Ours is a God of justice, says the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 30:18), and we, made in God’s image, are a people created to seek and sustain justice. It’s the “we” in that spiritual equation that gets lost on us in a hyper-individualized climate growing more siloed with each passing day of a divisive election season. While I might have my own desires for fairness, it’s when I hear the lived experiences of my neighbor that my particular convictions about what is fair become more than an individual preference; they become a communal clamoring for God’s justice for all people. As Rev. Dr. Amy Butler writes, “Whatever the solutions to our hardest, most painful societal problems, they can be found only in a space occupied by all of us.”
I was reminded of this earlier this week at a meeting of the Texas Impact Board of Directors in Austin. Texas Impact is a non-profit advocacy organization that “equips people of faith and conscience with information, opportunities, and outreach tools to educate their communities and engage with lawmakers on pressing public policy issues.” For three days, we—a group of interfaith and multi-denominational leaders from across the state—met to discern our legislative agenda for 2024-25. Informed by the commonalities of our faith traditions steeped in love of the Divine and our neighbor, we focused on four “main issue areas”: economic justice, human rights, climate justice, and civic participation. It was uplifting to be in the company of such a diverse mix of faith leaders, all of whom unanimously agreed on key areas of concern geared toward healing a hurting community and promoting social uplift.
But the biggest shot in the arm for me came when we broke into small groups to discuss our proposed agenda. My group was composed of Christians, a Quaker, and a Muslim. While we addressed things we might add or tweak, our Muslim peer quietly read through the agenda until, finally, we asked for his thoughts. With complete kindness, void of any shred of defensiveness, he said that the proposition under the topic of education that we “oppose preferential treatment for specific faiths” was vitally important to him. Specifically, he underlined a bullet point proposing that we “reject public school curricula that promotes sectarian religious content and elevates particular religious beliefs while undermining others.” And just like that, an individual preference for fairness became a communal clamoring for justice.
The thing is, as a Mainline Protestant Christian with a Baptist upbringing that is steeped in the importance of the separation of Church and State, I prefer that my children and the children in the congregation I serve be taught about the faith we uphold in church, not in school. To me, that is fair. It’s the right (and legal) thing to do. But when I see how using a curriculum that inserts Christian teachings into its lessons in settings where children from various faith traditions gather to learn, grow, and build relationships with one another can harm any child who is not Christian by celebrating some kids’ cultural identities and not others, consequently and overtly lifting some kids over other kids, I see more than mere unfairness; I see injustice. I see a dangerous recipe for further divisions among people made in the image of a God who yearns for covenantal community; in other words, a community built on relationships where we love our neighbor as we love ourselves, no matter who we are or where we come from, or how or even whether we worship.
God of justice, may we perceive your desire for justice by listening to one another. As Jesus often invited those with ears to hear, we pray that you would equip us, Holy one, with ears to hear your children who are hurting, your children who are undermined by our social shortsightedness, your children who need one another to survive and thrive in a siloed world that needs community. Help us to move beyond what is fair for some and toward what is just for all so that your kingdom would be realized on earth as it is in heaven. And may that good work begin with “we.” Amen.
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