With Justice for All ch. 6

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich." 2 Corinthians 8:9

Jesus left Heaven and became one of us so that we might know that He knows our needs...that He can really identify with us. John Perkins also gave up being a "have" and moved back to Mendenhall, MS, and became a "have not" in order to take his people the gospel. In chapter 6, Perkins talks about relocating to live among his people, and in so doing, he could better understand and share in the needs of the people.

Chapter 6 quotes James Cone with a challenging word about love expressed through voluntary oppression:

"The Christian community, therefore, is that community that freely becomes oppressed, because they know that Christ himself has defined humanity's liberation in the context of what happens to the little ones. Christians join the cause of the oppressed in the fight for justice not because of some philosophical principle of "the Good" or because of a religious feeling of sympathy for people in prison. Sympathy does not change the structures of injustice. The authentic identity of Christians with the poor is found in the claim which the Christ-encounter lays upon their own life-style, a claim that connects the word "Christian" with the liberation of the poor. Christians fight not for humanity in general but for themselves and out of their love for concrete human beings."

I do not live in the neighborhood in which I feel God calling me to serve, but I am growing in relationship with people who do, and for this I am grateful. I am grateful to learn about needs even if I cannot personally identify with those same needs, and I find that God does some amazing growth work if I am willing to enter in as a servant, learner, and friend.