In an earlier post I quoted Dom Helder Camara, who observed that doing justice can be more controversial than doing compassion. I wanted to add this quotation from Martin Luther King, Jr., in his sermon, “A Time to Break Silence.” I think it shows how compassion—helping the hurting—should lead to justice—stopping what hurts people.
On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
The surrounding text of this quotation is extremely challenging.
