I’m just getting started with Craig Borlase’s new book, God’s Gravity: The Upside-Down Life of Selfless Faith. Borlase challenges us to move away from a self-absorbed “me-first” faith and towards a life of sacrifice and social justice. I hope to post more from this book as I move through it, but for now I wanted to share this from the first chapter.

A friend of his, Hugh, was speaking with a prominent member of his church, and they were discussing the work of another local church in the community. The church was planning to show up at a local council estate and spend some time helping out the folks there by doing various clean up and repair projects, as well as just spending time with them. Hugh thought it was a good idea. His friend, however, had a different opinion. Speaking of his own church, his friend replied “‘Oh, well, I don’t think we’re quite ready for that sort of thing around here.’” Borlase writes:

Over lunch we talked about the reasons why such a statement was true. We came to one conclusion: putting faith into action, seeing service as spiritual currency, simply didn’t make sense to the man. He was right. He and many others in the church weren’t ready for it. Why? Because the link between what they believed and what they ought to do about the surrounding chaos of poverty and oppression had not yet been formed. Put another way, they simply did not feel that offering practical help to other people was their responsibility.

Later, he discusses two categories of justice - divine and human. We have no control over divine justice - God dispenses it as he sees fit. But human justice we can control, at least to some degree. It is up to us and our willingness to act. He continues:

But human justice is hard work. It demands that a price be paid, and it comes without that concrete, identifiable reward or receipt. That is why Hugh’s friend simply wasn’t ready for it. After all, why bother with human justice when you can pray and praise and sing and leave it all up to God to hand out the divine variety?

It’s tempting, undoubtedly. But we ignore everything that God chose to reveal to us about Himself if we declare human justice off the menu. We need it, desperately. We were made “in His image,” destined to reflect the character of the Creator. And what can be said about that character? He is involved, intimately, and demands that we do likewise.

The narrative of the Bible screams at us from every page. We are meant to be involved. We are meant to act. We are meant to be agents of social justice on the earth. We are meant to assume responsibility for our part of the deal. Of course, the divine stuff we can leave up to God, but the human part is fully up to us.

He talks a lot about responsibility. I think for too long I felt the way that perhaps Hugh’s friend felt - this isn’t really my responsibility. Those who need my aid probably don’t deserve it because of some of the choices they’ve made. All the while, I managed to ignore the fact that I don’t deserve my position in this life, yet God has been merciful to and abundantly blessed me. Why would He do this - why bless me and not others? Why do some receive justice in this world and others do not?

Perhaps Christians too often ignore this responsibility, or at least avoid it. God is able to bless everyone, but it doesn’t necessarily come directly from Him. I believe that justice in this world will not be brought about only by direct action from God. He’s given us a responsibility as well, which is made clear in Matthew 25, to name one example. Some of His blessing and justice must come through His hands in this world. It took a while to realize it, I suppose, but I’ve come to believe that this is why I’ve been blessed - so that He can do the same to others through me. That’s the responsibility He’s given me. That’s the responsibility I must not ignore.