Social Justice/Worship...

So, right now I'm researching to write a pretty substantial research paper about social justice and how it is completely necessary when it comes to worshiping God. To tell you a little bit about how excited I am about this paper, I wrote an annotated bibliography on it the other day. My bibliography includes 8 sources from where I am only starting from...and is three pages long. But for the time being, I thought it would be fun to blog about my thoughts a little as I'm preparing to write this paper.

I'm not one to shy from hard questions. I tend to be the person who says uncomfortable things in inappropriate situations. I once asked what an aphrodisiac (thank goodness for spell check!) was in the home of a missionary in the Philippines in front of their small children. While this is not the most excellent example of my tendency to be forward, it illustrates my point. I don't like to adhere to social norms when it comes to asking questions about death, salary, or religion. Politics on the other hand, I will shy away from. And a warning, I recently discovered that if you tell me the bible is false, you should probably sit down because I'm going to give you an earful. I live in a dormitory of all freshman girls, and as the good student leader that I am, I thoroughly enjoy walking up to groups of serious girls looking like they are having a serious conversation, and ask them what's going on. I don't shy away from asking "Who are you talking about?" and "When you say, 'a boy', what boy is that?" or even "when you say 'inappropriate things', what do you mean, be specific" because I seriously believe that people need to get the heck out of their comfort zones and start talking. I believe this is the beginning to solving the many social crisis that are taking place in the world right now. This is true, especially in the church. I feel like the church is the most guilty when it comes to sticking their head in a hole and running away when crisis is mentioned. The church is the first to send summer missions teams to New Orleans, Haiti, and Sri Lanka, however, what is the church doing to aid global hunger? To the unfairness of the world food system? How about human trafficking? What about homelessness and poverty? How about the thousands and millions of people who are sick and dying and can't get help because they don't have medical insurance? Here's a good one - how about domestic violence? Does the church know that in some cultures, it is the norm for husbands to beat the crap out of their wives, causing them to miscarry babies, have serious health ailments, and in many many many cases, die? Are we too comfortable running kids camps and building roofs for Habitat for Humanity (which are all very valuable things, by the way, I'm not bashing them)? What if we spent our Wednesday night bible study nights informing people, just for a month, about human trafficking? Yeah, people would cry. People would be disturbed - but that's the thing - people SHOULD be disturbed by human trafficking. People SHOULD be disturbed that babies are dying of hunger all over the world, and eating mud patties to satisfy their hunger when they are not. People SHOULD be disturbed that the government represses the aid of the poor in certain countries, and so some people never have medical care, never see doctors, and never get better...from things like common colds. Is it wrong? Heck yeah, it's wrong.

But what does this have to do with worship?

It has everything to do with it.

Isn't the definition of worship surrendering our entire selves to Christ in praise and honor to Him? When we worship, do we not call to beckon the heart of God? And if we are not appealing to the heart of God, how do we expect our worship to be pleasing to His ear?
God's heart, time and time again in the bible, is close to the weary, to the poor, to the broken, to the homeless, to the hungry, to the hurting, to the violated, to the cheated, to the oppressed. So here's my question: Where are our hearts?
We cannot worship God on Sunday, and ignore the hurting on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It doesn't work like that. I can raise my hands as high as I want on Sunday, but if my hands aren't extended out to the poor and needy, God's people, the rest of the week, how the heck do I expect God to hear my cries?

In Amos 5, God says do away with your shouts of praise and joyous dancing...but let justice role down like a river. Who is in need of justice? Open your eyes. It's right outside your back door. Ask the hard questions. Stop passing out tracks and start passing out love...maybe people will actually listen.