Pursuing justice in the way of Jesus
Rhosanna, who recently joined the Just Love team as Co-head of the Just Love Network, shares about her journey of pursuing justice in the way of Jesus…
Being a ‘missionary kid’, my childhood was spent first in a tiny village in the Indian Himalayas and then the cosmopolitan landscape of Singapore, watching my parents live a life of radical faith in God for provision and direction. I didn’t live in the UK until I was 16, when I moved back to Wales to do my A levels. Somehow I ended up at Cambridge to study Linguistics, and have since trained as a secondary English teacher through Teach First. I taught for three years in a large comprehensive school in coastal Kent, and then took a break to pursue an MA in Ecological Design Thinking. Consistent only in my eclecticism, I now head up the Just Love Network in a dynamic duo with Tim Lornie, and have landed back in Wales.
It wasn’t until my interactions with Just Love at University that I began to articulate my passion for justice in the way of Jesus. Before then, the pursuit of Biblical justice was just a part of life: I watched my mother found and run a preschool in the Himalayan village I grew up in, insisting on giving school places to children whose parents couldn’t afford it. My parents regularly would drive up our village road, stopping periodically to pick up more and more kids to take out on a hike, or to swim in the river. My understanding of Christian justice is akin to my understanding of Christian mission: it’s simply part and parcel of following Jesus.
The first time I sought to do something to explicitly combat injustice was in my final year at Cambridge, when I ran an alternative May Ball for Just Love, called the Reclamation Ball. The motivation for this was a strong memory from my first year: of bursting into uncontrollable tears walking along a path between two ongoing May Balls, extravagant, expensive, whole-night parties that happen at the end of the academic year. I was flying back to India the next day and could already picture the miles of temporary housing I would travel through on my train back to the place I still called home. I just could not reconcile how both indulgent excess and life-sapping poverty could co-exist, although I had lived between these two extremes all my life. The Reclamation Ball was an attempt to ‘reclaim’ all the beautiful aspects of traditional May Balls — the celebration, the joy, the fellowship, the fun — while redeeming those aspects that were unjust — the excess, the waste, the exclusivity, the exploitation. Our alternative May Ball was affordable, rather than costing over £100 a ticket. We washed up the plates from our shared meal, rather than generating tonnes of plastic or paper waste from single-use plates and cutlery. Guests were encouraged to wear or re-wear second-hand or borrowed outfits, and not to buy new, expensive gowns and suits. This event became a powerful metaphor for me for the redemption that is possible within existing broken systems. I definitely believe that there are systems of injustice that need to be dismantled entirely and that this is possible (the abolition of the slave trade is one key example!). But I also know that Jesus resisted the expectation that he would overthrow the unjust Roman Empire and instead brought about redemption within it. I believe we are called to live out justice in the way of Jesus within and because of the systems of injustice we inhabit.
After University, I chose to train as a teacher with Teach First because of its social justice mandate: it sends top graduates into schools in the most socioeconomically deprived areas of Britain in a bid to combat Britain’s appalling educational inequality. Living and working in coastal Kent opened my eyes to the class discrimination that characterises British society; there is nowhere this is more clearly played out than in our schools. As an English teacher I was once again brought face to face with a heartbreakingly broken system, which more often than not fails the very young people that most need it. Although I no longer teach, educational justice is still something I am massively passionate about. The health of a social system cannot be judged on whether the most privileged are thriving, but on whether the most vulnerable are thriving. Children and young people are some of the most vulnerable groups in our nation: we are not doing enough to ensure their health and equity of opportunity.
As Co-Head of the Just Love Network, I am so excited to equip and support our Network members to live out the fruitful, holistic, and sustainable pursuit of justice. I am adamant that the pursuit of justice should be good for the people who enact it as well as the cause; how the work of social and environmental justice can be holistically healthy is a key question I am reflecting on at the moment.
Justice in the way of Jesus is enacted not through one-off moments of inspiration, but through consistent habits of action. These habits are most effective when enacted collectively, in communities passionate about and committed to Jesus. I love that I get to be part of building such a community, and can’t wait to see what we do next!