Good and Beautiful and Kind: Becoming Whole in a Fractured World

by Rich Villodas

Jesus clearly wanted his followers to be more concerned with God’s kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven than with us getting out of earth into heaven.

Justice is to be expressed in the fair treatment of all by God’s people, regardless of their national or ethnic identity:

God cares about those who are disenfranchised or disadvantaged:

God will come to aid those who cannot protect themselves:

justice is primarily about the righteousness of God. In other words, justice is the Lord’s.

Christian sense of justice is shaped by love of God and love of others instead of a Western, individualized, and modernist concept of freedom and rights.”[4] Justice is the right ordering of relationships. It’s an act of organizing life through mutuality and not coercion, humility and not dominance, generosity and not greed, compassion rather than indifference.

Mercy means bandaging up people bloodied in life. Justice refers to systemically stopping those who are bloodying up people in the first place, and creating an environment for everyone’s flourishing.

All these observations lead to an overarching truth: Justice is to be aimed at restoration, not simply retribution.

Meritocracy is the belief that individual effort is what is ultimately responsible for one’s success, which is a far cry from the truth. If we succeeded, we had help—all of us. Yet the pernicious outworking of this myth is the corresponding belief that any success gained from this effort inoculates us from any claim of injustice. It’s the essence of the American Dream with a dash of myopia.

It’s ironic that Christians who believe in salvation by grace and not our merit can be so formed by a social theology of meritocracy. But, clearly, no amount of money or success—especially for people of color—can be a protective coating against unfair treatment in this world.

Much of what passes for justice is simply outrage baptized in disembodied calls for fairness. But diagnosis is not justice. Naming the problems is not justice. It might be the start of justice, but it can never be the end. We have become adept at naming problems without pursuing solutions.

Whether it’s Christians spending inordinate amounts of time on minor theological points or using the Bible to critique calls for justice, injustice persists because we have made an idol out of orthodoxy. So-called right thinking too often gets in the way of right action. It’s the kind of meticulous religiosity that angered Jesus.

We are not called to fix the world but to faithfully respond with the resources, strength, and love we have.

the call to justice is not about fruitfulness but faithfulness.

My task is to be faithful. God will take care of the fruit.

4). Justice in the way of Jesus takes the time to look at people, dignifying them with our attention.

Justice necessitates engagement. Local engagement. Whether we are talking about petitioning community leadership to add a stop sign at a busy street, organizing public-safety measures with neighbors, or training teenagers to be community organizers, justice is often best done in the immediate communities we occupy.

The church as a whole, and the local church in part, has the holy task of establishing a colony of heaven here on earth. When people step into our buildings, homes, and fellowships, they are to be exposed to an otherworldly community—a community not formed by antagonisms but by grace, not by gossip but by honor, not by selfishness but by generosity. The church is the best place for justice to be worked out.

First, the warning. Working for justice can become a way to justify ourselves before God. If we are not careful, the good work we give ourselves to can become another idol that takes the rightful place of Jesus. We must be on guard against the temptation to establish an identity outside of the love of God in Christ.

We work for justice not because it justifies us; rather, because we’ve been justified, we work for justice.

To have a good, beautiful, and kind life—one formed by love—requires us to extend our faith beyond the borders of our private emotional and spiritual concerns. We are called into a larger story, one characterized by participation in God’s kingdom. It’s the kind of participation that drives out passivity.

If we want to live in love, we must recognize that we already exist in it.

As a baby exists in its mother’s womb, we exist in the “womb” of God. We are already in love. We exist inside of it.

the fundamental task of living in love and pouring it out on others is found in the healing of our image of God—something Jesus came to do.

First, I want you to release any image of God that is anything less than pure, self-giving, abundant love. Second, choose—whether you understand it or not—to abide in that love. To dwell in it. To live in it.

In opening ourselves to God’s great love, we find the source of our wholeness—the kind of wholeness that mends our fragmented lives.

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