Learning to change the world is rarely easy or convenient--it can be complex, costly, and messy.

At the end of the day--of almost any day, regardless of what we have done or left undone--apathy tells us that it's perfectly acceptable to live with illusions of our own justice.

Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander. (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum qtd. in Halter)

Apathy is sustainable only as long as injustice doesn't harm us--and we don't care that it's harming others. Apathy lasts only until injustice knocks on our door, and we're forced to look into its eyes.

We may not choose apathy, but when we choose anything other than love and empathetic justice, we get apathy by default.

A subtle reason for apathy is that justice rarely has much to do with our lives. Unless we've personally been victims of injustice, we can take for granted that life is generally fair.

. . . we are all giving our lives away--the only question is, to what? We spend ourselves on television, money, power, sex, leisure, adventure, and fame. They are a bad investment. If we look for life by spending ourselves here, we look in vain.

The kingdom of God is an upside-down kingdom. It beckons us to gamble all, to trust radically, to come and die so that we might live--to give our lives away. Giving life away is a paradox. It's losing so we can win. It's giving so we can receive. It's risking for security. It's faith. The kingdom of God means living that tension.

Injustice is a cold, unrelenting reality. It can be tempting for us to use our comfort to ignore injustice or rationalize it away. But God would have us join His work.

Justice is the state that exists when there is equity, balance, and harmony in relationships and in society. Injustice is the state that exists when unjust people do violence to peace and shalom and create inequity, imbalance, and dissonance.