a biblical concept rather than a political one. Derek encourages listeners to recognize their own ‘justice burdens’ and engage in prayer and action to address injustices in their communities, highlighting that justice is a collective responsibility of the people of God.
Scriptures mentioned in this episode:
Psalm 33:4-5
Psalm 97:2
Proverbs 21:15
Deuteronomy 27:19
1 Chronicles 18:14
Isaiah 42:1-3
Matthew 12:15-21
Matthew 23:23
Matthew 5:6
Books mentioned in this podcast:
The Deeply Formed Life by Rich Villodas
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Transcript
Narrator: Welcome to Peaceable and Kind, the podcast where we explore the transformation. Of living out Jesus’ call to peace and kindness in our everyday lives. Each week your host, Derek Vreeland, will delve into the stories, scriptures, and practical steps that help us embody these essential Christian virtues.
Derek Vreeland: Welcome back to another episode of Peaceable and Kind. I am your one-man host. Derek Vreeland, and thank you for joining me for this episode. And let me invite you to leave a rating or a review if you haven’t already. I appreciate that. And if you have comments or questions about peaceable and kind, I’d love for you to hit me up on social media. I am at Derek Vreeland on Instagram, on the platform formerly known as Twitter. I’m on Blue Sky. I’m on Facebook. And I’d love for you to reach out to me on social media and let me know what you think about the podcast. I have heard from a number of people just recently who have reached out to mention a certain episode, have thanked me for interviewing. various guests, and we want to continue to do that. I want to both create podcasts that is good, helpful, encouraging Christian content that’s just me talking to you. But I also want to continue conversations. I’ve enjoyed those very much. So hit me up on social media. Let me know what you think about these episodes. And if you haven’t already, make sure you subscribe wherever you’re listening to this podcast. And if you like this episode in particular, would you consider sharing it with a friend? Today, we’re going to talk about the topic of justice. I want to start by sharing a story. You know, we are a storytelling people. I think that we really become the stories that we believe and the stories that we tell. One of the ways that we get to know people is by listening to their story. So when I meet someone new and at my church, this is one of the things that I do. I connect with New people who are visiting our church or checking out our church. And often when I meet with someone brand new for the very first time and I sit down with a cup of coffee, I open the conversation with a question and I ask them, so why don’t you tell me your story? We are not just the facts about us Of course, I could give you my age, I could give you my ethnicity, I could give you my eye color, hair color, height, weight, I could give you facts about me. But that’s not really going to help you to get to know me. If I want to share about myself, I’ll start telling stories. Because we are storytelling people. So as we think about the topic of justice, I want to start with a story. This is one of my favorite stories. This is back In 2017, when I first visited the National Mall in Washington, D. C. It was springtime and I was in DC for a conference and I’d gotten there a day early and was staying in a hotel not very far from the National Mall. And I quickly discovered the joy of the metro. So I’ve always grown up and lived in places that There’s not a lot of public transportation. Where I’ve lived, you normally drive yourself from place to place. But being in DC, my friends were all telling me, now don’t rent a car. Traffic is crazy. Just Uber where you need to go Uh but what I discovered was for $10 I could get a Metro card and the Metro would take me wherever I want to go And where I was staying was near a metro station. So I got the card, hopped on the metro, and it dropped me off right at the National Mall. And I was excited to explore the sites. I have been a fan of history. My particular interest is in church history and ancient history, Roman Greco culture, and that kind of antiquity, ancient history. But I love all kind of history. So of course American history. And so I wanted to see the sites. And so I had my map in hand and I was walking from site to site One of the places I knew I wanted to visit was the wall, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. This is a wall, it’s near the uh Lincoln Memorial, and it is a wall of these black granite slabs and etched in the granite are the names of fifty-eight thousand. I believe it’s fifty-eight thousand, maybe fifty-six thousand uh men and women who lost their lives in the Vietnam conflict. And I wanted to visit that wall In part because my father is a Vietnam veteran, and I felt it was necessary for me to have the experience of seeing those names. Little did I know that it would have such a powerful emotional effect on me. So Malcolm the National Mall, which is a beautiful place, Uh it’s springtime, as I mentioned, so it’s lush, it’s green, there’s trees, and I break off the main pathway under this little gravel walk uh to get to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. And I see it there in the distance. And it’s built into a berm, into a grassy hill. And as I walk towards it, I think, well, I don’t have time to read every name, but I want to stop and look at every granite panel. And all the names that are there. And as you walk along the memorial, the granite slabs get higher and higher. And as you follow the pathway along the memorial, it breaks off to the left, at least in the way I was going. So it forms kind of an L And when I was at the junction of that L, right at the middle, the granite was taller than me. And I was looking at all of those names of young men who lost their lives in this war. And I was overcome with emotion. Tears started to come to my eyes. And a part of me wanted to run. I wanted to get away from it. But I had made a commitment to myself, no, I’m gonna look at each panel. And as I’m making my way then out of the memorial, and the granite panels are getting smaller and smaller, I saw flowers, I saw someone leave um a little note card that had a scripture on it. And I stepped away and the first thing I did is I found a park bench and I called my dad. And that was a great conversation. Told him about my experience at the memorial. I thanked him for his service. But I didn’t explain in that moment in that phone call how deeply disturbed I was. At the number of people who had died, thousands and thousands of people. And it was weighing heavy on me. And even though it was a beautiful spring day, my heart was, it felt dark, it felt heavy, it felt foreboding. But I had time, so I continued the tour and I went up to the Lincoln Memorial, which is massive And in the moment I was not impressed. You know, there’s a sign over Lincoln, this temple forever erected in memorial of Abraham Lincoln. And I just remember thinking, So what? I mean, I just experienced all of this this death and suffering at this other memorial. And so I walked out of the Lincoln Memorial. And I’m looking out into the parade ground, and I look at my feet and I see the words, I have a dream. And then I came to myself and I remembered where I was standing. This was the place that Martin Luther King stood and delivered his very famous I Have a Dream speech. And so I thought, well, I need to go see the Dr. King memorial. So I I I looked at my map and I figured out where it was. It’s a little bit off of the mall. You got to cross the road. And so I I made my way. I wanted to see the Dr. King memorial. I passed the very ominous uh Korean War Veterans Memorial. It’s very kind of foreboding in its own right But I followed the path, crossed the street, and I came up on the back side of the Dr. King memorial. And it looks like there is this like stone hill or mountain And a section of it has been pushed out. And as you get closer, you see that this is the mountain of despair. And what has been pushed out is this very large relief of Dr. King himself And so I’m taking all that in. And then I looked, and behind the memorial, there are all of these quotes from Dr. King. And I was still feeling so weighted down by the sorrow and the suffering of the Vietnam War after experiencing what I did there at that memorial. And I thought, well, I’ll I’ll take a moment here at the Dr. King Memorial. And just like I looked at each of the black granite slates with names of those who had died in Vietnam. So I’m going to read each of the quotes at the Dr. King Memorial. And so I read what are some of the most famous quotes from Doctor King. I read things like We shall overcome, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. I also read Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Another plaque there that I read said, It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but the positive affirmation of peace. And finally, I read, true peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice. And after reading all those quotes from Dr. King, I felt this strange calm come upon me. I felt this strange peace. I’d call it the peace of God I felt like all of that heaviness lifted and my heart felt light again. I felt like my soul had been restored And what did it was that word justice. For a long time I had a very cartoonish vision of justice. For the longest time, as an adult and as a pastor, I thought justice is about law enforcement That justice is when the good guys catch the bad guys after the bad guys have done something bad, and they haul the bad guys off to jail. That was how I defined justice for the longest time. It was about punishment. It was punitive. What I didn’t know is that the word justice itself is a Bible word. Justice belongs to the people of God because justice is one of the themes of our scriptures. And it’s sad to me that justice, particularly social justice, seems to get associated with one side of the political spectrum Just like with so many things in our culture, justice has been co-opted by politicians. And what I have learned, particularly in the last seven or eight years, is that justice doesn’t belong first and foremost to the world of politics. Though certainly politics affects justice, justice belongs to the people of God And so I will encourage you to do what I’ve done over the years and go to your favorite Bible searching website. or if you have software on your computer or if you have a Bible app on your phone, go to your preferred translation of the Bible and just search for the word justice. I did that again today in preparation for this podcast episode, and I just chose the ESV, the English Standard Version. And I searched for the word justice and it appears over a hundred and thirty times. Does that surprise you? If the Bible uses a word more than a hundred times, I think that Christians who are formed and shaped by the scriptures. ought to have some sort of understanding at least what justice means from the point of view of the scriptures. And so when I speak of justice, or sometimes I’ll speak of social justice, because all justice is social. Justice has to do with social relationships. Cornell West says that justice is what love looks like in public. So justice is is always public, it’s always social. So The term social justice or the word itself justice for me, when I’m using those terms, I’m using it with a biblical definition. So you can find that word in the Bible over a hundred times. Let me give you just a couple of verses. Again, I could do all 130 plus, but I’ve just pulled out a couple. And we’ll put a list of these scripture verses in the show notes. But let me just walk you through some scriptures that speak of the word justice. Let’s start in the Psalms. If you know me by now, you know that I love the Psalms, that I lean into the Psalms as a part of my prayer and devotional life. I don’t read the Psalms like I read other parts of the scriptures. I use the Psalms as a language of prayer. But in looking up the word justice and doing this little word study in the scriptures, it appears about 20 times in the Psalms. Here’s one reference: Psalm 33, verses 4 and 5 For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. Justice isn’t tangential to God and God’s work in the world because God loves righteousness and justice. In Psalm 97, it says that justice and righteousness, these are the very foundations of the throne of God. Where else does justice appear in the scriptures? Let’s let’s stay in the in the Old Testament. We’re here in Psalms. What about Proverbs? Proverbs 21:15 says. . When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous, but terror to the evildoers. . God loves justice, and justice brings joy to the righteous, those who want to do right things In the Old Testament law, there is references to justice. Deuteronomy 27, 19. Cursed be any one who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, that is the traveler, that is the uh foreigner among us Curse be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, to the fatherless, and the widow, and all the people shall say amen. The Old Testament law had provisions to serve who were the weakest and the most vulnerable among the ancient Israelites, in particular orphans, widows, and those who are foreigners 1 Chronicles 1814, speaking about King David, who became the greatest of all the kings of Israel David becomes the model for kingship over Israel. 1 Chronicles 18:14. So David reigned over all Israel, and he administered justice. and equity to all his people. And then no one in the Old Testament speaks more about justice than the prophet Isaiah Some Bible scholars have spoken of Isaiah as the fifth gospel, in addition to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Because Isaiah has so much to say about Jesus, so many prophecies about the coming Jewish king, the Messiah, who we believe is Jesus. But Isaiah 42, listen to these verses. This is verse 1 through 3. Isaiah writes, Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen. in whom my soul delights, I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the nations He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break. A faintly burning wick he will not quench. He will faithfully bring forth justice And this is a prophecy hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus that is speaking about the coming Jewish king, the Messiah. And Matthew, in his gospel, in the New Testament, connects these verses in Isaiah 42 with Jesus We find this in Matthew 12, verses 15 through 21, which says, Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. and many followed him, and he healed them all, and ordered them not to make him known. This was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved, with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my spirit upon him and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles, that is the nations. Here Matthew is quoting from Isaiah 42. Matthew continues, He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will any one hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break a smoldering wick he will not quench until he brings justice to victory, and in his name the Gentiles will hope. So Matthew in the New Testament sees the words of Isaiah in Isaiah 42 speaking about the Messiah proclaiming justice. to the nations, to the foreign nations, that is to the Gentile nations. Matthew sees all of that being fulfilled in Jesus. When Jesus comes proclaiming the kingdom of God. and demonstrating that kingdom’s power by healing people. For Matthew, the healing ministry of Jesus is a part of his messianic mission to bring justice. For those who are suffering with sickness and disease, it is just and right for us to care for them and to bring healing So Matthew connects Isaiah’s words with Jesus, and then Jesus himself speaks of justice in criticizing the Pharisees. This is Matthew 23, 23. Jesus says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law justice, mercy, and faithfulness. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others So Jesus reaches back into the Old Testament law and says: the important things, the weightier matters of the law, are things like justice. And so you don’t see the word justice as frequently in the New Testament. You see it more in the Old Testament. Often the concept justice in the New Testament is hidden under the word righteousness. Often in the New Testament, when you when you see the word righteousness, not always, but sometimes, It really means justice. The Greek word that is translated righteousness in our English Bibles is the Greek word dikaiosune. And it is the word historically in the Greek language for the word justice. So when Aristotle lays out his cardinal virtues, The virtues of prudence and temperance, courage and justice, that word justice is decayosune So often in the New Testament, when you see the word righteousness, it often is the word justice because it’s the Greek word dikyosune. The context helps to understand. One example where we see righteousness really meaning justice is Jesus speaking in the Beatitudes. Matthew 5, verse 6. In the Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. What Jesus means there is not righteousness in terms of right standing with God Jesus is not saying, Blessed are those who hunger for people to be made right with God. Rather, Jesus is talking about those who hunger and thirst for justice. Throughout the scriptures, justice and righteousness are often connected. And think about those words in terms of justness and rightness. The word righteousness means rightness, and sometimes Dikayosune, translated righteousness, does refer to our right standing with God. There’s some places in Paul’s letters where we see that. But here in Matthew 5 in the Beatitudes, when Jesus uses the word righteousness, he’s thinking about rightness or justness, that is things being done right and just Dikaosune, translated justice sometimes, sometimes translated righteousness, means giving people what they are due. But a Jesus-informed definition for justice, at least for me, is justice is more about God’s work. To set right a world gone wrong. So justice as a biblical concept and justice as the work of God is God’s work of setting things right. Because again, justice, justness is rightness. God recognizes that we humans have made a mess of things down here And God’s work going all the way back to the calling of Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 has been to set right. The world that he loves, this world that has gone wrong. So in this regard, justice belongs to the people of God. Politicians might use the word justice or social justice in a positive or negative way, and I’m not concerned so much with how politicos use the term. I want to know how the word is used in scripture. And recognize that the concept and the practice of justice belongs to me and you as followers of Jesus. So if justice Is God’s work of setting right a world gone wrong? Then it’s the task of the church to make disciples fit for that mission. God has invited us to work alongside the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit in this work of justice, in this work of setting things right. And so if we recognize that’s a part of what we’re called to do, we need to discern what can we do as individuals? To work for the things that make for peace, to work for justice. One of the things I have found helpful is to discern what is your justice burden. This concept came to me from Rich Velotis in his book The Deeply Formed Life. He talks about how we each have different justice burdens. It seems like in a local church, different people are burdened by different injustices. Maybe it is global poverty Maybe it is substandard housing in your own community. Maybe it is those who struggle with mental health issues. Maybe it is the victims of domestic abuse. Maybe it’s widows in your community that are left with no resources. Maybe it is homebound, elderly folks in your city or town that have no one to look after them. Maybe it’s orphans in your community. It seems like we have different burdens related to certain injustices So when we recognize that justice belongs to us, that justice is God’s work and we’re invited to join God in setting things right, we have to ask ourselves, what am I burdened by? One of my ongoing burdens, justice burdens, over the years, has been racial injustice and racism, which still exists in our world And I recognize that not everyone shares that justice burden, and that’s okay. But it is important for us as the people of God to recognize that there are Many different kinds of injustices in the world. So what can we do? Well, we can certainly discern our own justice burdens. and employ energy and effort in that area. And we can also pray. This is a part of our Work as the people of God is we pray, we lament, that is, we sum up the pain and the ache Of injustice in our world, those things in our world that’s not right. We sum all that up and we bring it into the presence of God in prayer. And we ask God, we we pray, we say, Lord, how long will these people continue to suffer? How long, O Lord, will these injustices continue? Oh Lord, would you be merciful? Oh Lord, would you move and act? So we discern our burdens because there are some things that we can do to bring justice in our communities. But we also pray. It’s not one or the other. It’s not spirituality or action. It’s both. Both prayer and acting according to how God has burdened us So if we can begin to see that justice belongs to us, it’s a part of our identity as the people of God. Then God can begin to use us to bring justice in just small ways in our communities and around the world. If we want to see more peace and kindness in our world, we have to recognize the injustices around us. Pray and ask God, what can we do to bring rightness and justness in our communities? Well, that’s all we have for today. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode. Go in peace and be kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.