Let Justice Roll and Righteousness Flow

Reverend Ron Campbell
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

August 15, 2004

Text: Amos 5:14-15, 21-24

The key theme in our text today from the prophet Amos is: “Let Justice Roll and Righteousness Flow.”

I must start with a confession. I didn't coordinate with Helen Almanza when choosing the text for the service today.

If you were here last week you received a wonderful message by Helen based on Isaiah chapter one where Isaiah pleaded for God that our worship not be empty or simply self-centered but result in active intervention on behalf of the oppressed, essentially the same message that Amos proclaimed.

So if you were here last week, you get a free walk!

• You may leave without hurting my feelings.
• But I hope you'll stay and let me take a crack at from a different direction.

Let's Look at Amos: Who was Amos and what was his message?

• Amos was a prophet that lived during the divided monarchy period when the nation of Israel had split into northern and southern kingdoms.
• He was from the southern kingdom, Judah , but went into the northern kingdom, Israel , to proclaim his message in the mid-700's B.C.

• He gave powerful critiques expressed in poetic form against the government of Israel , the priesthood, and the rich, and against people like us who worship God but often fail to hear the cry of the needy.

In the text before us today, Amos entered a synagogue during a worship service and railed at those who were worshipping.

He spoke with the mouth of God demanding righteousness in the courts and in the markets instead of liturgies and offerings in the shrines.

• According to Amos God's reaction to the worship of church going believers was nauseated disgust and vehement rejection.
• Now, we need to clarify that this Godly disgust with worship doesn't mean that God doesn't desire sincere worship. That's not really the conclusion Amos wanted us to make.
• God does desire sincere worship, but the point is that even sincere worship makes God sick if our worship doesn't lead to personal and social ethics.

The key phrase, “Let justice roll and righteousness flow,” it's the centerpiece:

• The simple way to translate this is that God wants us to act justly toward others and to be and to do what is right.

Now, perhaps we're ready for application.

• How can we translate and apply this key message of Amos to our lives?

With regard to application, I want to get across two very important ideas, each one having two aspects.

• The first idea is that justice and righteousness have two targets;
• And the second idea is that what is just and right can be viewed as having the two aspects of Permanence and Changeability.

Related to the first idea, two targets; last week Helen helped us see that our ethical actions may be directed at two targets each at a different level.

•  One target is helping those in need at the Particular Circumstantial Level.

•  The second target is attacking the sources of problems, which I refer to as the Systemic Societal level.

To illustrate these two targets Helen told an incredible story about a man who was by a river pulling floating babies out of the river one at a time.

• This illustrated how one can act justly and rightly in a Particular Circumstance.
• The story continued as the man eventually asked someone else to pull the babies out so he could go upstream and see what the problem was.
• His target of action changed its level of focus from the Particular Circumstantial Level to the Systemic Societal Level.

Helen shared many wonderful examples of persons who've responded to particular circumstantial needs helping the individuals affected. I won't give additional examples on this first level;

• Except to say that our church, in my view, does a wonderful job of responding to human needs in particular circumstances.

• Certainly we have much more capacity to be even greater servants of the Lord in reaching out to others,

• But I think we're being faithful at this Particular Circumstantial Level in responding to God's call to act justly and rightly.

• But how are we doing at the larger level, the Systemic Societal Level?

How faithful are we to the ethical imperative of God to get involved at the sources of social needs and problems?

• Well if you come to worship often at all you hear many sermons that challenge us to get involved in the arenas of corporate, institutional, and political structures.
• Many of our Sunday school classes regularly address systemic societal issues as a part of what full discipleship means; and encourage us to struggle with how we can be responsible in our roles as citizens and disciples concerned with the welfare of all of our neighbors.

Our official Outreach Committee charged with this aspect of service to the larger community is Church and Society.

Its two main objectives are:

•  To raise the awareness of the congregation relating to the social issues of our society; and

•  To move people to invest themselves in making a positive difference in the world.

Two efforts on their list of activities in the upcoming fall deserve mention here:

•  The first is the Amos Commission and Task Force.

•  The second is a series of sessions to be offered targeting some of the touch social issues we confront.

The Amos Commission is a newly organized group of United Methodist clergy and laity from the Austin District which will identify societal issues for our various congregations.

• The members represent diverse political views.
• Rev. Jim Mayfield and Jack Speer will represent TUMC on the Amos Commission.

The Amos Task Force is our local church version of the District Commission.

• Jack Speer and Kay Creath-Wilemon will chair this task force and be recruiting members to assist.

The function of the District Commission and the TUMC Task Force is to enable Christians to talk about societal issues and provide information and education on how people can get involved as they see fit to respond.

• You see our approach to God's ethical imperative to “Let Justice Roll and Righteousness Flow,” is not to take public stands on social issues and tell people what to believe and what to do.
• Rather, we aim to impact people's hearts with the message of the Gospel, and then let each person in turn impact the world as they are called by God to do so!

We've been looking at the first important idea that I want to get across related to understanding how we might apply God's ethical imperative.

• This idea that acting justly and rightly has two targets; the Particular Circumstantial Level and the Systemic Societal Level.

Now the second idea is that what is just and right can be viewed as having two aspects: Permanence and Changeability.

The Permanent aspect of Justice and Righteousness is our will to do what is right with the right spirit.

• The Old Testament and New Testament enjoin us not just to do what is right but to do it for the right motivation and with the right spirit.
• Thus the Permanent aspect of justice and righteousness is our intention to act justly toward others and to be and to do what is right and to do it with the right spirit.
• This is what we hold in common across the generations in trying to be faithful to God's Word and will.

The Changeability aspect of Justice and Righteousness is that the conception of what may be right at different times and under different circumstances change.

• Our present day beliefs of what is right differ vastly from the conceptions of the Israelites of the days of Amos.
• It's this changing aspect of justice and righteousness over place and time and circumstance that makes moral discernment difficult and challenging.
• This is why we have such a wide range of convictions as to what God calls us to be and do in acting justly and rightly, for we live in such a radically different world from the Biblical world.
• Struggling with this changing aspect of what is right requires the church and us as disciples to be in conversation with each other to help each other expand our awareness of social problems and needs and to discern God's will for our responses.

So the second activity of the Church and Society Committee is aimed at helping us wrestle with difficult issues as a people of faith.

• Sessions will be offered in the fall on Sunday mornings for those who wish to talk openly and respectfully about some of the tough issues that we as a society face.

•  We will honor each person's commitment to the permanent aspect of justice and righteousness as having good intentions to know and to do what God wills.

•  And we will honor and respect a wide range of opinions, recognizing the changing aspect of what acting justly and rightly might look like from different points of view.

So far we've focused on our human response to God' ethical imperative. We've looked at two targets of justice and righteousness, the particular circumstantial and the systemic societal. And we've considered the two aspects permanence and changeability.

But now we need to point out that human justice and righteousness must be grounded in God's Justice and Righteousness.

• So we've got to talk about God for a moment.

• Essentially we must talk about the character of God, for God's ethical imperative of justice and righteousness flows from His nature; as God is a living God and not just an abstract idea.

Let me share with you two Models of God that I hope will open up for us ways of understanding the message of Amos in the context of God's essential nature.

• We also can't talk about the Justice and Righteousness of God without talking about the Compassion and Mercy of God as well, for we consider these aspects of God's character so descriptive of his nature.
• So the two models I've selected incorporate both the Justice and Righteousness of God and the Compassion and Mercy of God.
• I brought two visual objects as illustrations so I can be like Helen Almanza!
• They're on the communion table.
• One is a Scale of Justice and the other is a Painting of Christ suffering on the Cross.

First let's consider the Scale of Justice.

• One side of the scale represents God's Justice and Righteousness.

• The other side of the scale represents God's Compassion and Mercy.

In this model God sits as Judge in the courtroom and we are on trial awaiting His verdict on our lives.

• In God's final judgment our lives either pass or fail the verdict. (And we know where we'll go in either case!)
• For those of us who are counting heavily on some help when we get to that courtroom we're hoping that God's mercy outweighs his judgment!
• We're praying that even if we don't tip the scale to the positive side by how we've lived our lives,
• God will tip it in our favor based on his mercy out weighing his justice.

• This view of God largely sees God as the Cosmic Righteous Judge
• I think we can say that this is the understanding of God that Amos held.

Now let me give you another model: Christ on the cross reconciling the world unto Himself.

• My illustration is the painting on the communion table of Christ suffering on the Cross.
• It's an image that invites us into the inner life of God's compassionate suffering for us as God's heart is turned outward to us in Christ.

• In this model God is not a judge; not even a caring judge whose mercy we hope outweighs his righteousness.
• Rather God is reveled as a God whose compassion and mercy are the well-springs of a divine heart which pours itself out to reconcile and to save.

Now how do we resolve these two seemingly contrasting models of God: One as a harsh judge demanding justice and righteousness from us; and the other Christ on the cross inviting us through sacrificial love to act justly toward others and to be and to do what is right.

Here's one way: My first year in seminary at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, my Old Testament Professor Gene March, opened our first class by standing at a black board that extended to both sides of the wall behind him.

• He drew a tall cross in the middle of the board.
• Then he went to one end and wrote Genesis low on the board and at the other end Revelation also at the bottom of the board.
• Then he drew two lines from the top of the cross, one in each direction: one down to Genesis and one down to Revelation.
• He told us that when we study the Bible we must always keep in mind that the filter of interpretation for every particular scripture, Old Testament and New Testament, must always be the cross.

Christ on the cross casts a shadow over every other text in the Bible, including Amos.

• The message of Amos must fall under the shadow of Christ for us to hear it as God intends.

• Every Scripture from the first word in Genesis to the last word in Revelation must be viewed through the lens of Christ, who reveals the justice and the righteousness and compassion and mercy of God through self-sacrificing love.

Jurgen Moltmann, a German theologian, reflecting on the Holocaust and God's absence or presence in this most horrific event, decided that it's the cross that gives us our best clue.

• In his book, The Crucified God, he revisits the doctrine of the trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
• In the son on the cross Moltmann sees the very being of God present in our suffering.
• He states that this is a God that not only can I Believe in;
• This is a God that I can passionately Devote myself to;
• For a God who loves like this elicits my full Devotion.

• Win, lose or draw, I can give myself to this God and try to lead a life following his example in the life of Jesus.

When we get this, when we really get it; then our acting justly and rightly becomes something we do, not to satisfy a divine command,

• But something we do because God's love has grasped us, and is welling up from within us,
• And we cannot help but overflow in love of God and neighbor.

This is the place from which Justice may roll down, from us, like waters,

and from which Righteousness may flow from us, like an ever-flowing stream!

Let us pray:

God we are grateful that your servant Amos so eloquently and fervently expresses to us your deep and abiding desire for us to live passionate lives of service to those in our world that are in great need. We pray that we may hear his call anew in our lives and act on it with the compassion and mercy we see poured out to us through Christ hanging on a cross. Amen!