Loving Justice

When most of us think of justice we think everyone getting their fair due. It means treating everyone fairly. Justice is defined as a theory that is applied to each person. Each child must have an equal amount of Christmas presents under the tree. The slice of turkey on each person’s dinner plate must be the same. The same crime carries the same penalty regardless of who committed the crime. Justice in this sense rests on fairness. But does it go far enough? In the 1960’s it seemed fair to a lot of people that blacks and whites were treated the same but separate. Blacks had water fountains just like the whites. They had dressing rooms just like the whites. They could ride a bus just like the whites. Many were saying justice was being offered because even though blacks were treated differently they were given the same benefits. Then Martin Luther King came along with a dream, a dream that moved a nation to see justice being aligned with love and not just theoretical fairness.

The story of Joseph, the one engaged to Mary, mother of Jesus, reminds us that the concept of justice and what it means to be just is always personal. It can never be reduced to a theory. In the birth of Jesus, justice becomes a human subject. A Christian understanding of justice is always personal. It goes further than simply being law abiding to being loving. It makes justice about taking care of the vulnerable and weak. It makes justice more about loving the other than about everyone simply getting what they deserve. It means letting our dreams for a world where love is stronger than hate and forgiveness more powerful than revenge move us to act in radically different ways.  The next time someone comes to you with an impossible dream instead of jumping on the band wagon of political correctness take time to listen to see if you can hear the voice of God translating the dream into a hopeful reality.

The Loretta Chapel is a small Gothic chapel on the Old Santa Fe Trail built in 1873. When the chapel was built, the architect forgot to include a way for the nuns to reach the choir loft. The sisters weighed their options. They could build a conventional staircase, but that would take up too much room. They could rebuild the balcony, but that would require too much money. They come simply set up an extension ladder and climb up and down, but these are nuns and that is an accident waiting to happen. So, the nuns started praying and dreaming.

One night while they were praying, a white bearded stranger appeared at the door of the convent asking for work. A toolbox was strapped to his burro and he told the sisters he was a carpenter. When they told him their problem, he offered to build a spiral staircase.

His spiral staircase was an engineering feat. It contained thirty-three steps and two complete turns of three-hundred-sixty degrees with no center support. The carpenter used wooden pegs instead of nails, and his only tools were a say, a T-square, and a hammer.

As soon as the staircase was finished, the unknown craftsman disappeared without asking to be paid. If you were to ask the nuns, they would tell you the carpenter was Joseph, the husband of Mary, the father of Jesus, the dreamer of the impossible.

Of course, the story is stuff of legends. But who will be the Joseph’s today and believe the impossible? Who will be the Joseph’s today and listen to their dreams? Who will be the Joseph’s today and believe in the dreams of others? Your righteousness translates into love when you believe in the dreams of others. Who knows if you believe in dreams, what miracles may happen?