Amos 5:18-27
18 Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!
Why would you have the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, and not light,
19 as if a man fled from a lion,
and a bear met him,
or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall,
and a serpent bit him.
20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light,
and gloom with no brightness in it?
21 “I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
I will not look upon them.
23 Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
24 But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
25 “Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? 26 You shall take up Sikkuth your king, and Kiyyun your star-god—your images that you made for yourselves, 27 and I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.
What is justice? Not only is it a recurring theme that we see throughout the Bible, but it is also a recurring theme in our society as well. It is impossible to turn on the news or, certainly, to get on social media without encountering calls for justice. Sometimes these calls are specific, say, in the case of George Floyd, orin the case of the over two-hundred girls who were kidnappedby the Isalamic terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria. But, sometimes calls for justice relate to things are more systemic and societal, such as calls for an end to institutional racism or calls for an end to abortion. But, justice, as a concept, can be a bit nebulous to us, and in our world, in many cases, there can seem to be two sides to calls for justice.
Today the prophet Amos famously calls for Israel to “let justice roll down like an ever flowing stream,” or to use Eugene Peterson’s language in The Message, God tells Israel, “I want justice – oceans of it.” But,what are we talking about exactly?
The Hebrew word “mishpat” means “justice,” and it can have two different connotations. The first is what could be called retributive justice. If you steal a car, get caught, and go to jail, retributive justice has taken place. In the case of George Floyd, a court foundthat officer Derek Chauvin was guilty of murder, andhe will receive a jail sentence. This is retributive justice. A wrong was perpetuated and the “justice system” was employed in order to correct the wrong or to respond to the wrong. We certainly find examples of retributive justice throughout the Bible. And, it is worth pointing out that the “justice system” both now in the days of Scripture is not and was not inerrant. Sometimes unjust things are done in the name of justice.
But, the other way that mishpat is used is in what could be called restorative justice. This is a form of justice that doesn’t simply deal with responding to the perpetrator of a crime or injustice, but concerns itself with working to repair the collateral damage done. So, you could think of it like this. Retributive justice is more specific. It relates to specific crimes or specific criminals. Restorative justice is more systemic and societal. It is broader.
So, the point is, God’s desire for Israel was that they would be a people who loved mishpat. That they would be a people who would, yes, respond to criminal activity, but, perhaps even more so, would be a people who respond to injustice by caring for others. An example of this would be that quartet of the vulnerable wetalked about a few weeks ago. These people come up again and again as being representative of the kinds ofpeople that God had called Israel to pursue mishpat towards. Widows. Orphans. Immigrants. The Poor. And, it is the poor and needy who throughout Amos who have been the recipients of much injustice. They have been crushed and oppressed by the rich.
Currently, we are in what we’re calling section two of Amos, and the prophet is presenting a series of monologues against Israel. Here, a theme is “the day of the Lord,” which is a phrase found throughoutthe Bible, but it is used especially by many of the prophets.It is possible that in Amos’ time, the people would talk of the day of the Lord as this wonderful momentwhen God would show up and give them what they most wanted. But, Amos says, “you guys don’t understand what you are talking about.” If the Lord shows up, it is not going to be a good day for you. The irony here, though, is that one way or the other, mishpat is going to be done. Either the nation is going to wake up and begin the work of restorative justice by repenting and turning to the Lord, or the Lord is going to show up and do retributive justice by giving Israel what they deserve. These are the two paths that the prophet is laying before Israel. Either you step into what God wants for you or you pursue your own way instead to your peril. He says:
Why would you have the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, and not light,
19 as if a man fled from a lion,
and a bear met him,
or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall,
and a serpent bit him.
20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light,
and gloom with no brightness in it?
No listen, you are definitely not interested in the day of the Lord. And, the feeling is somewhat mutual.God’s not looking to come and spend time with you either.
21 “I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
I will not look upon them.
23 Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
Everything you do is offensive to me says the Lord. I do not feel worshipped. I do not feel loved or praised. I know what you guys are really doing. I know about your disobedience. I know about your unfaithfulness. I know about the other Gods you are also going after.
So, what is the solution? The solution is mishpat.
24 But let justice roll down like waters,
But not justice only, but also…
righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Another word for you this morning: “tzadequa” This is the word righteousness, and it is found over and over again in the Old Testament partnered with the word mishpat. What does God desire? He desires you to be a nation that does justice and righteousness.
I don’t know about you, but when I hear the word “righteousness” I immediately think about moral living. I think about being a good person. And, I remember Paul’s words in Romans 3, quoting Psalm 14, “there are none who are righteous, not even one.” So, how does a person, much less a whole nation, go after righteousness?
Theologian Alex Motyer says that “tzadequa” is about those who are “right with God and therefore committed to putting right all other relationships in life.” In this sense, righteousness is not about being sinless or perfect, but it is about knowing God and being obedient to him as it concerns other people. So, a few explicit examples of this.
Proverbs 31:8-9
Open your mouth for the mute,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
9 Open your mouth, judge righteously (tzadequa),
defend the rights of the poor and needy.
Here, to judge righteously means to judge rightly and fairly. Another:
Jeremiah 22:3
Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him whohas been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.
So, here, to “do justice and righteousness” means to act on behalf of victims and those who are vulnerablein society. The parable of the Good Samaritan springsto mind here as the perfect example of this.
To quote Tim Keller: “We do justice when we give all human beings their due as creations of God.” And it is God who is at the center of this because it is himself that he is calling us to emulate.
Psalm 33:5
He loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of the steadfast love of theLord.
Jeremiah 9:23-24
23 Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, 24 but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”
In the end, everything here comes back to what Jesus said was the summation of all the law and the prophets: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
And, church, as you go into your week, you are to go with this lens and this intent: to seek to do justice and righteousness. The gospel is not good news if it doesn’t compel people to free captives or advocate for victims or to give the voiceless a voice. This is at the core of who we are as a church, to both declare and demonstrate the gospel. And, in Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25, those who truly know him are the ones who feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, welcome strangers, clothe the naked, visit the sick and those in
prisons. Jesus says, as you’ve done it to them, you’ve done it to me. And, what he is describing there is the outworking of a Biblical understanding of justiceand righteousness. Treating people made in the image of God as if they are people made in the image of God.
One thought in closing today. Some people want to read a passage about the nation of Israel and immediately jump to the conclusion that all of these things shouldbe applied to the nation of America today. They think, ‘well Israel is a nation and America is a nation so God must want the same things for America as a nation that he wanted for Israel. But that’s an incorrect hermeneutic or way of interpreting the Bible. What made Israel important was not simply that it was a nation, but rather that they were marked as God’s people. So in today’s world we can’t just look at some passage about Israel and assume those things onto America because we’ve been told that America is a Christian nation or that God blessed America. Instead we have to ask the question, ‘who are God’s people today?’ And the answer to that question is the church. We are God’s people! America is not in the book, but we are because we are a part of the body of Christ, the church.
I say that to say if your assumption is that the workof justice is primarily to be the work of governmentsthen I think you’re missing some of this. In fact I wouldsay that scripturally it seems to be the case that the work of retributive justice, meaning the justice system, is perhaps primarily something that God has created governments for, but the work of restorative justice largely seems to be the work of God’s people, us.So the question is what are the broken things that you see that God has given you some level of compassion for and some level of resource to address? And for you teachersit could be something going on in your school, a child or a family. For those in the business world it could be the way that you sometimes see people perhaps manipulated or taken advantage of. Or how could you be an agent that not only works against brokenness, but also an agent that brings healing to those who are the victims of brokenness? Let us seek the Lordin answering these questions together.
