“In His Name”

“In His name, all oppression shall cease.”

“O Holy Night” is one of my favorite advent hymns. This year, the line calling us to recognize that in Jesus’ name, all oppression shall cease resonated most deeply. 

I spend much of my time wrestling with the concepts of justice and oppression and helping social work students to do the same. It is often difficult for me to discern if this call is more deeply rooted in my professional identity or my faith. 

As a social worker, I am drawn to the message of social justice that is at the core of our profession. The social work code of ethics calls us to “enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty.”  

Social workers have no doubts about our mandate to work for justice. However, we do recognize it is no easy task. 

We realize that to work for justice, we have to understand systems of oppression, and to understand systems of oppression. We have to learn to see the systems and structures that benefit some of us and harm others. 

None of us want to see our own culpability in systems that harm others. And when we are loyal to or benefit from certain structures, it is often easier to look away when our neighbors may be harmed by them. Our work in social work is to wrestle with these things as we seek the well-being of all people.  

These social work commitments also remind me of what is core to my Christian faith. Throughout our scriptures, we hear a call to work for justice in the face of oppression. 

The Hebrew scriptures point to the oppressive nature of Babylonian exile, but also to the ways Israel lost her way when enslaving other nations, abusing vulnerable women and children and taking advantage of the poorest among them.  

In the gospels, Jesus calls his followers to meet the needs of the oppressed and vulnerable and to advocate on their behalf when the structures of our world marginalize God’s children. Before he is born, his mother sings a song of liberation for the oppressed. 

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus recognizes his call to free the oppressed. His disciples yearn for power, and Jesus reminds them that Roman imperialism corrupts and destroys life. He also reminds them of the humility of God’s power, where all children are equal, welcome and beloved.

We read these words in scripture, but we wrestle to understand our role in God’s reign of peace. The “now, but not yet” message of Advent allows us to shrug our shoulders if we do not feel the immediate implications of oppression. The words of Jesus and the prophets just seem too obscure to know how to live it out. 

I was in a conversation recently about the familiar words from Micah 6:8, and a few friends were claiming God’s call to love our neighbor but didn’t feel like God’s call to do justice applied to them. 

“We can’t do it all” was their refrain. “Loving kindness is my calling. Doing justice can be yours,” they said. I kept arguing that I didn’t think this was what Micah had in mind. 

It made me realize our care for oppressed individuals is perhaps easier to make sense of than our engagement with systems of oppression. Neither is easy. We don’t do either very well. 

And I can’t imagine telling my friends that justice is my calling and loving others can be theirs. I think we can all agree that love is God’s mandate—even if we fail to live it out fully. Why is it we cannot believe that doing justice is also required of us?  

I think it has to do with the fact that we don’t want to see ourselves in the role of the oppressor. I am not saying we are on par with Nebuchadnezzar, but I do know asking questions about the legacy of white supremacy or patriarchy in our own lives tends to quickly shut down a conversation. 

What makes these questions of our faith so challenging today, particularly in predominantly white churches in North America, is they do make us uncomfortable. They do require us to see things that we would rather ignore. They make us question our assumptions about the world, our politics, our institutions and our personal lives.    

I don’t think Jesus is calling us to question and criticize everything (something we professors are often charged with!), but I do believe love and justice go hand in hand. Our calling is to figure out how we practice these virtues of our faith. 

This means we have to ask difficult questions when some of us benefit over and over again from the structures that surround us, while some never catch up.   

This year, as we sing the familiar words reminding us that in Jesus’s name, all oppression shall cease, what questions will come to mind for you? What systems and structures benefit me but cause harm to our siblings? 

Let yourself feel the discomfort and allow it to be a place where God stirs your heart and mind in a new way. Perhaps this will lead us to a deeper faith. 

Perhaps it will open new doors for doing justice, loving-kindness, and walking humbly with our God.