Let Justice roll down like waters…and Righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
The prophet Amos was a shepherd and a fig-tree farmer that lived along the boarder of Northern Israel and Southern Judah. He lived at a time when the Israel was rather prosperous. King Jeroboam II was the ruler, and he won lots of battles, gained new territories and generated lots of wealth. All things a good king does, right? But, in the eyes of the prophets, he was one of the worst Kings ever. His wealth led to apathy, he allowed idol worship, and that led to injustice and the neglect of the poor. Like many nations before it—and after—its prosperity has been gained on the backs of others. In order for those with it to have wealth, there were so many who lived without dignity or autonomy but served and were used by people and systems which benefitted the powerful. Amos had enough of it and felt his call from God to go speak a word to the powerful. That word sounded harsh. Very harsh. And it was. Yet, to the ones neglected, to those trampled under the wheels of oppression, those harsh words were a comfort, they were dignifying, they were liberating. At the beginning of the Bible God takes this formless, void expanse and creates a beautiful world of diversity and order, a world teeming with abundance and life. A world where every human is honored as an image, a co-creator, a beloved child of God. It should be no secret that the way we’ve built our society, even the way we organized our church, preferences people based on things such as skin color, or conformity to established norms, and not by things such as the content of their character, let alone by their standing and value as human beings. I say that it should be no secret, yet I myself am still only beginning to wake to what this really looks like in this world where I have only ever been white, and male, and middle class, cis-gendered, and “normal, normal, normal… Let me tell you a story about Jesus. One sabbath day Jesus was going through some grainfields, talking with, teaching, some people. These people were hungry, and on this, the sabbath, had nowhere to head for a meal. Actually, it was likely that these particular people rarely had a place to go get a meal, whatever the day. Then they took some of the grain. And the Pharisees (the one’s running the temple) saw and came out to put a stop to this. Jesus was put in the position of defending the rules of the faith or these hungry people. Choosing between hungry people and a societal system that let these hungry people stay hungry that day, Jesus stood up for the hungry people. Next, Jesus was teaching at the synagogue. And there in his Bible study was a man with a withered hand—very likely poor, unemployed because he couldn’t use his hand, and looked down upon. The Pharisees watched Jesus to see whether he would cure on the sabbath, so that they might find an accusation against him. Jesus knew, but he called the man over. Then Jesus, continuing his Bible study, said “I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?” He looked at everyone dead in the eye, especially the pharisees. Then he had the man stretch out his hand, and it was cured. And the pharisees were furious, and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus. Right after those things—probably frustrated by people’s lack of compassion and perpetuation of injustice—Jesus went off on his own. To cool off I think, but it says to pray upon a mountain. When he came back down he started talking to the same crowd of people he was feeding, and healing, and helping—you know, and getting flack for it from the church. He looked at all these downtrodden, needful, hungry, hurt, and overlooked people and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” And then, I imagine him looking over his shoulder to speak to the ones deriding him for helping people: 24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. 26 “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets. Let Justice roll down like waters…and Righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. We, probably always, will build and organize society in ways that lead to unjust treatment of others. No system is perfect. But this institutional, or systemic, way of ignoring or pushing portions of the population into categories of “less”—racism a chief example—is so insidious that it doesn’t even take into account your personal views or any of your personal bias. It works its way on a societal and structural level such that if you’re one of the “in crowd” or helped by the system, you would not have to give much thought to it at all—you might even be completely unaware of its effects. That’s why we need prophets like Amos, and Jesus, to get our attention. They wake us up to these systems which create comfort, security and wealth for some exactly by oppressing others. When we examine our society and our church; when we hear the voices of those we’ve never before given much attention to, and we notice that we are not living yet in the kingdom that Jesus invited us into… that can hurt—it can sound harsh, just like Amos’ words. When our world is not a reflection of the kingdom we long for, when I have been awarded privilege at the expense of others. That is not okay! Amos’ call is to let justice roll down like water: Water is as destructive as it is cleansing. As people who begin our calling at the waters of baptism, we are called into a life of being washed toward justice. Justice, like water, requires the death of unjust systems, actions, and words. And justice, like water, makes all things new. At the beginning of the Bible God takes this formless, void expanse and creates a beautiful world, a world of diversity and order, a world teeming with abundance and life. A world where every human is honored as an image, a co-creator, a beloved child of God. Jesus is taking us there again. That’s where we’re headed. It comes as we keep that view in sight, as we strive to let Justice roll down like waters…and Righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. It comes as we let the love of God in Christ Jesus change our hearts and open our eyes to the ways we can stand up for our neighbors—the ways we can tear down oppressive and neglectful systems and move toward a more just, more loving society. Not as a way of earning God’s love, or achieving our salvation. But because Jesus is bringing his kingdom. And we want in on that kingdom even now. Let God’s kingdom come on earth as in heaven, Let Justice roll down like waters…and Righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. in us, for this place and all the world. And let that lead us forward in our little mission: to Reach Out, Share Christ with All
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AuthorRev. Chris Sesvold is currently the pastor at Halfway Creek Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Holmen, WI. Archives
October 2021
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