There was once man who was robbed and beat up. This man was to the point of death. People that were close and dear to him looked at him and didn’t do anything to help. But a stranger who looked and talked different than him helped him, paid for him to stay in a hotel, and ultimately sacrificed many things to see this man get back on his feet. Whether you are Christian or not, you can recognize the structure of this story as the parable of the Good Samaritan. This comes from a question when a lawyer asked Jesus who is my neighbor, and at the end of this story you will see that the lawyer answers that the one who did good towards the disadvantaged man was the neighbor.

You see the Good Samaritan went out of his way, to help somebody that by societies standard he shouldn’t have helped. He was willing to uncomfortable help someone that was his neighbor. If we look at the example of Jesus, we will see that he went out of his way to help and hang out with those who society said he shouldn’t be with. Jesus was comfortable being uncomfortable. In other words he was willing sacrifice everything so that people could be better.

Social justice and Christianity should go hand in hand. There is no problem that is too controversial for us to handle. We aren’t meant to live comfortable lives of living in a house, making a lot of money, and just going to church and occasionally doing something that is charitable. We are to lives full of love and of sacrifice. But today the American church, this includes myself has aligned ourselves to ideal that the American Dream is what Christianity is. It isn’t. But yet we live our lives this way and it shows. The church shouldn’t love just so it can add members to its church, but its what Jesus commands us to do. Race or class shouldn’t divide the entire church. But yet it does, we pick and choose what problems we want to tackle.

Achieving social justice doesn’t mean that we fight for laws that match what we believe match the Bible. It means that we use the power of love to understand others and fight to see their lives changed. When Jesus met the Samaritan woman in John 4, he didn’t condemn her or say that I can’t talk to you because you are of a different race than I am. Then why do we do this today? More than likely most people that are Christians will go to church with people that look like them for most of their lives. How is this right? As Christians when we see altercations between police officers and minorities that doesn’t mean we should respond and pick sides. We should empathize with both the one who was killed and also look for the police officer to be safe as well. When we see those that are poor saying they want more help, we must not condemn them and say that they need to work harder. Christians should be busting down doors to help the poor all across the world.

There’s a line from a song where an artist named Propaganda says “Would Americans churches scuff their Toms over our brothers dead bodies, as they march to stop gay marriage.” Christians should be the ones setting the tempo and be at the forefront of social justice. The way we achieve that is moving past the political agendas. Because true social justice isn’t stopping gay marriage, abortion, going overseas, putting prayer back in schools, stopping evolution from getting taught, achieving money in my pocket, helping those in my church, or helping those who only look like me. No true social justice means fighting for people who have no one to fight for them. True social justice is feeding people, taking care of the sick, helping out the poor, going past racial and class barriers, going both home and abroad to show love and the true gospel of Jesus Christ.