For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever. Jeremiah 7:5-7
Next Sunday is what churches all around the globe, including Real Life, are dedicating as “Freedom Sunday,” where awareness is brought to the crisis of slavery. Yes, you read that right, slavery. It still exists and it is a terrible reality for millions of men, women, and children around the world today. I want it gone and I’m pretty sure that God does, too.
It should come as no surprise to us that God takes sides. He spoke through people like Jeremiah and made it pretty clear that God is unconditionally for those who can defend themselves. The poor. Widows and orphans. Slaves. Even in the verse above God threatened the people that if they don’t change the way they are doing things and the way they treat those people, he’ll leave the Temple. The list above is God’s criteria for them on how to act if he were to stay. They didn’t listen, they ignored Jeremiah and put him in prison and they found new prophets who would tell them what they wanted to hear. But guess what? We don’t have those prophets in Scripture and Jeremiah is still speaking to us, today.
Jesus comes on the scene and starts talking about the kingdom of God some 600 years after Jeremiah and he starts to enact these criteria that God had requested long ago. God was trying to get them to look beyond the Temple and out into the world but they still weren’t looking and many of us still aren’t today, either.
The ministry of Jesus was always focused on those who were outsiders and those who could not take care of themselves, much less fight for themselves. Jesus was showing us what “true religion” was, or as Jesus’ brother says, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress” (James 1:27). It is time that the Church rises up to be what it was meant to be. Slavery needs to be eradicated and the Church needs to be on the forfront.
So what can be done? What can the Church do? I think it comes down to two major points.
1.The Church has to repent for allowing slavery to flourish under its very nose. This was one of the first things Jesus said to do when he announced the Kingdom of God was at hand: “Repent! For the kingdom of God is near!” Awareness can bring this repentance and convict us into moving our gaze in the right direction. It is not just about feeling sorry for ourselves or other people, but it is letting our hearts be stirred to action.
2. The Church has to be focused on the outsiders just as Jesus was. We have to step up and be the voice for those who are silenced, and bring justice to those who have been wronged, tricked, and exploited. Those “widows and orphans” are loved and cherished by God just as we are. But the relationship doesn’t end by acceptance; it only starts there. God wants participation and partnership in order to bring God’s kingdom here on earth.
Join us at Real Life next weekend or seek out a church in your area participating in Freedom Sunday to learn more, and to do your part in bringing this issue into the limelight, and hopefully, to an end.