Grace Community Boston
  • progressive
    • Progressive?
    • 10 things Progressive Christians DO
    • What you DON'T have to Believe
    • Progressive Christian Pins
  • emergent
    • Is Grace for you?
    • Our Story
    • Give
  • christian
    • Is Grace Christian?
  • community
    • Who
    • Connect
    • What
    • Staff
    • 5 Year Report
    • 2019 Annual Meeting Agenda
    • 2017 Christmas Service
  • Where & When
  • Blog

discipleship
in  chaos

Learn more about who we are by following our blog, written by our pastor, preacher, and chief evangelist. Engage in the everyday sacred as Abby writes about the deep and ordinary all at once.  
more about our staff

#5 the Struggle for Justice

10/22/2014

0 Comments

 
I struggle not for an immediate result, but because Jesus called me to struggle. Because we come face to face with Jesus and his beloved people the moment we enter the struggle.

Picture
Let’s be clear about Jesus: his #1 topic of conversation was money. His 1st choice for company were the poor and social outcasts. And his #1 sermon topic was the Kingdom of God. Don’t believe me? Read the New Testament and see what you find. Believe me? Read on.

There is a common thread that weaves these three things together: Jesus’ unshakable quest for justice. Defined by Webster, justice is fairness, equal treatment, and impartiality. Defined biblically, justice is love made public. It is the underpinning of Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of God, a place where everyone has a seat at God’s table. To achieve this just kingdom, Jesus knew the outcast must be welcomed into the very center of God’s beloved community and that a new economic order must be created. To achieve this, Jesus preached a new relationship with money. This new relationship was based on equity and generosity.

As a broken, imperfect christian, I have tried my best to live into a new relationship with money, but I cannot lie. I am part of a massive economic industrial complex in which I drive a minivan and buy my children cleats. Perhaps you might applaud my husband and my effort to be financially generous, to purchase less, to say no—at least occasionally—to our children’s and our own material desires. But let’s not sugarcoat things—I am nowhere near to living out Jesus’ vision for the kingdom of God. There are some radical christians out there doing it and I highly encourage you to check out their blogs, not mine. (Contact me and I’ll send you in the right direction).

How can I write about justice if I still participate in a system that leaves some hungry and others with too much? Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of God was something both earthly and heavenly. It was something present and available, but also beyond this broken world’s ability to create. That is why as christians we are called to struggle, if not achieve, the kingdom of God here on earth.

Progressive christians engage in the struggle for justice each and every day. I am proud that my religious heritage links me to the leaders of the anti-slavery, women’s suffrage, labor, civil rights, and anti-war movements. I am proud that today progressive christians struggle toward the kingdom of God by protecting the environment, promoting fair trade, helping immigrants, fighting sex trafficking, and providing clean water. Politically, progressive christians have supported reproductive rights, marriage equality, and nuclear disarmament, to name only a few of the crucial issues we engage in.

Just an awareness of these issues is exhausting. There is so much in this world that is broken, so much we must struggle against, so many systems that must be turned upside down if the kingdom of God is ever to be achieved. Is there any end to this struggle, any hope the kingdom will ever be achieved?

There is always hope. I know this from participating in the struggle. I know this from watching crowds gather to protest, witnessing christians spend their life committed to justice and who ultimately, through their life work, bring us closer to the kingdom. Look through history and you will see hope woven into the very fabric of time.  

But when O God, when, will the kingdom be achieved? We ask. We lament. I have no answer, but I am invested in the struggle. And I struggle not for an immediate result, but because Jesus called me to struggle. Because we come face to face with Jesus and his beloved people the moment we enter the struggle.

PS My blog has made no mention of the specific work that God’s faithful people are doing day in and day out. Want to be inspired by some people engaged in the struggle? Want to learn more about a particular topic? Email me: abbyhenrich@gmail.com. I’ll connect you.

 

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Abby Henrich

    Rev. Abigail A Henrich (ehm!) is an ordained minister who earned her stripes at Princeton Theological Seminary and Colgate University. That said, Abby is really a mother-pastor-spouse who lives in a kinetic state of chaos as she moves from her many vocations: folding laundry, preaching, returning phone calls, sorting lunch boxes, answering e-mails, and occasionally thinking deep thoughts in the shower. Unabashedly she is a progressive Christian who believes some shaking up has got to happen in the church.

    You can read more of Abby's writing on her own personal blog: abbyhenrich.weebly.com

    Categories

    All
    Advent
    Ash Wednesday
    Atonement
    Baptism
    Communion
    Community
    Confession
    Cross
    Easter
    Emergent Church
    Holy Spirit
    Hope
    Hospitality
    Immigration
    Jesus
    Justice
    Lent
    Love
    Motherhood
    Other Religions
    Peace
    Prayer
    Preaching
    Progressive Christianity
    Redemption
    Repentance
    Resurrection
    Thanksgiving
    Transformation
    Women

    Archives

    February 2019
    September 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    November 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • progressive
    • Progressive?
    • 10 things Progressive Christians DO
    • What you DON'T have to Believe
    • Progressive Christian Pins
  • emergent
    • Is Grace for you?
    • Our Story
    • Give
  • christian
    • Is Grace Christian?
  • community
    • Who
    • Connect
    • What
    • Staff
    • 5 Year Report
    • 2019 Annual Meeting Agenda
    • 2017 Christmas Service
  • Where & When
  • Blog