I suspect quite a few reading this article will already have decided to file it away as a useful reference for those particular Sundays when it’s time to look at mission/ social justice/global issues. Not a bad idea at all – I do that kind of thing all the time. But I want to suggest that, just like the proverbial Christmas puppy, justice is for life and not just for Tearfund Sunday/Christian Aid Week/Compassion Sunday or any others of that kind you might have at your church.
Some years ago, I helped put on The Justice and Worship Workshop for worship leaders in southeast England. A constant theme in delegates’ feedback was how rarely their churches incorporated justice themes into regular worship, and that the same songs and ideas were rolled out when they did. On the one hand this is not surprising, yet on the other it really is. After all, justice is at the very heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Right at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus announced his mandate was Isaiah 61/Leviticus 25, and declared that jubilee, the year of justice and rest for the dispossessed and the slave, was about to start. And that’s good news indeed for the poor.
