Amos 5: 10-15
They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth. 11 Therefore because you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. 12 For I know how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins— you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate. 13 Therefore he who is prudent will keep silent in such a time, for it is an evil time.
14 Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. 15 Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
Last week Vicar Joel talked about the role of the Law in our lives. He told us about the three main ways the Law works in our lives as a curb, mirror and a guide. All of these uses of the law aim to help humans live along the path God created for us.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book creation and fall uses the image of a groove to describe this way of living. Talk about the groove of being a human in picture terms. This groove leads to some place. If humans live within their groove it leads to the ideal of balance and Justice.
The topic I want to focus on today is Justice. And while it is easy to connect the ideas of law and justice. Our Christian understanding of what justice is is different than what we often hear or associate with Justice.
We hear the word justice in contexts like police shows or on the news. Justice often means if someone is brought to justice they are basically getting what they deserve. So if a criminal is caught, justice ends up meaning punishing them in the right proportion to what they did. It is the word Justice.
While a Christian understanding of justice does acknowledge that punishment for sin is indeed right or “just”. The idea of Justice is about more than people just getting what they deserve.
To understand how Justice means more than this we need to go farther back than simply looking at the law. Justice does not come from arbitrarily applying laws and rules. The idea of Justice goes back to the nature of God. God is the one who set up the groove for humans to live within.
Out of this image of balance and justice then comes the law of God that paints the picture of what it should look like to live within the groove of a healthy human life. God’s law paints a picture of a society that works in unison to take care of each and every member of society.
Image of righteousness as a day at the beach
Justice then is the application of this holy pattern of living. So on one side when the pattern of a healthy human life is imposed on a sinful person this often takes the form of punishment. But the side of Justice that is more important for us as christians is that when justice is applied in our lives it calls us to action. To defend and promote the healthy pattern of living God has laid out for us.
But sin makes it so hard for us to stay in the groove. Both our own and the sin of others. In our reading in Amos today we heard about people who were ignoring God as the foundation of Justice.
Background of who Amos was talking with. It was after the Isralites had come back from exile. They had a second chance at being a nation. But still people were not living according to God’s law.
Let’s look at a few of the examples of things there were going on that Amos points out: Therefore because you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him,
you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate.
What was supposed to be happening was vastly different from the leaders taking what they could to make themselves rich.
God leaves nothing to question about what Justice should have looked like. In Deuteronomy Moses puts it this way when he describes the Justice of God: He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Deuteronomy 10:18
A biblical understanding of Justice does not focus on the punishment of the criminal but rather the protection and support of the vulnerable. Justice is to be sought for those who cannot protect themselves.
Talk about the fatherless, Widow and Sojourner. Three groups that did not have access to the basic resources they would need to take care of themselves
Taking care of these people is not the job of just a few people according to God’s Law. It is the responsibility of each and every one to look out for and seek Justice for the vulnerable.
In fact, the mosaic law has many laws specifically aimed at taking care of these vulnerable groups of people. One famous law was the law to leave the edges of a field unharvested so that people who were in need of food could come and gather what was left.
In the story of Ruth. Ruth and her mother in law benefit from this law. They came back to Israel with nothing and were able to gather enough food because Boaz followed God’s law to leave some of his harvest behind for people who needed it.
But one thing that seems to always crop its ugly head up to get in the way of Justice being provided to everyone is the Sin of partiality. The leaders in Amos where more interested in taking care of themselves and those they liked than making sure everyone was taken care of. God’s law warns against this kind of perversion of justice when it says: You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous.Deuteronomy 16:19
Conclusion
We have the sin of partiality here today. We get diluted by political leanings. We tend to look at things from the letter of the law and forget that Justice goes deeper than words on a page. It goes back to the pattern of Life God wants for us and all society.
example of immigrants vs unborn. We as Christians do not get to pick and choose the people we care about.
It is easy to start thinking of justice as something out there too big for us to do anything about. But Justice is something that we each are responsible for within our daily lives.
This kind of justice is not vengeful. There superhero named punisher tell story. We are not called to promote that kind of justice. Paul warns us with these words: Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”Romans 12:19
Seeking justice from a biblical perspective is not about anger or getting even. It is about putting thing back in their groove so they work correctly. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”Galatians 5:14
Love, not revenge is the center of true Christian Justice
Story of Dr. Sanchez ministering to people in the ice detention centers. Once you have entered illegally there is no way to make it right in the current system
Example of people without a bank account. Cashing paychecks without a bank account is expensive. And taking money from people who already don’t have much. Is exactly one of the things condemned by Amos in our reading.
Simple solution might be to just get a bank account. But if someone does not have access to some basic resources getting a bank account is next to impossible. To get a bank account you often need an Id, social security card, address, and possibly an initial deposit. If you are missing even one of these it is so much harder to get what is a basic tool to manage money.
For example, if you don’t have an address to get a bank account. How do you get an address? Not many places will let you rent much less buy a place to live without a bank account. But you need an address to get the bank account. This is just one example of how people in our society can get caught in an endless downward spiral. An injustice that has few interested in helping right. There is a bar in our society if you are below it makes things that seem simple to us next to impossible.
Yet we tend to turn issues like that into political debates about how someone else can help people caught in these situations. Or how these people surely did it to themselves and deserve to live in this kind of situation. We all too often tend to get distracted by justice for me and people like me. But we are called to seek justice for those who have no one else to look out for them.
Story of teaching 8th grade confirmation parable of 99 Point the most important people in this church are the ones who are not here yet