Our Sunday guest, Cecelia Castro, will present to our congregation the problem of human trafficking in Argentina. In preparation for that presentation, I recorded from my daily reading Jeremiah 4:1-2. In the New International Version the Lord describes justice as the manner in which God desires the return of the rebellious. I paraphrase by saying, "Return to me. Do so justly." It appears from that reading that if the heart is just and right, God will receive the rebel and repair relation with God's people.
The Living Translation reads as though a thorough return to God includes the attitude and act of justice toward others. It reads, " 'As surely as the Lord lives,’you could do so with truth, justice, and righteousness." Even reading the text carefully, it becomes difficult to discern which rendering is most reflective of the author's intent. Due to the fact that God's stated purpose for His people is to bless all the nations of the world, one could easily say both are true. I propose that we have a holy, double entendre here. When coming or returning to God, the rebellious must do so not only with a just and right heart, but a well-intentioned heart toward justice.
Now that raises the grace issue. At what point will God refuse a truly repentant heart who comes in Jesus' name with the conviction by the Holy Spirit without the previous action of outward works or deeds? The answer is, obviously, never. God will never refuse the truly repentant. However, the validity of one's response is shown by one's changed orientation. When one comes to God in all the emptiness one encounters, God moves to qualify that repentance with direction.
How does that relate to human trafficking? Although a fairly new concern in our Christian circles, human trafficking has been an integral part of human kind for millenia. It seems to me as though it is a by-product of all societies at any socio/economic level. The poor promote it in order to gain wealth; the wealthy promote it because they are able to afford anything they desire. The problem does not seem to me to be of barbarian societies any more than of so-called, cultured or modern societies. It bares open the depravity within the hearts of humankind. Both want and prosperity feed it.
However, we, Christians, ignore it. How might we be claiming to have found justice through Jesus while there is none for so many others? The world is no longer the "them" of our existence. For many reasons including transportation, communication, and globalization, it is no longer in someone else's "backyard". To come to God in justice and to claim a desire to return to God as a rebellious people, we must respond with justice toward current, worldly need. How else might we fulfill God's desire to bless through us entire nations around the world?
