“Amos: Let Justice Roll Down" Amos 1:1-2; 5:14-15, 21-24

  While I was in seminary, one of our beloved deans retired. As part of a time of reflecting on God’s calling upon her life, the graduating class commissioned a stained glass hanging based on Amos 5: 24, “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” 

While I love that particular verse, I think that we struggle to truly understand what justice is and what it is not.

Justice. When I say this word, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? For me, it’s Judge Judy. A beacon of the court system, who has no time for those who don’t follow the rules or those who try to exploit the system, she is tough, but fair. But God is not Judge Judy.

God’s sense of justice extends well beyond our limited view of justice through the human court system. Our sense of justice is in order to do what is best for us – justice may involve separating some people from others, or enforcing fines in an attempt to get people to follow the rules.  But our sense of justice is also tainted – sometimes the justice system is actually unjust. But God’s sense of justice is not about what is good for God; it is about what is good for those whom God loves. 

The problem in the time of Amos is that the people are trying to tell God what is good instead of allowing God to lead them to his definition of goodness.

Amos is known as a minor prophet. That doesn’t mean that he had a minor message or impact, rather the writing is shorter in length. Amos never dreamt of being a prophet. It wasn’t something he aspired to. Instead, he was a shepherd, minding his own business and his sheep when one day God said I’m going send you with a message from my people. 

Amos, the unsuspecting prophet, served during the reign of King Jeroboam II and to the outside eye, everything looked great. There weren’t any military battles raging or natural disasters or collapses in the economy. And yet, even in a time when everything seemed good - it was only good by the world’s standards, not God’s.

The people of God had started to slip. They had started to think that since everything looked good, well they must be good. Another way to put it is that they had become complacent. All they could see was the “good”, but at the cost of ignoring the cries of the oppressed. They gave their time to only those people and things that could benefit them. And the courts, the place of human justice, were littered with corruption.

Things were not good.

There was just a false sense of goodness that lead to a false sense of security.

Friends, Amos could be speaking to us today, could he not? Things are not good just because there is power and wealth or that our own lives seem okay. There is still injustice and abuses. People are still oppressed, the problem is now we ignore their cries by simply changing the channel, flipping the page, or walking past the person struggling without a home. We choose injustice by ignoring the cries of those around us.

Brothers and sisters, when we think that things are good because we are good, this is a sneaky form of pride. 

And what comes from pride, but seeking more for ourselves - hence it becomes a vicious cycle.

Lest we think that this problem is only about the outer world, it has crept into the heart of the worship of the people of Israel as well. They started making worship in their image and brought in this thought that I’ll worship God as long as give me what I want. I’ll make this sacrifice, but God has to give me what I want in return. That’s only fair.

So Amos, the shepherd and sheep breeder, left everything behind to go from Judah to Israel. In other words, instead of just sending word to tell the people of Israel to get it together, he actually went to this place that was foreign to him to bring this powerful word of the Lord. 

Worship was more about receiving than offering praise unto God. And it was a whole lot more about empty word then about changed hearts and behavior. It sounds a whole lot like what Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew, Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, shall enter the Kingdom of heaven. 

The people were trying to use their act of worship to manipulate God. And Amos shows up with this message that worship isn’t about making God do something for you - its about allowing God to shape and change you. All of you. 

But what does that look like for us today? Christ taught through his actions of seeking justice for us on that cross, that we are seek justice for others. We may not be able to have the same kind of justice that doesn’t make everything fair or even, but clean, but we can at least strive to love people in this world. 

Another translation of the heart of Amos’s preaching In the book of the prophet Amos (5:24),says “a flood of justice and an endless river of righteous living.” The phrase that used to describe followers of Christ who try to seek to live justly on this earth is “social justice” or “peace with justice.” While we may not be able to eliminate the wrongs in this world, we can try to correct them and see those often mistreated in society with the eyes of Christ. 

But in order to get to that place, we need to seek to have the eyes of Christ. Which means in all humility seeking aside our pride. Setting aside our ideas of good in order to focus on God’s idea of good. And it means not worshipping as an act of manipulation but as an act of transformation.

The type of transformation that shakes every bit of us. 

The type of transformation that changes our priorities to be those who seek to live as God desires. 

One step we could take towards this idea of justice, right here and now today, is to pray, “Lord, give me your eyes to see justice. And may I live to seek your idea of justice here on earth.” A two sentence pray, yet a powerful one if we mean it. If we let the prayer shape and transform us - not to be people who seek out our idea of justice or vigilantes after how we think the world should be, but instead asking God to change how we see and act as Kingdom people to reflect the love the Savior has for us. 

May we claim God’s justice in our lives. May we see it as a wonderful gift, and also as something that we can live into being. May we seek justice on the behalf of the forgotten, ignored, and oppressed. And may we love all, remembering that God’s justice covers all. Amen.