Justice Toward One Another

(Part Two of Advent and Justice Toward One Another)

In our reading this week, the fruit that John calls his listeners to bear is what we would call social justice. This term has an interesting history:

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(Read this series from its beginning here.)

“Jesuit priest Luigi Taparelli D’Azeglio coined the term in the 1840s and based the concept on the teachings of Thomas Aquinas. Taparelli used the term to refer to the ordinary and traditional conception of justice applied to the constitutional arrangements of society. At the time, Taparelli’s concept was considered a significant contribution to conservative political philosophy… It wasn’t until the 1970s and the publication of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice that the term became widely associated with liberal secular political philosophy, particularly with changing social institutions.” (Stephen Mattson, On Love and Mercy: A Social Justice Devotional, p. 9-10)

In our reading from Luke, John is calling for change in the social institutions of his day.

He called the crowd to distribute resources:

“Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none”

He called tax collectors not to “collect any more than you are required to.”

And he told soldiers, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely.”

With these teachings, he was critiquing the social institutions of his time and calling for justice. Josephus corroborates Luke’s account:

“Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God, and was a very just punishment for what he did against John called the Baptist. For Herod had him killed, although he was a good man and had urged the Jews to exert themselves to virtue, both as to justice toward one another and reverence towards God . . .” (Antiquities 18.5.2 116-119)

Josephus told us that John’s call of renewing reverence for God was tied to the virtue of the people also practicing justice toward one another. Justice toward one another is “social” justice. Social justice is merely applying the ethic of loving your neighbor.

In response, the people question if John could be the coming messiah they expected to put right all violence, injustice, and oppression. John response is telling. We’ll pick up with that response, next.

(Read Part 3)

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