Social justice sounds simple.
Feed a hungry person. Stop one episode of abuse. Rescue a slave. Prevent one kid from being bullied. Find a home for one orphan. Get a homeless person a place to live.
Then rinse and repeat as often as necessary.
Those things are hard, but there’s a lot of us. Sounds simple, right?
Except, it’s not.
Arnold Abbott was arrested this week in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for feeding homeless people. You didn’t mis-read—one of Florida’s wealthiest cities recently passed a series of laws aimed at “protecting the homeless” from hardened criminals like Abbott. Apparently the city leaders fear that starving folks are endangered by food served without city inspections, permits, and other red tape. Mr. Abbott (a 90-year-old WWII veteran) repeated his crime Wednesday and was cited again. He faces 60 days in jail and a $500 fine for each offense.
We all know these laws have nothing to do with “protecting the homeless.” But before we condemn the heartless residents of Fort Lauderdale, let’s acknowledge the complexities faced by a warm-weather city with a homeless population estimated at 10,000. There’s no simple solution.
What is simple is Jesus’ command to help those in need. We can’t allow a law to prevent us from offering food to someone who’s hungry. MLK said, “We have a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that an unjust law is no law at all.”
Homelessness is a problem. Homeless people aren’t.
I don’t know the solution to the complex problem of homelessness, but it isn’t starving homeless people. And it isn’t shipping them out of town.
Oh, I forgot that part. One the new initiatives includes a $25,000 budget to provide free bus tickets for any homeless folks who wanted to be “reunited” with their families in any U.S. city except Fort Lauderdale.
Color me skeptical—I’m questioning the motivation behind taxpayer financed long-distance family reunions, only for homeless folks.
I think Arnold Abbott’s a hero. He’d disagree. He’s just following Jesus, doing what he can, where he is, with what he has. That’s the simple, hard part of social justice.
The rest is complicated. But it’s worth fighting for.
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