A Thought For The Week Of April 25, 2016

“Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in the prison the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favour in the eyes of the prison warden.” (Genesis 39:20-21) God is a God of justice. Having said that, I'm onside with those who would argue that the word “justice” gets overused and abused by many Christians today. We too often start to define “justice” as basically “that with which I agree.” So if something happens that I don't like I call it “injustice” or if I think something should happen that isn't happening, I ask for “justice” - meaning “do what I want.” Either way, it seems to me that we often use “justice” as a conversation stopper to silence those we disagree with, rather than as a goal that reflects God or the teachings of Jesus. The story in Genesis 39 (and especially the verses I've quoted above) help us to understand a bit of how God sees justice. Joseph had been an honourable man and an honest servant of Potiphar – and given that he had been deceived and sold into slavery by his own brothers he could perhaps have been excused if he had been neither. And then he's treated unfairly again by Potiphar and Potiphar's wife and he ends up in prison. The result could have been anger and bitterness, but the author of the account sees God's presence in the midst of everything that happened to Joseph, arranging things so that justice – real justice – would be done. Joseph would be released from prison and the wrongs done to him redressed. The first thing I learn about justice from this story is that the call to justice is the call to be with those who are oppressed, cast aside and treated unfairly – and our world is full of those. God was with Joseph – and as God's people we are to be with those who are treated unfairly by the world. Since we're not God, the justice we need to strive for may not mean that everything works out perfectly, but it does mean that those being treated unfairly will at least have the comfort of knowing that others are in their corner. And the story gives us hope. Eventually, God's justice will triumph over human injustice. But in the interim, we need to be striving for “justice” - not by pursuing our own personal agendas, but by doing God's work and God's will.