There is a significant difference between charity and justice. Both are part of the teaching of Jesus. Both are part of the Catholic faith. But we, like most Christians, are much better at charity than at justice, and we may not even be aware of the difference. 

There is a story that explains the difference between charity and justice. It is an old story about a small Christian village located by a broad river. One day as the people in that village were busy doing their daily tasks, a body floated down the river. When they saw it, they retrieved it and gave it a reverent burial, because they were good Christian people. The next day, another body floated down the river, and they did the same. As the days passed, more and more bodies kept floating down the river. So, they bought a boat and put guards at the river so that no body would escape their notice, and each body could be reverently buried. As the days passed, some wounded people began floating down the river clinging to debris. So again, being a Christian community, they retrieved the people and brought them to the hospital. They enlarged their hospitals and in time provided retraining for those who had been wounded, so they could earn a good living. 

After a number of years, almost the entire village was engaged in caring for the dead and wounded. The mayor decided to call a meeting to see if there was anything more that they could do. A few suggestions were brought up, but almost everyone believed that they were doing all they could for those in need. Then, just before they adjourned the meeting, a young man raised his hand and said, “I know we are doing a very good job caring for the dead and wounded, but don’t you think we should send some people to go and find out what is happening up the river?” 

That small Christian village is like a typical Catholic parish – very good at some things: very good at burying the dead, of caring for the sick, of ministering to those who are hurting – very good at charity. But it is not so good at going up the river, at finding out why those bodies keep floating down the river and seeing if there could be anything we could do to stop them. We are not good at justice. 

Doing justice is not easy. But it is essential if we wish to follow Jesus. In our Catholic tradition this truth was expressed in the clearest way when the bishops of the world met and issued a document in which they said that working for justice and contributing to the transformation of the world is a constitutive part of preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is an involved way of saying that, if we want to be disciples of Jesus, if we want to really follow what he preached, we must go up the river. We must try to find out the reasons that the bodies keep floating down and see if there is something we can do to stop that from happening.  

The bishops of the world were not introducing some new dimensions of Catholicism. They were merely following the teaching of Jesus presented so clearly in the Gospel for this weekend (Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21). In this great scene from Luke, Jesus comes to the synagogue at Nazareth and gives his mission statement, the purpose of his ministry. When he defines his purpose, Jesus turns to a passage from the prophet Isaiah that says he is called to proclaim good news to the poor, liberty to captives, sight to the blind, and set free those who are oppressed. Jesus’ mission is about justice, about going up the river, discovering the structures that oppress people, and trying to free them.  

We are called to follow Jesus. Doing justice is not easy. It is easier to help an elderly neighbor by cutting her lawn than to explore the reasons why she cannot afford groceries or her prescriptions to be filled. It is easier to visit the incarcerated person than to try to discover the reasons for violence and despair in our society that populates our prison with a disproportionate number of poor and disenfranchised. 

Doing justice is difficult and messy. It calls us to get involved in politics, and economics and environmental science and sociology – all areas where people of faith are not often welcome. But we must be there, because we are called by Christ to contribute to the transformation of our society.  

Doing justice is not easy. But neither is it optional for those who follow Jesus. For Jesus calls us to go up the river, to discover the causes of injustice and to work to challenge the structures that support them. Yes, we are called to love one another. But we are also called to do justice, to contribute to the transformation of our world. 

We are people of the WORD – the word of God found in our Sacred Scriptures. That is the foundation of our call to work for Justice. The prophet Micah tells us: “God has told you, o mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).