This morning we continue with a series of reflections on our shared values in Unitarian Universalism that were recently adopted by the UUA General Assembly  in 2024. The last two times I was with you, we looked at the values of interdependence and pluralism, and today I will be reflecting on the value of justice. 

In relation to the value of justice, the UU General Assembly affirmed that justice is “working to create diverse, multicultural Beloved Communities where all can thrive. We covenant to dismantle racism and all forms of systemic oppression. We support the use of inclusive democratic processes to make decisions within our congregations, our Association, and society at large.”

The moral mandate for justice does not lie in what one has achieved or what wealth or power one has accumulated; it lies in the equal and inherent sacred worth of each person, the rights that each and every person has, and in our moral duty to respect them.

Sadly the concept of justice is often used to protect the status quo and control people rather than to treat all persons in a just way. This is extremely obvious in our criminal justice system in which the rich and powerful are rarely held to account for their misdeeds and in which the vulnerable often have little recourse to experience true justice. It can also be seen in the laws and procedures that the wealthy and powerful put into place to protect their power and profits. For the poor and the vulnerable, a warped concept of justice is used to keep them in their place. This is why so many who cry out for justice so often find that their justice is denied. 

The reason the wealthy and powerful have issues with an emphasis on social justice is because justice, at the very least, requires equal opportunity for all, and equal opportunity is not what made them wealthy and powerful. We have been conditioned to accept injustice by believing the lie that there is not enough for all of us to flourish. A sure symptom of societal sickness is when we make heroes out of hoarders of wealth.

Martin Luther King was aware of this societal sickness when he wrote, “There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we now have the resouces to get rid of it…. There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will” (Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos of Community?, p. 187). 

There are also many in our society who want to ignore the injustices of the past and even to erase them from our history, but not teaching about the injustices of the past simply perpetuates them in the present and future.

if we ever want to true justice to become a reality, it is imperative to realize that a society will never experience justice without equality of access to education and healthcare, equal protection of all persons under the law, equal accountability of all persons to just laws, and the preservation of a livable climate.

It is important to see that true liberty is inseparable from justice as justice provides the context in which freedom can be expressed in ways that are responsible to all other persons. Justice channels our will to freedom in ways that respect and enhance the freedom of others.

In our deliberations on justice, it is also important not to limit ourselves to justice in the human community, but to ask ourselves how we may act justly in the community of all life on Earth.

Although the cultivation of justice requires a commitment by individuals to act justly towards one another, a truly just society can only exist through the establishment of systemic justice supported by community established policies and laws that protect the rights and welfare of both human and other than human life. 

At its core, justice is about relationships and the rights and respect that we are due in those relationships. If justice is to be established and preserved, it requires robust systems that intentionally cultivate respect towards others and protect our rights as we relate to one another within community. 

At its core, justice is a relational act and commitment. We strive for just relationships among individuals, we strive for just relationships within society by cultivating social justice that entails racial justice, gender justice, and justice for persons regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identities. We strive for just relationships within our economic systems by cultivating economic justice, and we strive for just relationships with our the ecological community by cultivating environmental and ecological justice. And today as we have just experienced the warmest year on record (the top ten warmest years on record have all been in the last decade), we must be cognizant that all forms of social justice are unsustainable without climate justice.

It is sadly not a surprise that so many persons are expressing themselves politically in irrational ways around the world. Though there are many reasons for this, the core reason is the underlying social and ecological unsustainability of our current global economic practices. When wealth inequality in the human community and our relationship with our ecological community become as unsustainable as they currently are, irrational and desperate political expressions, though deeply tragic, are predictable. The only way to improve the current state of affairs is to deal with these underlying conditions, which is increasingly difficult to do given the widespread irrational political expressions. It is a vicious cycle, but we must continue to look for ways to break it to move towards a sustainable future.

We will never have lasting peace unless we address the gross economic injustice of wealth inequality, both domestically and globally. The good news is that Unitarian Universalism recognizes this and holds up justice as one of its six shared values. Together, if we we work for justice for all, for both humans and other than human life, we might be able to bring a little bit more of our vision of beloved community into reality.  May it be so. 

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