Next, Luke’s Jesus shares a story about expectation and preparedness in the context of the unjust and unjustifiable practice of slavery. The original audience would have heard this story as being about restoring the reign of God, God’s just future. Today many sectors of Christians typically interpret this passage about Jesus’ second advent . But the original audience for this story would have heard this story through a different filter.
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This is Part 3 of Bending Our World’s Arc Toward Justice
The Hebrew prophets spoke of their God as having abandoned the people as a result of societal abuses and injustices toward vulnerable people.
“I will forsake my house, abandon my inheritance; I will give the one I love into the hands of her enemies.” (Jeremiah 12:7)
But if their society would return to justice, their God would also return to them and their temple:
“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty. (Malachi 3:1)
The underlying theme of Jesus’ story in our reading is that the coming of the kingdom, Jesus’ vision for human community, could come at any moment, so stay ready. This reminds me of the clarion call often given today to “stay woke.” Don’t allow yourself to be acculturated to injustice. Don’t let yourself become desensitized to the suffering of those being presently harmed. Don’t let inequity, corruption, and brutality become normalized.
It is interesting to me that both last week’s and this week’s readings have us praying for and being prepared for the kingdom to arrive at some unexpected time in the future. This week’s reading also uses the figure of the Son of Man. The Son of Man was a liberating agent from imperial injustice, oppression, and violence in the apocalyptic chapter of Daniel 7. Calling us to look for these events in the future is a change in the Jesus story from those passages where Jesus announces that the kingdom had arrived or that the time had come.
Given that Luke was most likely written not only after Jesus’ crucifixion but also after the Romans razed the temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E., it would be much easier to call people to be ready for the kingdom. It would be much easier to tell them that it was still coming than that it had already arrived. Honestly, 2,000 years later, not much about that has changed. But I’m reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King’s vision of the moral universe as a long arc bending toward justice. We must also remember that the arc doesn’t bend toward justice automatically. If the universe’s arc is going to bend toward justice, we’re going to have to bend it that way. And that may explain the change in the gospels’ language: the people were still in the ashes of imperial violence with Jesus’ execution and Jerusalem’s destruction.
That famous arc of justice requires deliberate and courageous efforts from those who choose to stand on the side of equity, compassion, and truth. Choosing to bend that arc toward justice is an act of hope, and also one of resistance. It means refusing to accept the world as it is and daring to imagine a world as it could be—a world where all people are treated with dignity, where systems serve the vulnerable, and where peace is rooted in justice or fairness.
This choice is not always easy. Especially right now, when we are witnessing so many caving to injustice and bowing the knee for expediency. Choosing justice may cost us comfort, popularity, or privilege. But it is a path that gives life deeper meaning. It invites us to be co-creators of a more just and loving society. Whether we are advocating for racial equity, economic fairness, gender and LGBTQ inclusion, or environmental stewardship, each small act of justice matters. Every word spoken, every protest joined, every policy challenged adds weight to the arc’s bend. History honors those who didn’t wait for justice to arrive, but who helped carry it forward. That choice—to act—is always ours.
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