By FRANK REMKIEWICZ
Columnist
As Christians, we read and hear a lot about faith, hope, and love. If my readers attend worship regularly, I am sure they do a lot of “talking the talk,” but are they “walking the walk”? Homilies, sermons, if you please, are supposed to motivate a Christian to do acts of mercy. Reading a passage and then expounding on the historical nature and the intricate interplay between people is nice, but I do not think that when we reach the “pearly gates,” God the Father is going to give a rip about whether you can cite Scripture by chapter and verse. I do not think our Savior is going to quiz anyone on the complexities of the creation story, or Daniel in the Lion’s Den, or how many apostles were at the Transfiguration of Christ on the mountain. Jesus said in Matthew 23:27-28, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”
So what then? How do we glorify God? I find the “acts of compassion and acts of justice” (some of my readers may know these as the acts of mercy) to be the practical way of glorifying God. If we love God, it is impossible not to love what God has created: you, me, and everyone walking this planet.
“Acts of Compassion (Individual Practices)
Feeding the hungry: Providing physical food and sustenance to those in immediate need.
Visiting the sick and prisoners: Offering physical presence, comfort, and care to the hospitalized, infirm, and incarcerated.
Sheltering the homeless: Providing temporary or permanent physical refuge for individuals lacking a safe place to live.
Giving generously: Offering financial and material resources sacrificially to support distressed or struggling neighbors.
Acts of Justice (Communal Practices)
Addressing systemic poverty: Organizing and working to eliminate the root causes of poverty rather than just treating symptoms.
Ending oppression and discrimination: Actively standing up against societal structures that marginalize vulnerable, voiceless, or outcast populations—continuing the historic fight against slavery and systemic injustice.
Promoting community well-being: Collaborating locally and globally to ensure equal opportunity, fair treatment, and basic human rights for all people.”
In the Book of Acts 2:42-47 “42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
This is scripture giving us an example of how we should live our lives.
What we, as a community and society as a whole, need to build is more justice. The Oakdale city council actually worked with the LGBTQIA group to bring to fruition a day of joy for this social subset of our society. There may be legal reasons the city council worked with this group, but the fact remains: they did. But we must reach deeper. What are we teaching our children? Based on my own experiences, the amount of unfiltered teasing, harassment, and observed anger in our schools toward many groups tells me we have a very long way to go to end oppression and discrimination, as well as promote community well-being.
There is an old saying, “God don’t make no junk.” God created every person in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:27). That is not a reference to a physical body but rather to the qualities that God, our Creator, possesses. We need to look past the physical qualities, such as race, color, creed, religion, gender, income, social status, national origin, and sexual orientation, of everyone we meet. Those characteristics are meaningless. We should look for God’s reflection in everyone we meet. That is the neighbor that Jesus talked about in the second great commandment, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” It means that when we look at someone else, we should see ourselves reflected, as if we were looking in a mirror. Do not pass over this statement too quickly. If we are all created in God’s image, then it only stands to reason that when we look at each other, we are seeing our reflection, the reflection of God’s image.
We must teach our children by word and action that true justice is not found in balancing scales, nor is it even found in our courthouses. True justice is found in our homes, on our streets, and in our communities. Justice is found in our hearts, in our minds, and in our souls. Justice is found in everyday meetings with all the people we come across. When we can see our reflection in every person we meet, in our day-to-day kindness with those we work with, in those we go to school with, in those we worship with, we will find we are living into the acts of justice.
Frank Remkiewicz is an area resident and contributes a monthly column focused primarily on faith and religion. He can be reached at fremkiewicz@gmail.com. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
