JUSTICE MUST ALWAYS THINK INTO THE FUTRUE

Out of the corner of my eye I caught a mother teaching her thirteen year old how to compare the prices and the quality of tee-shirts. I cannot imagine a better laboratory for learning. She was picking up a shirt and directly demand that the boy feel the quality of the cloth. Then her finger moved quickly to compare the prices. 

 

She was teaching her son how to see and evaluate things. She was giving him the tools how  how to look at things in life. His  world was being enlarged!

 

For the past sixty-five years scientists and people in the know have been pointing out to humanity that the atmosphere of the earth is warming up. There is a real danger that parts of the world will be totally uninhabitable.  We are being challenged to consider the future life possibilities for our great-grandchildren. We are learning to think of and practice justice towards future generations. This is not a new spin on justice-practice. It is just extending what we already know about justice toward our fellow human-being into the future. 

 

What  kind of world will you hand on to the fifth, sixth and seventh generation that comes after you?

 

Let us begin with the top twenty-percent of humanity. This comprises about a billion and a half billion people. These are the people we call the ‘first world.’ These are the people who have the strongest share of the world’s wealth.  By the world’s level of consumption, this is the heaviest level of consumption.

 

But they also create a lot of garbage and pollute the  waters and the soils of the earth. Consider the legacy left behind from the ancient Egyptian civilization. They left behind these huge monuments of stone that we call the pyramids of Egypt. These huge pile of stones will be on locataion for thousands of years.

 

Will our civilization leave behind huge piles that we call ‘landfills?’ And a good portion of our landfills are composed of plastics which will be there for thousands of years.

 

This is where our thinking about practicing justice is so helpful. What kind of future are we  handing on  to future generations? Will the land and soil be as productive for them as it has been for us? The soil will produce crops for a thousand years if we take care of it. Will there be enough minerals, such as cooper, zinc and iron to sustain future generations?

 

This is where the Season of Creation (Sept 1-Octob er 4) is a gift. It is an ecumenical prayer and reflection time for Christians to reflect on our care of creation, to take responsibility how humanity has harmed creation and to begin to adjust our lives and civilisations so that we not only do no harm to  creation but we help creation thrive.

 

You may have some difficulty getting your mind to understand the practice of justice as extending to future generations, but the Season of Creation is an excellent tool to begin the conversation.