OPENING PRAYER

• Prayer for Justice

• Grant us, Lord God, a vision of your world as your love would have
it:
a world where the weak are protected, and none go hungry or poor;
a world where the riches of creation are shared, and everyone can
enjoy them;
a world where different races and cultures live in harmony and
mutual respect;
a world where peace is built with justice, and justice is guided by
love.
Give us the inspiration and courage to build it, through Jesus Christ
our Lord.
- Author Unknown
JESUS AS SOCIAL JUSTICE MINISTER
 The mission of Jesus
• Jesus began his ministry when he read
from Isaiah:
• “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
        to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
    and recovery of sight to the blind,
        to let the oppressed go free..”
• Luke 4:18
 The Messianic Manifesto
• This is the messianic manifesto which will
guide the life of Jesus. He is anointed to do
this work by the power of the Spirit.
• Jesus sets out his vocation for his earthly
ministry in this small synagogue in
Nazareth, and it includes a mission of
comprehensive shalom-restoration, justice,
for all of creation.
• Justice-oriented, faithful devotion to the
God of the Bible involves a radical
commitment to the poor, the suffering, the
foreigner, the sick. In a word, the
vulnerable.
• The good news, the Gospel, is intimately connected to
vulnerable people on the margins of society. Jesus didn’t
come for the healthy, but for the sick. He sought the lost
sheep. He healed the sick, gave sight to the blind and
set people free, and He called us to follow Him.
• Jesus said the righteous are those who do justice: feed
the hungry, invite in the stranger, clothe the naked, tend
to the sick and visit prisoners. (Matt. 25:36-39)
 • A life following Jesus will bring us to the
To Follow Jesus most difficult corners of the world,
ministering in deed and with his Word to
is to Do Works of those encountering the greatest suffering
Justice and marginalization.
• To follow Jesus in the world is to join in
his story of restoring all of creation to its
God-intended flourishing. Our labors
following the perfect shepherd will be
partial, flawed and prone to setback.
• But the direction of the story is
comprehensively forward, so let’s follow
Jesus in his full work of restoration. Of
justice. Of peace.
 DENOUNCING INJUSTICE
• Part of working for justice is
to denounce injustice
• What does it mean to
denounce injustice?
– to deplore or condemn
openly or vehemently
– To give information against
an injustice
• 2  
• Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to
Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen,
sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated
there.  He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of
the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the
coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables,  and
to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and
stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” His disciples
recalled the words of scripture, “Zeal for your house will
consume me.”  John 2:13-15
• https://youtu.be/kyvTMggabJc
• Since it was Passover, Jews from ALL over came to Jerusalem
and were required to bring a sacrifice. Many could not bring
animals that far of a distance due the cost, inconvenience, and
potential of that animal becoming injured or “blemished” in
some way during the travels which would have made the animal
unfit for sacrifice.
• Therefore they had to purchase a sacrificial animal when they
arrived. Some historians say that prior to coming they would
have sold an animal at home that they would have used as a
sacrifice and would then use that money from the sale to
purchase a replacement animal for sacrifice.
 • In the scripture passage, the people
selling the animals and doing money
exchanges (just like we have to do when
we go out of country and have to
exchange currency to the local currency)
were taking advantage of people and
cheating people out of their money by
overcharging them. 
• Then on top of all of that, they were doing this INSIDE
the temple courts which would have crowded out and
disrupted the worship taking place there during the
Passover celebration. The focus wasn’t on God with all
of the cheating and merchandising going on in the
temple courts. Jesus said they turned a house of prayer
into a den of thieves and called these people robbers or
thieves.
 PHARISEES and SCRIBES
• In Matthew 23 Jesus pronounces “woes” on the scribes and Pharisees, the
religious elite of the day. The word woe is an exclamation of grief,
denunciation, or distress. This was not the first time Jesus had some harsh
words for the religious leaders of His day. Why did Jesus rebuke them so
harshly here?
• Jesus told His listeners to respect the scribes and Pharisees due to their
position of authority but not to emulate them, “for they do not practice
what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on
other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger
to move them. Everything they do is done for people to see” (Matthew
23:3–5). 
 PHARISEES and SCRIBES
• According to some calculations, Pharisees developed “a
system of 613 laws, 365 negative commands and 248
positive laws.” For these and other reasons Jesus saw the
Pharisees as “locking” the kingdom of heaven, making it
virtually impossible for people to be righteous in the
sight of God.
• The teachers of the Law and Pharisees were not truly seeking
after God, though they acted as if they were. Their religion
was empty, and it was preventing others from following the
Messiah.
• Matthew 23
 MATTHEW 23:13-28
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You lock the kingdom of heaven before human
beings. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you
allow entrance to those trying to enter.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You traverse sea and land to make one convert, and
when that happens you make him a child of
Gehenna twice as much as yourselves.
“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If one swears
by the temple, it means nothing, but if one swears
by the gold of the temple, one is obligated.’
Blind fools, which is greater, the gold, or the temple
that made the gold sacred?
And you say, ‘If one swears by the altar, it means
nothing, but if one swears by the gift on the altar,
one is obligated.’
You blind ones, which is greater, the gift, or the altar
that makes the gift sacred?
One who swears by the altar swears by it and all
that is upon it; one who swears by the temple
swears by it and by him who dwells in it;
one who swears by heaven swears by the throne of
God and by him who is seated on it.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you
hypocrites. You pay tithes* of mint and dill
and have neglected the weightier things of
the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity.
[But] these you should have done, without
neglecting the others.
Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and
swallow the camel!
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you
hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup
and dish, but inside they are full of plunder
and self-indulgence.
Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of
the cup, so that the outside also may be
clean.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you
hypocrites. You are like whitewashed
tombs, which appear beautiful on the
outside, but inside are full of dead men’s
bones and every kind of filth.
Even so, on the outside you appear
righteous, but inside you are filled with
hypocrisy and evildoing.
  Social Justice is at the Center of the Gospel
• As we look at the life and ministry
of Jesus, we see Him engaged in
social justice actions at every turn.
• He feeds the hungry. He defends
the oppressed. He stands up for
women’s rights. He loves the
outcast, the despised, the
rejected, and the sinner, and calls
on the rich and powerful to give
their money to the poor and take
of the needs of the helpless.
•  According to the Gospel, our goal is to work for
the betterment of society as a whole.
• This is what “A Faith That Does Justice” actually
means.
• We aim to form change agents – in our own little
way, where we are as we are, who will be change
agents in society, “contemplatives in action.”

ORA LABORA
• Closing Prayer/Song – We Carry the Saving
Cross
• https://youtu.be/hkG11VdcLv4
 • Camera off
• Open notes
Quiz 2 • No asking of answers
from classmates,
friends or anyone