by Gavan O’Farrell

Introduction

It seems to me that the Christian Church today is as divided as it has ever been. The denominational differences do not matter as much as they used to, but the spectrum within each large denomination is wide. Like any spectrum, each possesses what might be called an extreme right and an extreme left wing. I have seen, felt and deplored the single-mindedness and arrogance one finds at each extreme, and I hope to see this mutual disdain replaced by, as a starting-point, curiosity and inquisitiveness. In the meantime, the ongoing bickering just gives Our Lord bad press: instead of our being respected by association with Him, He is rejected by association with us.

While there is direct disagreement between Christian groups on some issues, most difference that I have noticed is really a matter of emphasis: each extreme is preoccupied with its priorities. I would call the Right “God-specialists” because they tend to read the Love Commandment as if it were written as follows:

“You must love the Lord your God with all your mind and all your strength and all your heart, and love your neighbour as yourself”.

I would call the Left “Neighbour-specialists” as though the Commandment were given as:

“You must love the Lord your God with all your mind and all your strength and all your heart, and love your neighbour as yourself”.

We are supposed to be mindful of the whole idea, of course, but some of us tend to “lean” one way: it is possible to lean so much that half the Commandment is virtually ignored. For better or worse, we are stuck with the whole of God’s word, just as we are stuck with the whole of God, and we should pause before reading and acting selectively.

I have been interested to locate some ground on which these disparate groups (who- and wherever they are) might meet. As I had particularly noticed that the God Specialists seldom mention social justice, and that the Neighbour Specialists seldom mention the Holy Spirit—both indispensable, I would have thought—I wondered what would happen if it were to emerge that the Holy Spirit is interested in social justice. For example, the God Specialists would have to pursue social justice (as a priority), and the Neighbour Specialists would have to regard justice as God’s agenda and not their own.

Before proceeding, I pause to recognise the danger I run of being presumptuous and simplistic here. I am aware that many apparent God Specialists are more interested in justice than they appear to be: many pursue it privately, or simply say less about it. Similarly, many apparent Neighbour Specialists are more interested in the Holy Spirit than would appear: their piety might be private and quiet, like the generosity of some of the God Specialists. I am not speaking of these Christians, but of those who really are ignoring half of the Love Commandment. All going well, there aren’t too many, but I suspect that there are enough to make the discussion worthwhile. I believe that you will know whether or not your church is being described here: “If the cap fits, wear it”.

Holy Spirit and justice—Scripture

Rather than lure you to the conclusion, I will state up-front that I believe that the Holy Spirit has a very strong active interest in social justice. Before saying why, there are three cautionary points to make:

a.. first, I am not saying that social justice is the Holy Spirit’s only interest, just a very definite interest;

b.. second, I am not suggesting that the Holy Spirit acts “alone”, either in relation to social justice or anything else —not forgetting that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and Jesus Christ (eg Rm 8:2);

c.. finally, I do not claim to be making a novel or difficult point, just a true and relevant one.

We know that Jesus was intensely interested in justice. He had other interests, of course, but justice was clearly high on His agenda: it is clear from His words, both when He described the focus of His ministry at its beginning by quoting from Isaiah (Lk 4:16-21, Mt 12:15-18, Is 42:1, 61:1-2) and later when His ministry was underway (eg Mt 23:23, Lk 11:42, Mt 25:37-40), and is supported by the company He kept (eg Mt 11:18-19, Lk 14:12-14).

This Jesus was Spirit-filled: He had the Holy Spirit with Him throughout his recorded earthly life. It brought about his birth, was present at his baptism and drove him into the desert for testing (Lk 1:35, Mt 1:18, Lk 3:22, Mk 1:12, Lk 4:1). Significantly, the Spirit launched Jesus’ ministry (Lk 4:14), and Jesus knew it (Lk 4:18). Jesus rejoiced and cast out demons in the Spirit (Lk 10:21, Mt 12:28). At the end, he breathed the Spirit into his friends (Jn 20:22).

Because Jesus and the Holy Spirit were necessarily acting in unison (eg Rm 8), we can conclude immediately that the nature of Jesus’ ministry is itself the clearest indication of the mission of the Holy Spirit—that the Spirit tends towards passion, service, sacrifice, intimacy with those whom the world discards (lepers, tax-collectors, prostitutes and various “others”), confrontation with those who do the discarding (and who preside over this state-of-affairs) and all the other hallmarks of Jesus’ ministry.

The Holy Spirit, then, was on the scene well before Pentecost. And sooner, that is, in the Old Testament—the Spirit who, according to the Nicene Creed, “has spoken through the prophets”. We know this Spirit was concerned with justice as early as in the Book of Numbers (Nm 11:17) and prompted some of the prophets to speak heatedly and forcefully about justice (eg Is 1:11-25, 3:14-15, 5:5-7, 58:3-10; Am 4:1-3, 5:10-24; Mi 2:2-3, 6:10-12).

The nature of the Holy Spirit’s interest in justice

Because God is interested in justice, you would expect God’s Spirit to be (again, Rm 8:2). Why is God interested in justice? I suggest it is because God is interested in the righteousness of each individual and of humanity itself, and also in His rapport with each. Everything fell apart at the Fall: humans fell away from God (Gn 3:7-10), humanity itself fell apart (Gn 3:12; 4:8) and humanity and the preferred world parted company (Gn 3:17-19). God’s comprehensive agenda of restoration and reconciliation naturally addresses everything—God sent His Son because He so loved the world (Jn 3:16)— although our emphasis has tended to be on the salvation of individuals, often at the expense of other considerations.

There is no reason to believe that it is only individuals who are made in God’s image: it may be that humanity is so made (Gn 1:27), reflecting the just community of our Trinitarian God. In addition, humanity is appointed to the high station of mastery (Gn 1: 26), that is difficult to achieve if people are unequal.

If, then, we assume that God’s interest in social justice “goes way back”, in the dual sense of being essential to God’s nature and to God’s intentions for creation, it remains to consider the particular nature of the Holy Spirit’s interest in this subject, or perhaps the Holy Spirit’s contribution to God’s pursuit of it.

Like many Christians, I believe in the Holy Trinity as a matter of faith, but it is difficult for me to be articulate about it for more than about 30 seconds. In other words, my understanding of this mystery is fairly meagre. I don’t mind this: I can worship and love a God who is largely mysterious to me. However, I am also curious, and I do not believe that we are commanded not to be respectfully inquisitive about God; in fact, I expect that a degree of loving speculation is permitted and is itself an expression of love. To avoid being rude about this is necessary, but possible.

Among the ongoing speculation about the nature of the Holy Trinity is the idea that it is the Holy Spirit who generates the love that occurs in a dynamic way within God—say, between the Father and the Son. A more specific explanation is that the Holy Spirit does this by inspiring mutual recognition between the Father and Son. On this recognition of Personhood, love occurs spontaneously. If this is what the Holy Spirit does “within” God, it would not be remarkable if we find the same activity being pursued here, among us. (For this idea, I am warmly indebted to John V. Taylor, who wrote The Go-Between God—The Holy Spirit & the Christian Mission, London, SCM Press Ltd, 1972.)

The problem is that recognition of personhood, down here among the humans, does not seem to occur easily. In the movie The Silence of the Lambs, the mother of an abducted girl makes a televised plea to the abductor. She names her daughter several times because she knows it will be harder for the abductor to kill the girl if he sees her as a person and not an object. I suggest that unjust treatment is not love, and that unjust treatment results from a lack of recognition of many human beings as human beings, as persons. If we are not careful, we find that people are demoted to being their employer’s “human resources”, someone’s “sex object”, someone else’s “market share”, a politician’s “constituency” or the Government’s “electorate”. Or they are lost in a label like “Third World” or “the West” or “Islam”, or abstracted into an issue, like “poverty” or “homelessness”, or “the poor” or “the homeless”, rather than “poor or homeless persons”. We are adept at obscuring human beings—burying them, blurring them—so that they are not visible.

By contrast, do we not get the impression that Jesus gave the people He encountered His full attention? That He beheld them with a level gaze, so that there was no doubt about His recognition of them and, consequently, of their significance as human persons? That, in this way, He especially recognised—and brought into general view—people who were otherwise obscured, hidden (the sick, the poor, “sinners” etc)? The Spirit-filled Jesus recognised the personhood of the people He met, and by doing this He made them visible to others, even us, long afterwards.

Recognition of personhood gets justice underway: persons, once recognised, visibly qualify for fair treatment, and denying it requires a conscious decision rather than mere neglect. Much injustice is the result of mere neglect and ignoring: this is curable by recognition. We are still capable of conscious injustice, of course; but, the necessary decision is easier to identify and critique. In any event, the Holy Spirit goes deeper than justice, by disturbing the internal conditions that make humans oblivious to each other and, by this means, bringing humans back from oblivion. Giving sight to the “blind eye” that we turn to the countless invisible human beings in desperate need of being seen, is no superficial exercise. However, while this activity is deeper than justice, the practical ramifications for justice are fairly immediate. Hence, “Deep Justice”.

The mood of the Holy Spirit’s pursuit of justice

It is also worth asking whether or not there is any indication about the manner in which the Holy Spirit pursues the subject. Is it, for example, a waiting game or a matter of urgency? Does it require patience or action? Much of the Old Testament prophets’ speech about justice was tempestuous (eg, see references above to Isaiah, Amos and Micah). This is characteristic of the Spirit of the God of Israel: this Spirit is ruach, the same word used to describe the characteristically hot, fierce, gusting, alarming and abrasive desert wind. Powerful enough to dry the flood and divide the Red Sea (Gn 8:1, Ex 14:21) and tempestuous enough to lead to dramatic oracles and strong actions by persons on whom ruach is acting (Jg 3:10, 6:34, 11:29-33, Nm 24:2-9). Even in the lead up to creation (Gn 1:2, Ps 104:30), the “hovering” of ruach is often interpreted as denoting a kind of restlessness, a wish to be “getting on”. It may not be remarkable, then, that this same restlessness and tempestuousness appeared at times in Jesus’ manner (Mt 23, Lk 11), and occurred meteorologically, later, at Pentecost (Acts 2:2). And note that the first effect of Pentecost was to link people who had been out of touch.

I suggest, then, that the energy-level of the Holy Spirit’s pursuit of justice is high, and its mood fierce: the ruach is not cool, mild or lukewarm, but hot. It is not steady and predictable, but gusting. It is not soothing, but alarming and often abrasive. I am not saying that the Holy am saying that the Holy Spirit is fierce and abrasive when expressing God’s exasperation with the lack of social justice in His beloved creation.

The ruach’s disturbance of the deep-rooted human obliviousness to other humans probably creates inner turbulence. Like Jesus and the ruach, Christians might have to be prepared to cause some affront, if that is what it takes to correct unjust thinking, practices and systems—or, at the very least, if that is what it takes to bring the millions of obscured human beings to the attention of those who appear to be studiously ignoring them. The need is pressing, because an untold number of human beings will die this very night, simply from not being noticed.

It seems to me unlikely that the Spirit as ruach is prepared to abide much plodding on our part—our general silence and near inertia—in the face of social injustice. And unlikely that this Spirit will submit to being contained and held back by Christians who are thinking parochially (of their congregation and people who might join it). On the contrary, it seems likely that, like Jesus, the Spirit says “Come, follow me” and strides on. If we don’t hasten to catch up and immerse ourselves in the Spirit’s action, we may as well have remained at the lake-edge with our hands on our hips.

What follows from this?

It follows that churches that are enthusiastic about the Holy Spirit, but which do not pursue social justice, have made a mistake. And that churches that pursue justice, without realising that this agenda belongs to God and is being actively pursued by the Holy Spirit, have likewise made a mistake. On the other hand, each mistake can be remedied.

To the God-churches that have omitted justice, I would say: “Praise away for all you’re worth, but remember that the sincerest form of praise (like flattery) is imitation. Don’t try to contain the Holy Spirit, but go where the Holy Spirit leads. You may be led well beyond your congregation, into the world where there is much to be done. Go with it!”

To the neighbour-churches that have omitted the Holy Spirit, I would say: “The justice you seek and speak of is the Holy Spirit’s agenda, not yours, and to fail to acknowledge this is foolish, rude and potentially counter-productive. Allow the Holy Spirit to lead your endeavours.”

Imagine what more the Holy Spirit could accomplish if, after unearthing and revealing lost and hidden human beings, we Christians are there to recognise them and further the work! This is nothing less than our duty, after all. And imagine what it might be like if our actions in the pursuit of justice were empowered, in the way that more familiar “charismatic” activities are! Empowered and optimistic. Of course, the Holy Spirit will do what the Holy Spirit does, come what may; but, we Christians should make it our business to be there—sleeves rolled up, ready to kick up a storm.

In each case, the greater Church possesses people who can assist you: they are in the “other” churches, or perhaps at the margins of your own. Ask them.

 © Gavan O’Farrell, March 2006