BY DANIEL WYSONG

"Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the orphan. Fight for the rights of widows" (Isa. 1:17, NLT).

F YOU HAVE TRAVELED TO A DEVELOPING country, a major metropolitan city, or even watched the news lately, you have probably seen something that made your stomach turn--a young girl being kicked on the ground by an abusive father, a police officer forcing an old homeless man to move off the warm air vent he was using to keep from freezing, children in the Sudan with distended bellies waiting to die from starvation. The world, for many people, is a horribly cruel, painful, and unjust place.

Take Sumita. At 12 years old she ran away to Bombay to escape an arranged marriage. When she got there, she was tricked into following a man who sold her to a brothel. The brothel owner beat her and dragged her upstairs to a windowless room. He threw her on the floor and explained to her that she would have to work as a prostitute to pay off her debt.

She refused, and he beat her more. When the first customer came, she fought him. The customer complained, and the brothel owner beat her until she gave in. She spent the next two years living in filthy rooms, having sex with four or five men a day, being traded from brothel to brothel as a slave.

Last year the International Justice Mission (IJM), a Christian activist group started by Gary Haugen, began to infiltrate the brothels in Bombay. Cooperating with local authorities, they broke into the brothels and freed Sumita and 24 other children, helping them find homes to live in. The amazing part of the story is that Sumita had started praying two weeks earlier that if there was a God, He would rescue her.

What Her Story Teaches Us
The story of Sumita illustrates three powerful points:

First, there are terrible evils in the world. As far removed as we may be from child slave trafficking, it is happening. Injustice exists, even if we aren't aware of it. Crimes are being committed that are so heinous we cannot remain silent.

Second, God cares deeply for the oppressed. Exodus 22:22, 23 says, "Do not exploit widows or orphans. If you do and they cry out to me, then I will surely help them" (NLT). He who made our eyes is not blind to the injustice in this world. A prevailing trend in contemporary American Christianity, Adventism included, is a reawakening desire to know the will of God for our lives. It may not be as hard to discover as we think. God cares passionately for the oppressed. He will do anything He can to help them. And if our hearts are sensitive to the heart of our maker, we will join Him in His work. If we are doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God, we can know we are in the very heart of His will.

The third major point in the story of Sumita is the way God rescued her. He used human beings seeking justice, doing something to make the world a place where the oppressed are taken care of. While God occasionally intervenes directly in human affairs, His primary method of answering our prayers is through other human beings. Believe it or not, we are God's plan for helping the oppressed.

While this idea is one few of us would disagree with, the practice becomes more difficult. How do you and I, in the middle of our North American lifestyles--complete with hectic jobs, endless bills, rising gas prices, 1.8 children, and a dog--do something about the injustice in the world? We give money to ADRA and pray for all the dear children in God's tender care. We might even give a couple bucks to the guy with the sign on the on-ramp and go serve soup at a street kitchen once a month. We care. Isn't that enough?

What do you think Sumita would say? Is praying for all the oppressed people in the world enough? Given the amount of evil in the world, our prayers must motivate us to action. God doesn't just call us to feel care; He calls us to fight for the oppressed and heal the broken. Injustice lives close to all of our homes, whether our houses are in Beverly Hills or South Central. We've seen it. But we have been taught to ignore it. Our culture trains us to rely on someone else to fix it. Whether it is government social services, the police, the homeless shelter, or even the church, we learn that justice is someone else's job. We are told that we can't do anything about it anyway.

But we are told wrong.

Injustice is our problem, because injustice is God's problem, and He has called us as His children and His church to do everything in our power to stop it. And there really is quite a lot in our power.

George W. Bush reminded us in his state of the union address delivered in January 2003, "Ladies and gentlemen, seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many." Think about it. Seldom in the history of the planet has there ever been a group of people with as much wealth, influence, and power as American Christians have today. And seldom in the history of our planet has a group with as much power and influence been as unaware of it. We have been given power and influence undreamed of by any Christian generation since Christ was here. But with power comes responsibility.

We are called to seek justice, to help the oppressed, and to defend the fatherless and widows. Not only is it an idea that courses powerfully through the Old Testament, but Jesus Himself presents it as the key difference between His children and the rest of the world. In Matthew 25:34-36 Jesus says, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me" (NLT). According to Jesus, the remnant will be characterized by people passionately involved in caring for the oppressed--the hungry, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned. To put it another way, Paul says in Hebrews 13:3, "Don't forget about those in prison. Suffer with them as though you were there yourself. Share the sorrow of those being mistreated, as though you feel their pain in your own bodies" (NLT).

How Do We Seek Justice?
The first step in seeking justice is seeing injustice. As Adventists and Christians, we need to actively educate ourselves as to what is going on in our homes, our neighborhoods, our corporations, our country, and our world. We cannot stick our heads in the sand. (Well, we can. We're good at it. But we shouldn't.) We obviously have more control over the injustice in our homes, our workplaces, and our churches than anywhere else, and these are the places in which God has called each of us to work first. We cannot commit the sin of silence by letting our bosses, coworkers, or employees abuse the people around them. We cannot allow our church boards to become places where the oppressed are ignored and religion becomes a placebo for spirituality. We cannot omit the teaching of justice to our children. We cannot allow our local communities to mistreat the minorities and marginalized among us. But we can place our lot with the oppressed, and our interests with theirs. We can send a counterculture message in today's consumer culture. We can share the sorrow of those being mistreated. We can make our tables places where the hungry are fed. We can transform our churches into places where injustices are talked about and confronted, and where those who don't "fit in" are welcomed. We can elect church boards who are passionately concerned about our communities. We can change our offices to places where people are built up and encouraged rather than torn down and stressed out.

We can also make our lives count in our own country and bring justice to the oppressed. The massive scope of the world's problems often makes us think we are helpless to change them. But we aren't. American Christians have wealth, power, and influence. If we educate ourselves to the policies and laws that our politicians enact, we can use our influence to promote justice. We can educate ourselves to the global effects of trade agreements, import tariffs, agricultural subsidies, sanctions, and economic policies that dramatically affect the abilities of the poor in other countries to earn a living. We can discourage dumping U.S. grain on world markets at rates below what farmers in developing countries can produce it for (which ensures economic failure for developing economies largely dependent on agriculture).

We can encourage more economic aid for Africa (where 30 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS, and a few billion dollars could save 10 million lives over the next five years). We can encourage vegetarianism as both a cure for world hunger and the most powerful environmental action any individual can take (it takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef--and the number one reason rain forests are being slashed is for cattle ranching). We can encourage international debt relief. We can refuse to buy goods from multinational corporations that treat workers in developing countries unethically. We can use our voices to shape government policy. Instead of seeking only our own best interest, we can seek justice for others first.

In the international arena, making a difference can be as dramatic as going on short-term mission trips. But the smaller things we can do are just as important: writing letters to our congresspersons supporting or opposing specific legislative initiatives that affect the poor in other countries (Bread for the World at bread.org has issues, addresses, and forms); joining organizations such as Amnesty International (amnesty.org) and writing letters to other governments on behalf of people whose rights they are abusing; getting involved with Christian rights groups such as the International Justice Mission (ijm.org). These things make a difference.

Small but Not Unimportant
As small as these measures may seem compared to the "urgent" stresses we face every day, they are anything but insignificant. They are the most important things evil would have us neglect. They are some of the most important things we will do. They are the little things that show we truly care. To not speak out is to allow the darkness to grow. And we who follow Christ are called to let the light of His love and justice shine. If we do these things, then our light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around us will be bright as day.