Face to Face

Most people have rarely, if ever, come face to face with terror, misery, profound hopelessness, deprivation. Chances are you yourself haven’t experienced these or, if you have, they didn’t last long. I’m not by any means minimizing the occurrence or effects of negative conditions in our lives. As a pastor, I know that these are a part of life, that they impact our approach to life, and that sometimes we need some help to get through them. But we do get through them.

Yet there are millions upon hundred of millions of human beings who don’t get through these conditions, who live with them every moment and every day of their lives.  Nearly a billion people don’t have enough to eat and suffer chronic malnourishment; hunger isn’t just skipping lunch, it’s a way of life. More than a billion people live without clean drinking water and twice that many live without sanitation; disease isn’t just a condition that gets treated by a doctor and medicine, it’s a way of life. Can any of us imagine living in those conditions? Violence and war saturate the world, killing maiming millions more. 27 million people are being trafficked and live in terror for their lives and diseases. 150 million children are in forced labor. Women the world over are abused, maltreated, under-education, kept in poverty, denied contraception and health care. The earth is being poisoned, air, land and sea. 43 million people are refugees in foreign lands. It is not hyperbole to suggest that the world is dying. And, by the way, lest you think that our rich country is immune, each of these is happening right here in the U.S., and right here in Florida.

Why is it that we don’t do something? Maybe it’s because we don’t see it, we aren’t brought face-to-face with injustice, with the wrongs in the world. If we don’t see it for ourselves, it doesn’t have to be real for us. May we don’t want to see it; it’s inconvenient. Sometimes we can’t see it, because we don’t go to the places it exists. It’s overseas, it’s in unsafe places. It’s uncomfortable.

And, sisters and brothers in Christ, if we came face to face with injustice, we might have to deal with the gospel implications. Someone once said, “if we start to preach the true gospel, we’ll have trouble filling the pews.” There’s a lot of truth in that. The gospel upsets our lives and compels us to meet injustice face to face.

Emerging Spirit is a new website whose purpose is to bring injustice to you when you can’t go to it. It will bring voices and faces of injustice (and justice) right into your home or place of faith. Combining photos, videos, voices, interviews, on-location documentaries, social media and I-Justice partners, we will bring the undeniable truth to you. We will offer commentary and spiritual reflection about what you see, and we will invite you to participate in a world-wide village meeting about what you see.

The website is www.EmergingSpirit.info, and it already has a number of segments available for your viewing. Join in a sit-in in a U.S. Senator’s office to protest employment discrimination and for immigration reform. Be part of a rally for marriage equality. Find out what’s really happening in Turkey. Sign up to receive notification when a new segment is posted. Participate by adding comments, either on the website or on our Facebook page, Emerging Spirit.

I’ve learned that confronting injustice is a transformational experience. I hope you will find new spiritual strength in Emerging Spirit, and are drawn to pour out some of yourself to help a few of them. It’s not about contributing money, it’s about personal investment and engagement.

God, open our eyes to injustice in the world and transform us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Rev. John Ransom is Pastor of Living Faith Community Church in Dunedin (www.livingfaithdunedin.org), host of the Emerging Spirit internet-based Voices of Justice (www.emergingspirit.info) , and founder of Christians Passionate for Justice (coming soon).