Justice and Righteousness

Amos 5:24

Within the last 10 days I have flown more than 12 hours and waited for more than 8 hours in airports in St. Louis and LAX.  I paid attention to some things that I probably would not have noticed had I not spent 20 hours in a flight mode. On my flight to Los Angeles the flight attendant announced, as they all do on take offs and landings, please turn off all electronic devices. Also, directly across from me was a man who appeared to be a senior citizen who had a pair of large, black ear phones over his ears. The plane was up and over the clouds when one of the stewardesses asked him to turn off his electronic devise.  Also, she asked him if there was anything he didn’t understand about the announcement they had made. He responded, “I didn’t hear the announcement.”  Then she immediately went directly behind me and requested a young woman to turn off her electronic device and asked her if there was anything about their announcement that she didn’t understand? She quickly glanced up at the stewardess and turned it off. I found this exchange between the flight attendant and two passengers of interest.  I was impressed with the way the flight attendant made sure these passengers knew and obeyed the flight requirements of Continental airlines.

The Hebrew prophets also made sure God’s folks knew his requirements. One of his requirements was to be fair to everybody. Amos describes one of God’s requirements as “justice and righteousness.” Also, he called his people to “seek God and live.” He warned his people. He informed those that were well off, he pleaded with them to not overlook the poor and defensible. His words were “Let justice roll on like a river; and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.” In that day, the eight century B.C. times were good, folks were well off, and they possessed more than they needed.

 Amos was one of these prophets. His personal testimony was “I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet. But the Lord took me from following the flock and the Lord said to me, “Go prophesy to my people Israel. And now hear the word of the Lord.” He did his preaching during the reign of Jeroboam and Uzziah. He was a countryman, sheep farmer, and herdsman. He preached to the Northern Kingdom, Israel. He journeyed from Tekoa, a village near Bethlehem in Judah.

He tried to get his people to respond to God’s message by describing what was in store for them if they didn’t practice justice and righteousness in the land. If there is no justice in the land, then they would get a big surprise from God. Instead of the day of the Lord being light, it would be just the opposite. It would be a day of darkness. This darkness would be pitch darkness.  If there is no justice in the land, then the day of the Lord would be one of fright and danger. He uses description language to make his point. He says a man would flee from a lion chasing him only to meet a bear coming after him in the opposite direction. Instead of the man being between a rock and a hard place, he would be between a lion and a bear. Also, he says that if there is no justice in the land, then God would hate their religious assemblies. In fact, he was even more descriptive by saying God could not stand their religious meetings. Further, he says if there is no justice in the land, then God would reject their offerings; God would reject all of their offerings: burnt offering, grain offerings, and fellowship offerings. Each and every one of them would be rejected by God. The only way to turn things around was to seek God and live; the only alternative was for them to practice justice and righteousness in the land. Amos called them with these powerful words: “Let justice roll on like a river; and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.” The King James Version of the Bible says, “Let justice run down like a river; and righteousness like a mighty steam.” God didn’t accept their worship as long as there was injustice when there should have been justice for all.

Clearly, Amos had a huge challenge to get the Israelites to do justice and righteousness. He was faced with unbelievable difficulties. They paid him no mind. They continued living as if everything was just fine. They ignored him. They threatened him. They abused him. They despised him. But that didn’t deter him. He kept telling his folks what the Lord wanted him to tell them. He embraced the cause of justice and righteousness.

Like Amos there was one born in our time who passionately embraced justice and righteousness. He fully and thoroughly understood and actively pursued justice and righteousness. He apparently grasped God’s requirement for justice and righteousness better than anyone that lived between Amos and his time. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. seems to have understood God’s requirement in the same way Amos, the eight century prophet. His grasp of God’s requirement for justice and righteousness was eloquently expressed in his frequent quote of the couplet in Amos 5:23: “Let justice roll down like a river and righteousness like a mighty stream.” No one could say the words with the impact like he could. He spoke these words again and again to our nation. He commanded our nation’s attention. His preaching in his day continues to compel our attention in our day some four decades later. He couldn’t be silenced.

Bull O’Connor, the well known sheriff of Birmingham, Alabama tried to stop him from crying out aloud: “Let justice roll down like a river and righteousness like a mighty stream.” He was completely unsuccessful. He locked Dr. King up in his jail cell. Dr. King wrote a letter titled: A Letter from the Birmingham Jail. In that letter he said, “Injustice anywhere affects justice everywhere.” When Dr. King saw some of the meanest dogs west of the Mississippi chasing the folks; when he saw the police using brutality on citizens; when he saw fire hoses pumping out water on folks as if these hoses were being used to pump water out of the Atlanta Ocean, he preached from every pulpit he could get to and the Birmingham jail: “Let justice roll down like a river and righteousness like a mighty steam.” When Bull O’Connor asked him why he continued to stick his nose in Birmingham’s business when his home was in Atlanta, Georgia, he said he couldn’t stand idly by in Atlanta while folks were being mistreated in Birmingham. He told O’Connor and others that Amos left his village in Tekoa and traveled beyond the city limits of Tekoa with the words “Thus saith the Lord.” That Paul left his village, Tarsus, and carried the message of the Gospel to the Greco-Roman world. And that he too felt compelled to travel beyond Atlanta because injustice was being practiced in Birmingham and other parts of our nation. Dr. King got God’s message about justice and righteousness and Amos got it too. They preached it, lived it, and made tremendous sacrifices for it.

The question today is do we get God’s message about the necessity of justice and righteousness? Do we get the message the same way Amos and Dr. King got it in their days? Do we get the point that God despises our worship and our offerings if we don’t practice justice and righteousness? If we do get the message as Amos and Dr. King in their days about justice and righteousness then our actions for our beloved nation should show in numerous ways that we care about the 47 million Americans that don’t have health insurance. It should be abundantly clear that we care that we have church members and neighbors, friends and co-workers; new hires and retirees, poor and middle-class Americans that don’t have adequate health care. It should be a priority in this election that we care and that we will not let up until each American has access to adequate health care in our rich nation.

If we do get the message as did Amos and Dr. King in their days, then ought not rest and be at ease until the unfortunate foreclosure mess in our country is fixed. This awful mess should trouble all Americans. This is a mess that transcends the urban ghettos in our nation. It is another ugly example of the “haves” getting over on the “have not’s”.

And if we do get the message as did Amos and Dr. King then we should get involved in bringing an end to the war in Iraq. In my view, we must take a stand. We must do something to end the lost of fine young men and women who continue to give their lives for a war that our nation has questioned from the outset of it. We’ve lost close to 4000 American lives already. And there is no end in sight of this war.

We too need to join Amos and Dr. King and again repeat Amos couplet: “Let justice roll down like a river and righteousness like a mighty stream.” Amen.