c. 2003 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C.)

INDIANAPOLIS _ As I watch my mother lie in a hospital bed, still tending to others even as her last lap commences, I realize that I learned about justice from my mother.

Not the politics of justice. That would come later, when I studied political science at college. No, from her I learned something deeper and more enduring: the personal nature of justice.

When I was a child, we employed a maid. Her name was Ada. She was an imposing woman of significant authority. My mother treated her as a person and worked alongside her in the bewildering tasks of maintaining a home. When Ada spoke, I listened. When Ada was sick, my mother and I visited her home. Through my mother’s eyes, I knew Ada as worthy of respect.

At our dinner table, Mom talked of her volunteer work for the Junior League, mainly with a school for children with physical disabilities. She spoke with passion about their needs. She left the fund raising to others and entered into children’s lives.

Later she became deeply involved with the Cerebral Palsy Foundation of Indiana, again with a passion that surprised me, because, to the best of my knowledge, this disease hadn’t touched our family. She saw a need and responded.

For a time, my mother was a warrior. Small-minded members of the local school board were determined to cripple our neighborhood high school. Despite 50 years of academic excellence, Shortridge High School was targeted for diminution. As city leaders played politics with school integration and allowed county schools to chart a separatist course, they undercut a school where substantial integration had been achieved and minorities were deemed worthy of academic achievement. A woman whose demeanor was described in the Shortridge yearbook as “a quiet voice and gentle tread” led a counterattack. It failed, but it exposed the board’s shameful behavior.

Justice, you see, is about persons. It isn’t about causes or labels or “isms” or theories. Justice is about persons. The eye of justice sees the other, considers the other, hears the other, accepts the other as unique and worthy. The hand of justice is open and magnanimous. The heart of justice dares to be passionate. The will of justice takes specific action.

Practicing this sort of justice is far more dangerous than applying a bumper sticker, wearing a lapel pin or signing a petition. It is more dangerous to oneself and more dangerous to society. For when we see each other as persons, we change. When we open our hands widely, we put our lives on the line. When we honor uniqueness, when we act respectfully and invite others to do the same, the world around us is forced to change.

It’s like the feeding of the 5,000, a seminal story in the Gospels. Proud Christians tended to remember the miracle. They set themselves up as custodians of the miracle, gatekeepers for who could be allowed inside to receive it. But the event itself wasn’t like that.

“Make the people sit down,” said Jesus. All of the people. Not just those whom the pious had deemed worthy, but every person standing by. Not just those who had studied their catechism or somehow “improved” their spirituality, but every person, for all were hungry. Not just those who had attained the proper credential, but all those whom God loved, that is, everyone. There was plenty of grass to go around, and soon there would be plenty of food.

In the politics of justice, some win and some lose. Some receive power and some are held down. Some get fed and some go hungry. Some are taught and some are tended. Some get tax breaks and some get lotteries and casinos. Some are deemed “saved” and some are labeled “lost.” Some are welcome at the church’s altars and some are turned away. Some are greeted on Sunday morning and some are ignored. Some find solace and some find exclusion.

But when justice is about persons, all such barriers melt away, even those marked as “God’s will” and especially those credited to “God’s judgment.” At God’s table, as at the one I knew as a child, all are worthy.

DEA END EHRICH