Ecc Outline Week 4

Outline 2:

Intro/Welcome

Would you stand up for injustice?

For a stranger? For a friend? For your Child?

Outline 1

Intro/Welcome

Probably something on seeking justice, experiencing injustice, oppression etc.

Global statistics.

Joke: tiger was acquitted of mauling an antelope due to having no conscious.

Actual: Brown bear sentenced to prison time

If you saw injustice would you do something about it?

What about if it was your friend?

What about your kids?

It’s not so much that we don’t care about justice, its that we don’t care enough about the people.

we don’t care enough about the people becuase we care mostly about ourselves

What if we lived like Jesus who loved the least of these? Who laid down his life for his enemies?

this is for both sides.

Apathy or fear.

CRT

Prayer

Injustice & Oppression: There is nothing new under the sun (Ecc 3:15)

Oppression & Injustice

Initial act of violence — Cain and Abel — do you know what Able’s name is in Hebrew — Hevel

The first senseless act of oppression

But God seeks justice

The Reality of Injustice & Oppression

In the Courts (Ecc 3:16)

the ‘place of judgment & righteousness’

The Cross: The True ‘place’ of judgment & righteousness

Proverbs 29:4 ESV

4 By justice a king builds up the land, but he who exacts gifts tears it down.

Proverbs 17:23 CSB

23 A wicked person secretly takes a bribe to subvert the course of justice.

Proverbs 13:23 NIV

23 An unplowed field produces food for the poor, but injustice sweeps it away.

In Political Power (Ecc 4:1-3)

no comfort to the oppressed (Ecc 4:1)

Better to be dead than oppressed (Ecc 4:2-3)

Global Phenomenon

Redeeming Political Power —?

We know Jesus will eventually set all wrongs right, but until then he has invited us to join him in his work. Politics is an essential arena for pursuing justice. (43)

Our Hope: God’s Justice (Ecc 3:17-22)

God will judge (Ecc 3:17) — HOPE

Do not become discouraged

if we see in justice — we are called to fight for it

If we hear of injustice — we are called to fight for it

For every deed will be judged

Matt 25 - you what you have done to the least of these you have done to me.

Man is mortal (Ecc 3:18-22)

Like the animals/like Beasts

why we were cast out of the garden so that we would not live forever with evil

What happens when we die?

Ecc 3:21-22

Application

Put your Hope in God’s Justice

Fight for horizontal justice in light of God’s justice

Don’t be surprised at oppression.

Ecc 5:8

Application

Doing justice in light of God’s Justice (for we all will be judged)

A defining mark of being a disciple of Jesus is a genuine concern for the well being of others, often at your own expense.

Open your eyes

be courageous where you are

Don’t give up on politics

We know Jesus will eventually set all wrongs right, but until then he has invited us to join him in his work. Politics is an essential arena for pursuing justice. (43)

shop at Samaritan Village

perspective, if you make $25,000 a year or more, you’re in the top 10 percent of the world’s wealth. And if you make $34,000 a year or more, you’re in the top 1 percent.45

Comer, John Mark. The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry (p. 202). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

A few years ago I was shocked and deeply disturbed when I learned about the dark underbelly of globalization. I had no clue that a huge chunk of the items in my home and life were made unjustly, if not with full-on human trafficking and child labor.

Take the garment industry for example, which has radically changed since the mad men–era. In the 1960s, 95 percent of our clothes were made in America, and Americans spent on average 10 percent of their annual budget on clothing and owned very few items.

Today only 2 percent of our clothing is made in the US, and we spend only around 4 percent of our annual budgets on it—a decrease of 500 percent.

How did our clothing get so cheap? Well, multinational corporations started making our clothes in places like Vietnam and Bangladesh, where government corruption is rife and officials do little or nothing to stop the victimization of workers.

Things like minimum wage, health care, and unions are alien. Workers are likely to work six to seven days a week in a sweltering factory, often in unsafe conditions with little or no protection.53

And we’re talking about a lot of people here. One in six people in the world work in the garment industry. That’s just south of 1.5 billion people.

For those who care about feminism, approximately 80 percent of those workers are women. Fewer than 2 percent of them make a living wage.

No wonder we call a cheap item a “steal.” That’s exactly what it is. Theft. And we’re no Robin Hood stealing from the ultra-rich CEO that we love to villainize; we’re more likely stealing from a single mother in Burma just trying to take care of her family.

It’s easy to post something on Instagram about how there are twenty-eight million slaves in the world today and we need to #endit.

That’s great; I’m all for it, genuinely. But many of the clothes we’re wearing for our selfie (that we took on a device made in rural China) are causing it, not ending it. As much as I want to believe slavery is a thing of the past, what were most African American slaves doing? Farming cotton. For clothes.

Comer, John Mark. The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry (pp. 206-207). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

STATS

The movie is filled with disturbing facts. Here's a few:

-- 250,000 Indian cotton farmers have killed themselves in the last 15 years, partly as a result of going into debt to buy genetically modified cotton seeds.

-- There are 80 billion pieces of clothing purchased worldwide each year, up 400% from two decades ago.

-- Americans throw out 82 pounds of textiles annually.

-- Only 10% of the clothes people donate to thrift stores get sold -- the rest end up in landfills or flood markets in developing countries.

The American orator Daniel Webster once called justice “the ligament which holds civilized beings and … nations together.”