All for Justice

We met Amos a few weeks ago. If you remember, the text was about the people of the northern kingdom, Israel, telling Amos to go back home and prophesy in his own country. He told them that he was no prophet, just a simple herdsman and dresser of Sycamore trees. These two professions seem to contradict each other – a herdsman travels about with his flocks and a cultivator of plants stays in place. The point that he was making then was that he was not a professional prophet who made his living by prophesying. Instead, he was a poor farmer/herdsman who was called by God to prophesy to the people of Israel. He did so in the eighth century BC (around 760 BC) when times were good in Israel and the people were living opulent lives. But they had forgotten God and the law. Amos was calling them to reform their lives, give up their opulent ways, and live as God’s people once more. 

The people rejected him and his message and drove him away because they had deluded themselves that their prosperity was a sign that God approved of their lives and how they treated others. We do know how that is. When times are good we like to believe that it is because of what we have done and when bad things happen we like to blame God. (The truth may be the other way around.) We do know and see what Amos saw, the rich believing their wealth is theirs alone to spend as they wish and the poor do not deserve to have anything more than what they already have. In the wake of all this Amos calls us to establish justice.

We hear the word justice bantered around much lately. I am not sure if we truly know what it is. It certainly is a complicated concept. Plato tells us that only the people who were wealthy enough to spend their time in the areopagus (the city square in Greece) discussing the issues of the day deserved justice. All others, women, children, those who worked for a living, and especially, slaves did not qualify for justice. This was true for most of the ancient world. The idea that all people deserve justice seems to be uniquely a Jewish idea developed in the Old Testament. In Leviticus we learn of the Sabbath year. That every seven years all loans that are still outstanding are to be forgiven. In Deuteronomy we learn of the Jubilee year where every thing was to be returned to how it was fifty years before. Lands that were sold or lost by a family were to be returned to them, all debts were to be forgiven, and all slaves were to be freed. There is no evidence that the Sabbath or Jubilee years were celebrated, this concept of making things right again is emphasized by many of the prophets and Amos specifically. For Amos, justice means treating the poor fairly and taking care of the orphan, widow, and foreigner in the land. 

We read this text from Amos today because of the story of the rich man who asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. We do not know why he asked this question. It most likely was to brag to others that he was well blessed by God and was perfect. What a shock it must have been to hear that one last requirement. That thing which he thought was proof that he was assured a life with God actually prevented him from attaining that goal. Justice was not what he received from God, it was how he used what God had given him. Justice is God’s love. When you love as Jesus commands you will see all people as God’s children and work so that everyone can obtain the life Jesus calls them to. A life that is free from bondage to possessions and desires, sin and death, and lives so that all may experience God’s love. Pray that you, unlike the rich man, will be able to resist the lure of this world and answer God’s call to justice for all.