Loving Justice But Lacking Courage

When the 2010 Haiti earthquake killed over 200,000 people and left so many others homeless, my son moved into action. It was chaos there. People wanted to help but had no plan. He went to Port-au-Prince, worked with the Haitian church, and mobilized over a thousand volunteers to help.

It was hard work. It took courage.

Courage takes us from our own comfortable, protected world and puts us in a place of risk. Too many of us see situations around the world that shock us. We want to do something, so we write something and post it to social media. Advocacy. And yes, that’s needed. But is it enough?

Let’s not mistake advocacy for courage.

Advocacy keeps our hands clean. We can even hide behind a pseudonym. Courage costs us something. Seeing injustice and advocating for change may make a difference, but usually change means getting your hands dirty. It requires risk. Courage looks like Ghandi or Martin Luther King or William Wilberforce.

I was reading the Gospel of John this morning. It quickly introduces us to Jesus fighting for justice by putting himself at risk – showing us what courage looks like. Chapter 1 begins with abstractions, but in chapter 2 Jesus is in action, overturning tables in the temple courts, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” he says.

It’s a paradox that so many would feel a passion for justice, but lack the courage to fight for it. The 4 million women caught in the sex trade are like widows in distress. UNICEF estimates there are 153 million orphans in the world. Who will practice true religion and fight for them? Who will put themselves at risk to make change?

And in your neighborhood, people may be in desperate need of help without you knowing it. The family in America has never been in worse shape. More than 20 million children are growing up in a family without a father. 57% of African-American children are growing up in homes without a father. Who will fight for them?

Courage gives us resolve

Courage seems to be in short supply these days. Courage is what gets us out of the small world we inhabit and gives us the resolve to do something – to fight.

We need to learn to fight for righteous causes. As Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Have we slid into a passive place? I was sliding that way during covid. I had lost my bearings. I’m so glad to be back in the fight again.

We need to recover the capacity to fight for what is right. We do that by stepping out and touching those in need. Compassion is the beginning of activation, but we need to do something to bring justice.

In my experience, Millennials have been excellent at advocacy – I love millennials. I love their hunger for justice. And I keep waiting for some of them to find the courage to make a difference. I’m seeing a hunger in Gen Z to take action. I’m en-couraged.