Exploring the Heart of Justice

updated January 29, 2025

I wrote this post almost 5 years ago during a crisis I think most of us have forgotten. But there is always a new crisis to replace the last one.

I think the lessons I tried to convey in this post can be generalized to other situations, not just the one then, the COVID-19 pandemic. Read it with that in mind. Now to the original post from 2020.

We’re experiencing two pandemics; the medical one causing illness, suffering and death due to a ravaging disease and the economic one causing financial hardship, food insecurity, and job loss due to a devastated economy.

Families and businesses are making hard choices, choices in which fairness is important but difficult to achieve. I listened to a podcast (link below) that addressed this as a matter of justice, which I found worth thinking more about.

What is justice?

In the podcast, Dr. Celine Grounder interviewed Adam Grant, a psychologist and professor. She asked him what makes for a good leader in the kind of crisis we’re experiencing now. He replied the best companies and their leaders base decisions on justice and he described 3 types of justice.

• distributive justice- making choices that lead to fair outcomes
• procedural justice-making decisions through a fair and unbiased process
• interpersonal justice-making decisions in a way that treats people with respect, dignity, and compassion

Understanding Biblical Justice

This idea caught my attention because I made an insight recently while reading the part of the Bible known as the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew chapters 5 through 7 include some of the Bible’s most well-known passages, some you may not realize are biblical. Have you ever heard these phrases?

• eye for an eye
• turn the other cheek
• go the extra mile
• the Golden Rule
• pearls before swine

These phrases from the Sermon are attributed to Jesus and may not have been from a single sermon; the lessons it teaches may have been given at different times, the book Luke, contains some of the same messages.

In the Sermon as in other New Testament scenes, Jesus taught his followers how they should live their lives and one word he uses several times is “righteousness”.

Righteousness sounds overtly religious, living bound by strict laws, emphasizing rule keeping, striving for perfection. As Richard Foster wrote, righteousness can consist of “control over externals, often including the manipulation of others.” (from Celebration of Discipline )

So I was surprised that one version, the New Living Translation (NLT), uses a different word for righteousness-justice.

God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.

Matthew 5:6, NLT

Several other Bible verses suggest righteousness and justice are two aspects of the same concept.

• The Lord loves righteousness and justice;the earth is full of his unfailing love. Psalm 33:5, NIV
• The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. Psalm 103:6, NIV
•  But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!   Amos 5:24, NIV

Reverend Erin Clifford explains both Old and New Testament Biblical justice in this short video.

Reflecting on these and other scriptures in I Am With You author Ann Spangler wrote this

“Righteousness is a Biblical word that means being in a right relationship with God, and with others. Injustice fractures and destroys relationships….

righteousness is “primarily a relationship, never an attainment; a direction, a loyalty, a commitment, a hope-and only someday an arrival” (quoting Addison Leitch)

Practicing Justice

Farther in the Sermon Jesus tells the people to

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

Matthew 6:33, NLT

This suggests that living justly isn’t merely thinking about justice, but behaving in a just manner, perhaps like the interpersonal justice Mr. Grant describes in the podcast.

some other thoughts on the Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 5:6 is from part of the Sermon known as the Beatitudes. learn more about it here

How to be blessed, happy, and healthy

And in the rest of the Sermon, Jesus goes on to describe some other criteria for living a righteous or just life. I’ll explore that further in another post.

Here is a link to the podcast if you’d like to listen.

EPIDEMIC- Good and Bad Bosses

“EPIDEMIC is a twice-weekly podcast on public health and the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19).  Hosted by Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist who has worked on tuberculosis and HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, and was an Ebola worker during the West African epidemic. And co-hosted by Ron Klain, the U.S. Ebola czar from 2014 to 2015.”

The COVID-19 pandemic may well be the defining moment of our times. Our lives have changed irrevocably. We need to understand the science so we can care for ourselves, our families, and our communities. And we need voices of reason to help us make sense of it all.

EPIDEMIC

In this episode, Dr. Celine Gounder talks to Adam Grant, a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. They discuss

• work during a pandemic and which companies are taking considerations to continue to take care of their employees, and which companies aren’t.
• what good leadership during a crisis really looks like, and whether the COVID-19 pandemic may change the kinds of benefits that employers offer their employees.
• how companies can improve their work-from-home culture, as well as how the pandemic may change people’s work-life/home-life balance permanently. 

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