Nazarene Theological Seminary

Abstract
This paper will focus on the nature of justice presented in Luke 4:18-19 and Isaiah 61:1-2. These texts provide a unity between the Old and New Testaments inviting us to see the under flowing current of justice that becomes the very heartbeat of the story of God, as well as the task of the Church as the people of God. God in Jesus Christ ushered in the justice of the kingdom promising a new historical reality—“a visible socio-political, economic restructuring of relations among the people of God, achieved by divine intervention in the person of Jesus as the one Anointed and endued with the Spirit.”¹ Through these passages I will expound upon the nature of justice of the kingdom of God, and specifically in how they shape identity, transform purpose, and define the task for the people of God today. This justice restructures life in such a way that human relationships and interaction promote sustainable and holistic living, rather than lives drained by consumption and fragmentation. This identity, purpose, and task in Christ form both an everyday and cosmological mission, as well as a personal and social responsibility. This new historical reality is about the restorative justice of God that re-claims a true freedom that has been lost in western contemporary society. This holistic and restorative justice is what the people of God are to be about.

What is justice in society today?  The word itself evokes different images for different people—different connotations for different contexts. Justice in the western context of a nation state might immediately bring to mind a justice system, which is to provide law and order, to right wrongs, and to maintain peace.  Justice in a dictatorship might evoke fear and corruption.  Justice in a society torn apart by genocide might evoke no image at all.  Its meaning is simply un-imaginable to victims of such atrocities.  At best, one might hope that justice is clearly defined revealing a confident certainty of what is right and wrong.  More often than not defining justice, practicing justice, and seeing justice in the world is quite rare and elusive.  Justice, however, is something that is often imagined and longed for throughout the story of the Christian Scriptures.  Here justice is depicted as a characteristic of the kingdom of God; it is the task of the Church; its adjective, “just,” describes the very nature of God.  Most certainly the notion of justice is difficult to grasp because of its sheer depth.  Defining the nature of God and His kingdom is an immensely bold task at best.  It is a mysterious privilege that has continued throughout time and continues in humble human attempts to understand it today.
The Christian Scriptures narrate a sense of justice that imagines and hopes for complete restoration—a fallen people actively restored to become a new creation.  Instead of justice resulting in penalty and punishment, it is redefined and recast in light of the resurrection of Christ which ushers in gracious restoration.  Justice is here redefined by the life of Christ and made possible by his death and resurrection.  Christians are called to a faithful life in Christ in which he has called humanity to a new life as a new creation.  In this narrative, the language of salvation and restoration becomes wedded with a new reality of justice for the world characterized by grace and love.  This is the justice of the kingdom of God.  This is not a justice that binds up and punishes, but a justice that releases humanity in gracious liberation.  As a result, life in God looks different than life in the world.  In this way, the people of God are made to imagine a new life in Christ through participation in the Body of Christ. The Church is called to be a microcosm of the ways of the kingdom—
The church is not the kingdom but the foretaste of the kingdom. For it is in the church that the narrative of God is lived in a way that makes the kingdom visible. The church must be the clear manifestation of a people who have learned to be at peace with themselves, one another, the stranger, and of course, most of all, God.²

Thus, the people of God are called to embody a life radically transformed by the life, death and resurrection of Christ. This life is characterized by the restorative justice of the kingdom of God as narrated in the Christian Scriptures.
This paper will focus on the nature of justice presented in Luke 4:18-19 and Isaiah 61:1-2. These texts provide a unity between the Old and New Testaments inviting us to see the under flowing current of justice that becomes the very heartbeat of the story of God, as well as the task of the Church as the people of God. God in Jesus Christ ushered in the justice of the kingdom promising a new historical reality—“a visible socio-political, economic restructuring of relations among the people of God, achieved by divine intervention in the person of Jesus as the one Anointed and endued with the Spirit.”³ Through these passages I will expound upon the nature of justice of the kingdom of God, and specifically in how they shape identity, transform purpose, and define the task for the people of God today. This justice restructures life in such a way that human relationships and interaction promote sustainable and holistic living, rather than lives drained by consumption and fragmentation. This identity, purpose, and task in Christ form both an everyday and cosmological mission, as well as a personal and social responsibility. This new historical reality is about the restorative justice of God that re-claims a true freedom that has been lost in western contemporary society. This holistic and restorative justice is what the people of God are to be about.
It is evident in the Scriptures that justice cannot be limited to one aspect, time period, or segment of human existence.  Justice is not something that one chooses to do one day and declines another. Rather, it must flow out of one’s very being and life.  This is the justice that God desired in Israel—“But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream” (Amos 5:24).  This all-consuming mission requires the eternal presence of the Lord; it requires the fullness of the Holy Spirit; it requires the willing hearts and bodies of faithful followers of Christ.  In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus’ ministry is surrounded by the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus’ baptism, temptation in the wilderness, and proclamation of the year of the Lord’s favor all begin with his being full of the Holy Spirit.  When Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit, the hearers and readers of the gospel are prompted to listen more intently, because it is here that the good news is revealed and the kingdom of God is inaugurated. Chapter four of Luke, particularly, is encased in this language.  Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit when he goes into the wilderness where he triumphs over the temptation of the devil; he is full of the Holy Spirit when he returns to Galilee; and the Spirit of the Lord is on him when he makes his proclamation.  The temptations have proven his faithfulness, now his speech in Galilee inaugurates his ministry and sets him on his mission, characterizing his future ministry.
In Luke 4:18-19 Jesus’ very words usher in a new way of life, a life that looks different from the ways of the world.  These words are the Good News:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
Because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to
the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

The inauguration of the year of the Lord’s favor has much to say about justice.  Here we find God’s purposes stated through the words and life of Jesus to bring salvation to the world.  This is a salvation that speaks to freedom from social injustices and physical captivity. These words of Jesus quoting Isaiah offer rich imagery and symbols in understanding Jesus’ mission, God’s purposes, salvation for humankind, and the crucial role of justice in the mission of Jesus and the mission of his Church.
            These themes of which Jesus speaks in chapter four are not alone in the Gospel of Luke. The gospel writer threads this theme of God’s purposes to bring salvation to the world through Jesus throughout the entire gospel. It is a prophetic message that recapitulated language and symbols of which a Jewish audience would have been accustomed.  At the same time, this is a truly unique and odd message.  It is scandalous because it re-imagines a different reality into life.  Here we are told why Jesus was sent. This signals to the audience that the following verses are an illustration of what God seeks to do through Jesus.  What follows is a recitation of Isaiah 61:1-2.  The gospel writer crafts the story in such a way that specific themes and images are woven into this Isaiah 61 citation, altering the language slightly to direct the audience toward a cosmological and eschatological salvation.
            In verse 18 we find that Jesus has been anointed to preach good news to the poor. The notion of being poor in first century Palestine is not limited to the kind of economic destitution that it connotes today. ⁴  Rather, poor was understood in a holistic sense of which various social factors contributed.  The poor are those literally marginalized in society based on their class, race, gender, family heritage, religious purity, social standing, and economics.  The poor were not only those who made a less-than-livable day’s wage, but those who were neglected, outcast, and rejected in society.  The poor were offered virtually no hope in the structures of society.  This understanding of poverty would have been understood on multiple levels in both the Greco-Roman system as well as the Jewish culture.  In a patronage system, this would have been a most unfortunate state of being.  One who was poor was without any benefactor by which to receive protection.  Benefactors relied on others to return their favors as a form of payment and social advancement, but the poor could contribute nothing and would have been concomitantly rejected.  In a Jewish society, the poor would have been confined to jobs that made one “unclean” and therefore unable to participate in normal temple activities on a regular basis.  Poverty politically, socially, and religiously was more or less a socially fixed state of being.  Good news for the poor was unheard of in this societal structure. As this passage will continue to show, however, the ways of the world are clearly not the ways of God’s kingdom.
            This good news for the poor, though not a reality of life, was not a new theme in Scripture.  Even in Luke’s gospel, it is clear from the birth narratives that Israel awaited such good news.  Much of the Hebrew Scriptures also anticipated this good news.  In the infancy narratives of Jesus, Luke depicts Mary alluding to good news for the poor in her praise song to God—“He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:42). Interestingly this reversal of social position, which is good news for the poor and lowly, sits in the midst of language of salvation and fulfilled promise for Israel.  This signals that the justice of God’s kingdom does not operate according to societal rules that distinguish between poor and rich, weak and strong, or slave and free.  Here one finds the powerful brought down and the poor lifted up placing them at equal position. God’s salvation renders the statuses of the world useless, initiating a true deliverance and equality among humans.
            Continuing with his message of deliverance, Jesus is to proclaim release to the captives. According to the social reality of first century Palestine, the poor were enslaved by their social position.  By nature of their social position, they were forced to live against their own free will.  Their only possibility for protection and security might have been to literally sell themselves into slavery to a wealthy landowner.  In a very real sense those marginalized would have been held captive on multiple levels (i.e. their status, their disabilities, their debts, etc.).  Ringe notes, “Those persons who would hear such words as “good news” are clearly those for whom ‘debts,’ whether to God or to other persons, result in captivity that denies the fullness of life.”⁵ Jesus, in turn, proclaims and offers release regardless of the many internal and external forces and circumstances holding one captive.  This release, in turn, allows even the poor a true fullness of life in God.
            At the same time, this language of release would have immediately evoked images of deliverance from exile to this Jewish audience in the synagogue.  Israel had a long history of captivity by foreign kings and empires.  At this time in particular, such words might have evoked more joy to this Jewish audience held captive by the Roman Empire.  This was a political and religious captivity and oppression from which Israel longed for deliverance.  This is the redemption that others in Luke’s gospel had already prophesied the Son of God would bring.  Zechariah, Simeon, Anna, and John the Baptist all speak to this redemption for Israel and fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham. This was Israel’s long awaited eschatological salvation where “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 3:6).
            Jesus continues this good word in proclaiming recovery of sight to the blind. Here Jesus deviates from the language of Isaiah 61:1-2. Thematically, however, these words coincide with what Luke documents of Jesus’ ministry, as well as Old Testament prophecy.  Blindness implies both a literal and figurative reference.  Those with physical blindness and handicaps would have been especially marginalized in society.  They could not contribute in daily life and relied on others to care for them. They were a burden on society and were rendered useless. We see throughout Jesus’ ministry, however, that he has a special place for the physically blind and heals them so that they might enter into the community again.  The figuratively blind, however, are often prevented from seeing Jesus due to a lack of understanding.  Jesus often refers to the religious leaders, Pharisees, and Scribes as being blind.  It is evident throughout, however, that Jesus does not neglect them.  He earnestly seeks to give them sight into the kingdom, but their blindness prevents them from seeing the purposes of God.  It was often those of higher privilege and status that failed to see the purposes of God being carried out in Jesus.
            Jesus finishes his speech with language that does not appear in Isaiah 61:1-2, but is reminiscent of Isaiah 58:6.  By recapitulating this language Jesus is thematically weaving God’s purposes into this proclamation in new ways.  Here again we find the language of release.  Along with the captives, the oppressed will be released.  This repetition emphasizes the new freedom that God’s kingdom inaugurates.  Those oppressed might have been so for a number of reasons.  One might have been oppressed by Roman law, Jewish purity laws, economics, gender, race, class, etc. Ringe notes, “The image of God’s reign as beginning precisely in the breaking of…dehumanizing pattern[s] supports the theological affirmation that God is in fact claiming sovereignty over all of life, and that the advent of God’s reign is indeed an event of liberation at the most basic level of human existence.”⁶  Contrary to political and societal regulations that enslave, Jesus will set forth the oppressed in release.
This language of release also alludes to the larger year of release—Jubilee.  This language would have reminded his Jewish audience of the sabbath-year, where every fifty years the Lord commanded that all land return to its original owners and all debts be released.  If during that fifty years a person had to sell himself into slavery from debt, he and his family would be released from this obligation.  Leviticus 25:10-12, 18 reads,
And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your family. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, or reap the after growth, or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a jubilee, it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces. You shall observe my statutes and faithfully keep my ordinances.
The jubilee year allowed for a restructuring of society back to God’s intention, while also directing Israel’s trust to Yahweh.  This involved a two-fold understanding of rest and jubilee—a vertical directing of one’s devotion to Yahweh, as well as a horizontal or social directing of one’s life to the principles of release in God’s order.  This vertical and horizontal understanding is echoed in Jesus’ two commandments to love the Lord and love one’s neighbor, as well as in the Torah (Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18).  This restructuring that was to happen every fifty years was to prevent God’s people from living by their own systems of justice and domination.  This odd notion of release exemplifies the justice of the kingdom of God.  Walter Brueggemann notes, “the Old Testament Jubilee is understood theologically as a command of YHWH, the God who makes promises of inheritance and who wills the protection of the weak and vulnerable from the power of the strong and rapacious.” ⁷ This practice thus speaks to Yahweh’s control of the lives of his people.  Their obedience to this ethic of justice signified their allegiance and loyalty to Yahweh.  Many scholars have question, however, whether the sabbath-year was historically practiced.  Is it not recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures; however, this ethic of release, equality, and the sovereign rule of God are constant themes throughout the Scriptures. Though perhaps not practiced, the Jubilee ethic would have been known. Ringe notes that the principles of Jubilee were very much alive in the Hebrew Scriptures (Exod. 21:2-6; 23:10-11; Deut. 15:1-18; Jer. 34:8-22; Is. 61:1-12)—
In these traditions liberty is presented in economic, social, and political terms: freedom for slaves, release for captive peoples, cancellations of debts, redistribution of the land, care for the poor, food for the hungry, and healing of physical ailments. The language is primarily the language of ethics, dealing with values, social relationships, and the establishment or restoration of justice.⁸
These same principles of justice are alive in the life of Jesus as narrated in the Gospels. God’s justice pointed to practices of sustainability and balanced equality that the ways of the world did not.  In fact, the ways of the world still do not reflect this justice of God’s kingdom.  Yoder simplifies the concept of Jubilee to, “the time when the inequities accumulated through the years are to be crossed off and all God’s people will begin again at the same point.”⁹ God in Christ is allowing for this beginning again.
            Along with allusions to Jubilee, the language of release for the oppressed would have invited the audience into deeper reflection on Isaiah 58.  Release in relation to fasting might have been particularly poignant to a Jewish audience concerned with ritual purity and pious devotion to Yahweh.  Here the prophet describes true fasting in contrast to what was actually happening.  He writes,

Is this not the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the bonds of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin? (Isaiah 58:6-7)

Here true fasting is equated with the notion of release and practices of justice. Again, fasting reveals a vertical devotion to Yahweh, as well as a social responsibility to practice justice and care for one’s kin.  Fasting in this context is not characterized as a practice that involves sacrifice to the Lord, but a practice that sacrifices in order to release the oppressed.  It is implied that this release is what is most pleasing to the Lord.  
            This sort of fasting, characteristic of the justice of God’s kingdom, appeared to be missing from the lives of certain Jewish groups throughout Luke’s gospel.  Fasting is but one practice out of many by which one could release the oppressed and show justice to the poor.  In Luke chapter eleven, Jesus responds,

‘Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you. But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these that you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others (Luke 11:39-42).

Clearly the Pharisees are experts in the law but fail to see God’s intention behind the law.  They are experts of outward signs of purity, yet inwardly neglect the practices of the heart.  They maintain outward purity at all costs—they tithe the best to Yahweh, and perhaps one might speculate that they also most devoutly fast and make large sacrifices to show devotion to God— yet at the same time they do not give alms nor sacrifice for the sake of the poor.  In devoutly seeking the first of the greatest commandments to love the Lord, they neglect to love their neighbor. Clearly this message of Isaiah still needed to be heard in the first century, yet continually fell on deaf ears and hard hearts. By this allusion to Isaiah 58 Jesus suggests an image of the true purpose of fasting. It is a practice that naturally promotes social justice for the victims of injustice and cares for those in need.  It naturally proclaims and embodies freedom for the oppressed. This signals that one’s devotion to God is entirely integrated with being an agent of release to one’s neighbor.  In so doing, one becomes an agent of God’s sovereign justice in the world.  
            Jesus’ words inaugurate a new salvation and kingdom.  Jesus’ life reveals the true purposes of God.  These practices and this faithfulness characterize and usher in the year of the Lord’s favor.  Though Jesus’ words speak to his mission, they also imply the faithfulness and justice that his Church is also to embody and teach.  Here Jesus redefines and recapitulates the heart of justice in the kingdom of God, which speaks to the people of God’s mission as the Body of Christ.  Salvation, the redemption of Israel, and the promises to Abraham, are recast in language of love, justice, release, and Jubilee.  Such practices illustrate and inaugurate the year of the Lord’s favor.
            This understanding of true fasting, images of release, and allusion to Jubilee point to certain themes of justice within the kingdom of God. These themes run throughout the Gospel of Luke as well as much of the Christian Scriptures. They have provided the Church with a transformed vision of the kingdom of God as exemplified in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.  They are exemplified in being a good neighbor like the Samaritan in Luke 10 and in the father’s embrace of the prodigal son (Luke 15). They illustrate and embody the greatest commandments. In showing love and care for one’s neighbor, one is at the same time revealing her allegiance to God.  In loving her enemies, the Church shows the love of God.  In inviting the poor, the lame, the outcast to one’s banquet, one is inaugurating the eschatological banquet.  John the Baptist, in preparing the way for Jesus by whom, “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 3:6), instructed people how to live in the world.  His images evoke the same images as release of debts, Jubilee, and true fasting.  He teaches, “‘whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise’” (Luke 2:10). This new salvation from God, which includes all and releases for freedom, is surrounded by images of sharing, giving, loving, and inviting people in. These are quiet practices that speak loud words of justice. These are practices that transform the way people live.
            The Church as the Body of Christ is called to continue Jesus’ mission.  It is called to embody Christ for the world.  Stanley Hauerwas notes in Peaceable Kingdom that, “scripture as a whole tells the story of the covenant with Israel, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and the ongoing history of the church as the recapitulation of that life.”¹⁰ Jesus mission was not to extend a wise teaching or to make people think about justice, but to change their lives.  In embodying this change—this repentance (metanoia)—followers of Christ are to reflect God’s reordered reality on earth.  Disciples are instructed to pray for the kingdom come (Luke 11:2).  Living the ethics of this kingdom is no easy task, but requires radical transformation.
 

The gospel commands us to submit to a vigorous and continuing discipleship if we are to recognize our status as subjects and properly understand the requirements for participation in the kingdom. Furthermore, to be a Christian is not principally to obey certain commandments or rules, but to learn to grow into the story of Jesus as the form of God’s kingdom. ¹¹

            This physical presence of the gospel ushers in the kingdom that all God’s people await—the year of the Lord’s Favor. What can these words, these images, and these stories teach God’s people about living faithfully today?  How might faithful living mirror the justice of the Kingdom? How might the justice of the kingdom train and shape people’s lives in such a way that they form new habits and practices that characterize God’s kingdom?  These words of the Scriptures speak to individual and corporate lives today.  What fast has the Church chosen?  What has this release to do with how Christians help to bring justice to the hurting and marginalized in the world, and in their particular neighborhoods, towns and cultures? Through the story of Jesus, one is released to increasingly learn to reach full potential as a participant in God’s community of peace and justice.¹² This is a journey of faithfulness.
            The Isaiah passages and Luke 4:18-19, as well as the entire gospel of Luke, depict a balance in the kingdom of God and in the lives of God’s chosen people that remind and direct Christians first and foremost of how to live practically.  Jesus warns against taking more than one needs, hoarding wealth and neglecting those in need.  In a western world marked by a growing consumerism that shouts “bigger, better, faster, more!” these are shocking and unwelcome words.  It is one thing to release and it is another not to take more than one’s share from the beginning.  Yet both of these practices point to the same goal of not allowing oneself to get richer while a neighbor gets poorer. This speaks to a balancing act of living and working in such a way that provides for oneself and one’s family, while not allowing oneself to consume more than one’s even share.  This allows room for the other, the neighbor, also to have enough to live on.  This is a balance of sustainable living transforming both pubic and private habits for the gospel.  The justice of the kingdom of God points to sustainable life in which Christians live as a people reconciled to one another.  As the Body of Christ—a microcosm of the justice of the kingdom of God—this message must speak to the life of the Church today.

The church is not the kingdom but the foretaste of the kingdom. For it is in the church that the narrative of God is lived in a way that makes the kingdom visible. The church must be the clear manifestation of a people who have learned to be at peace with themselves, one another, the stranger, and of course, most of all, God.¹³

            This message of the gospel and the Hebrew Scriptures imagines a restoration that is unlike the world of first century Palestine or twenty-first century North America. In contemporary western culture, individual autonomy and privatized ownership is celebrated. A predetermined, democratic notion of “freedom” is celebrated.  Freedom is imagined to be a right that allows individuals to make their own choices and to live the life they choose.  Yet, this freedom is a privilege that many do not have.  They do not have it because their race, their class, their gender, their social status, etc. do not permit them this freedom.  This word “freedom” has predetermined a way of life that permits the rich to get richer while the poor get poorer.  Ultimately freedom of choice is another form of bondage to the laws of the market and western individualized politics.¹⁴   In the laws of “freedom of choice” for the consumer, one naturally chooses to buy at the best price; however multi-billion dollar corporations are able to provide the lowest prices, attract consumers, and, concomitantly, smaller businesses go out of business.  Illegal immigrants enter into countries seeking this predetermined “freedom” of opportunity, but are often exploited, mistreated, and underpaid simply because they cannot be protected by labor laws.  In the name of competitive freedom, massive for-profit corporations are entitled to seek the lowest price for goods, which often means capitalizing on the lack of regulations and the destitute realities of those living in a third world economy.  Freedom has become the right to personal gain even at the expense of the freedom of others.  An individual, autonomous freedom is celebrated in a market economy while seldom or never does one hear the consequences and affects this freedom might have within a web of economic, political, global and local relationships.  This individualized “freedom of choice,” has resulted in a fragmented existence in which human relationships are subjugated by the desires of the self.¹⁵
            The true goal of freedom, however, is not in one’s own self-guided autonomy and desires but in participating in a larger fullness for all humanity. Hauerwas notes,

for philosophers such as Aristotle, freedom was not an end in itself; we became free only as we acquired the moral capability to guide our lives…In contrast to our sense of ‘freedom of choice’ the virtuous person was not confronted by ‘situations’ about which he or she was to make a decision, rather the person determined the situation by insisting on understanding it not at a ‘situation’ but as an event in a purposive narrative.¹⁶

The Christian Scriptures’ notion of justice and freedom indeed forms a purposive narrative. Such a narrative directs humanity to both an ontology and a telos that is beyond itself.  The narrative of God unites humanity with God and humanity with one another that heals moral and social fragmentation. Ultimately the tragic flaw of human existence lies in its deciding of its own morality to heal a fragmentation that humans themselves have created. Individual desires have become the foundation of existence.  Humanity cannot overcome its own alienation by a freedom of choice.
            Rather, hope lies in participation in the narrative of God’s intervention—the in-breaking of the Son of God into the world. The hope of Christian salvation is found not only God’s in-breaking into individual hearts and lives, but God’s complete transformation of the world torestoration and fulfillment of God’s promises.  One finds this restoration in the purposive narrative of God—in the language and imagery of Isaiah 58, 61, and Luke 4.  Justice and true freedom begin with the faithfulness exemplified in Jesus. This faithfulness is what Christ’s followers are to imitate.  Faithfulness in Christ directs God’s people to fit their lives in the larger narrative of God.  Here one finds God’s kingdom characterized by a transformational and restorative justice that is characterized in preaching good news to the poor; releasing those enslaved and oppressed in their poverty, rejection, and disability; healing the blind; and ushering in the year of the Lord’s favor. The people of God are guided not by their own initiative, but by the initiative of the Lord. In Luke 4:18-19 one finds that the Lord’s initiative is a radically restructured world that reflects the justice of the kingdom of God.  Here God’s people are instructed to love God by redirecting their lives to love one another.  As they live this restored justice they testify to their allegiance, devotion and trust to God, embodying a new life in Christ for others. This is a life of peace, in which the fullness of one’s life no longer depends on the destruction of others.  Instead, fullness of life depends on the restorative justice of God in which God’s people learn to love one another.¹⁷
 One finds evidence of this restoration and peace, in practices of Sabbath or the year of release.  These sustainable practices combat destruction, because they allow the land and people to rest and replenish, releasing debts so that people and generations of their ancestors are not born into debt and slavery.  One finds evidence of this Sabbath rest and release in not taking so much that one’s neighbor is left with nothing. One finds this in sharing what one has with those who have not.  One finds this in relying on the provision of the Lord, rather than securing one’s own future.  These are practices that sustain life and reorder justice from penalty to release, possession to gift, and retribution to restoration.  This justice seeks sustainability on individual and corporate levels and characterizes a people of renewal, release, and restoration (rather than a people who suck land and lives dry).  By allowing the Scriptures to narrate their life, the people of God reclaim the true meaning of freedom, justice, and restoration.
            In the present context, the Church must allow itself to be converted to this restorative justice. This requires a restructuring of mentality from freedom of individualized choice to release for the other.  The Church is not divorced from the world, but must be a prophetic voice that speaks to and embodies the true reality of God.  As a microcosm of the justice of the kingdom, God’s people across streets and across oceans must be trained to reorder their lives toward the gospel. This means feeling the tension and pull of consumerism, yet being reminded that God’s kingdom is not about getting more, but about sharing as an act of loving one’s neighbor.  The Church learns this as it befriends the poor and marginalized in society and invites them into the narrative of life in the Church.  God’s people must be trained to see beyond their self-absorbed blindness that stops at its own individual choice.  Life together in the Church transforms individuals into communities. God’s people must transform their lives to see this web of relationships and find ways to sustain mutual interaction and life together.
Christian communities must reclaim the true sense of justice by the very witness of their life together.  This is a justice that Christians do not rely on the nation state or the justice system to teach.  To learn the justice of God’s kingdom, one must be engrafted into a new way of life.  “The kingdom is present in Jesus Christ. It is thus the ultimate realism that calls into question our vague ideals of freedom, equality, and peace.  We do not learn what the kingdom is by learning of freedom and equality; we must first experience the kingdom if we are to know what kind of freedom and what kind of equality we should desire.” ¹⁸  The justice, freedom and equality of God’s kingdom is not implemented in laws or policies, but by the very lives of those who seek embody the life of Christ together.
This western sense of freedom leads to a world in which the self rules.  This is both idolatry and a parody of God’s freedom.  Ultimately this fragmented existence ends in bondage to self.  True justice leads humanity ultimately beyond itself and its own dominion and domination.  The restorative justice of the kingdom of God presents the possibility of a true freedom—a release for those who have been held captive by their own idolatry.  Rowan Williams reminds the Church that the true power of the resurrection, is not in understanding the story of humanity in light of Jesus, but in God’s people conforming their lives to the life of Christ and in interpreting their existence in light of the narrative of God—“The resurrection calls forward into a life that is genuinely new and effectively changed by grace which both displaces the ego from its central and domineering position and grounds the self more and more profoundly in the accepting love of the Father.”¹⁹  This is the justice that God’s people seek—one motivated by the love of the Father for creation. We are no longer master, but participant in the life and story of God narrated in the Scriptures. Ultimately it is the mission of the Church to reflect the love of God shown in Christ.

Epilogue:
In Christ we are not isolated individuals, but we are unified into the Body of Christ—the Church.  Together, as we participate in the story of God, we are invited to participate in the lives of one another.  We are a people that care about creating sustainable life in order to make room for the other, care for the earth and be responsible stewards in caring for God’s creation.  In so doing, we rediscover the holistic nature of relationships and lives that God intended.  As we learn to love our neighbor we are shaped into a community formed by the justice of the kingdom.  Out of this love and justice we care for the sick, visit those in prison, give to those in need, and share our resources with those who are without. When the pace of the world challenges us to make a name for ourselves, advance in our jobs, make consumerist choices, spend our Sabbath in work, gain more possessions and security, we become a people of destruction that suck life dry.  The justice of the Lord calls for restoration and renewal.  For this reason, we must be a people committed to the justice of God evident in the Scriptures, from the Torah through the Gospels.  We are formed into a people that confess our selfishness and injustices, that ask forgiveness and forgive others, that repent and change our lives, that reconcile with one another, that practice Sabbath and replenish ourselves, our relationships, and our land.  When the world demands we legalize our ownership, we share possessions.  When the law demands that our immigrant neighbors cannot legally work, we exchange favors and goods that they may have a source of livelihood. When the world calls us to privatization, we open our homes and share meals.  When the busyness of our lives invites us to retreat inside to our own private dwellings; instead, we resist by talking to our neighbors and sitting on front porches in our neighborhoods.  In so doing, we become a people—we are formed into a people—that participate in the life of God as a people characterized by restorative justice and true freedom.

Works Consulted

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Yoder, John Howard. Politics of Jesus. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,  1999.