What matters to God?

Last weekend, Serenity and I were able to attend the Justice Conference in Bend. It was an wonderful time of being filled up by an amazing God. The conference was packed (literally, over 1,000 attendees - the conference center ran out of chairs - and six 1-hour sessions each day) with scholars, pastors and speakers who revealed new concepts and challenges to both of us. We both came away from the weekend feeling renewed and more focused on seeking "what matters to God." Most of the time we struggle with knowing exactly what that means, but we are seeking an answer.

I want to give you a snapshot of some of the speakers and concepts that stood out to me. Each of these I plan to wrestle with individually, and could probably write a post about each. Another time maybe.

To open the conference up, the lead pastor at Antioch Church in Bend, the driving creative force behind the conference, Ken Wytsma (check out his blog here) shared a message entitled Why Justice?

Ken spoke about the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (action)

Yet he goes on to say that many in the Church have changed it to the Silver Rule: "Do not do unto others what you would not want done to you." (passive)

Possibly the most powerful concept of the entire weekend was when Ken showed a video of a young girl trapped in the sex trade in southeast Asia, explaining that it was when presented with this issue that he realized:

"God simultaneously hears my prayers and the prayers of that little girl."

This forces us to see many of our cares and worries in a completely different perspective.

What matters to God? That little girl matters, not as if we don't, but when we pray that God would fix our VW, when viewed from this perspective, you have to wonder how concerned God is in answering it. And we are now presented with a choice - do we follow the Golden Rule or the Silver Rule? Do we seek justice (action) or do we simply not hurt others (passive)?

You can watch his entire message here:

Mike and Danae Yankoski spoke on Saturday morning and shared about living out justice every day. Mike wrote the book Under the Overpass, which greatly influenced our own walk towards God's call to love the marginalized. Danae co-authored Crazy Love with Francis Chan, and they wrote a book called Zealous Love together.

[Andy footnote]: It can become popular to "shop" for justice issues. A lot of idealists are swept away by every issue of injustice in the world and quickly become overwhelmed by the enormity of pain and suffering throughout our world. Mike and Danae encourage us to live it out in our daily lives. One of my prayers is that His Spirit will give us eyes to see the injustices in our communities rather than fruitlessly search out the newest and hippest trend.

Mike spoke about the Hebrew word "shalom." Many simply translate shalom as "peace," but it is much more than that, it is "the flourishing of everything that is." The opposite of shalom is injustice. We must seek justice in order to experience shalom. We must be both ambassadors and agents. Ambassadors 'declare' and agents 'seek out.'

Ultimately we must be adamant about justice, we must be searching for it in our daily lives, yet we are not called to do all of the work of the kingdom.

Shane Claiborne rocked it as usual. He spoke on several issues, it might just be better for you to go and watch this YouTube video, it is very similar to what he spoke on last weekend:

Bringing the Kingdom of God down to Earth: Shane Claiborne from Urbana 09 on Vimeo.

Eluding to the parable of the mustard seed, Shane said "The Kingdom spreads best by fascination not by force."

Adam Hochschild gave a synopsis of his book Bury the Chains, which is about the fight to end the slave trade in the British Empire. This was very interesting (and not just because I have a history degree, even right-brained Serenity said it was good.) Really good stuff about the fight for justice and how it might take a life-time, but it is close to the heart of God.

Adam Hochschild :: Bury the Chains from The Justice Conference on Vimeo.

Lastly, Nicholas Wolterstorff, an authority on justice, and the Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale spoke twice over the weekend and just about made my head explode. On Saturday night his message was about Matthew 25 and the parable of the sheep and the goats. When we do the things Jesus talks about in the passage, feed the poor, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner and love the orphan and widow are we doing the things of charity or the things of justice? Dr. Wolterstorff would argue we are living out justice, not simply benevolence.

Nicholas Wolterstorff :: As You Have Done Unto the Least of These from The Justice Conference on Vimeo.

One of the most interesting concepts discussed this past weekend was the Greek word dikaios. Dr. Wolterstorff believes we (English speakers) have incorrectly translated this word. The "romance" languages of Spanish, French, Italian, etc. translate dikaios as justice, while most English translations have the word as righteousness. This word can sometimes allow us to focus inwardly and make our faith individualistic. As in Matthew 5:6:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

When we change the translation to what Dr. Wolterstorff believes to be a more accurate translation, it brings new meaning to the words of Jesus:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be filled.

Or again in Matthew 6:33:

But seek first his kingdom and his justice, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Dr. Wolterstorff claims that this word, dikaios, is mistranslated throughout the Old and New Testament. This allows us to see that seeking His Kingdom is a synonym to seeking justice. At the very least it demonstrates that seeking justice is something that matters to God.