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Changing the world — 2

Amos 5: 14 – 24

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 16 Oct, 2005

IF UNITY is one defining characteristic of a world–changing church, justice is the other. Unity is an expression of love; so is justice. A loving God must be just; a loving people must be just.

Some years ago, we had a student Anglican minister attending the Baptist Church I went to. He was a nice chap, and very keen on Biblical truth, but a bit dogmatic, and inclined to think that Anglicans know best, that Baptists would be better if they were Anglicans, and that Pentecostalists didn’t know what they were talking about.

In our area, the Christian Revival Crusade was active, and they ran a popular coffee shop outreach program that some of our young people went to. Graham, the student minister, generally went with our young people to ensure they weren’t taught anything too damaging.

One Sunday morning, Graham was a bit flustered about the coffee shop the previous evening, so I asked him what had happened.

It turned out that the Christian Revival Crusade‘s Youth Leader had shaken Graham’s thoughts quite a bit. Graham was inclined to think that a loving God couldn’t really be a judging God, and that Youth Leader had taken Graham through the Bible and shown him how salvation was a consequence of a loving God’s need to preserve justice. He showed that God longs for our salvation, but can’t just let all of us off the hook for our sins. Otherwise, God would be saying that those who sin against us should be left to get away with it.

Imagine how someone who lost a child at Bali might feel if God said, “I don’t really care if the bombers are caught or not. I’ll let them all into heaven anyway.” That would be far from loving!

But God says, “If that bomber truly and heartily repents, and accepts that Jesus died to take the punishment he deserves, then, only on the basis of the death of Jesus, I will not condemn him to hell. I will receive that wicked bomber and make him my child, if he will trust me and come to me.”

That’s justice tempered with mercy. The righteous Lamb of God, Jesus, dies for the sins of the wicked. There is no other way for a righteous God to be both just and loving.

And it all came clear to Graham that night.

Get a concordance one day. Look up all the passages about justice. The Old Testament is absolutely full of them.

God is about justice. There is no conflict between the God of the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament. The loving God of the Gospel is loving because he is also just.

I was thinking the other day about how much Jesus really did teach about justice. On the one hand, he didn’t do a lot of direct teaching on the subject. He knew that his hearers had the prophets, and should have understood the basic concepts.

When he cleared the temple, that was about justice.

The temple was divided into several areas. There was the inner shrine, the Holy of Holies, where only the High Priest could enter once a year on the Day of Atonement.

Then there was the main area where sacrifices were carried out, and there was also a general area where Jews could congregate to watch the Temple rituals. Finally, there was a fenced–off area where Gentiles could stand and watch from a distance.

Guess where the money changers were set up? Of course — in the Court of the Gentiles. The people whom the Jews were called to serve were the people who were excluded!

This entire action by Jesus was a declaration of justice.

You couldn't use ordinary coins to pay the temple tax — that kind of money had been touched by Gentiles. It had an image of Caesar on it. It was polluted. You had to change it first into temple money. And the money changers charged a decent fee for the exchange.

If you brought your best lamb to the temple to offer as a sacrifice, someone inspected it in the Court of the Gentiles. They would find a blemish — a patch of wool that curled in a different direction from the rest. It didn’t matter that this was your best lamb, or that the variation was quite normal and natural. The money changers would take your lamb off your hands and sell you a certified sacrificial lamb — of course, for more than you would pay for any ordinary lamb.

In other words, the money changers and the sellers of animals were rip–off merchants, and God had always declared himself implacably opposed to injustice, to unfair payments, to exploitation of people’s vulnerabilities.

Jesus did what God would do. He chased them out.

And what about the rich man and Lazarus? Lazarus knew that there was a poor beggar outside his gate every day, but he didn‘t even send down a plate of leftovers at Christmas.

God sees it as a matter of justice and of right living to provide for the poor.

Some Christians make a big thing of one brief passage, where Paul says,

If anyone will not work, neither should he eat.

In the context, Paul was talking about people who thought that everyone else should take responsibility for them, but who would not do what they could for themselves. He is talking about people who abuse the Christian fellowship, not about the sick, the unemployable, the unwanted of society.

Ezek 34:15 I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign LORD. ¹⁶ I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.

Isaiah says,

ISA 1:17 learn to do right!

Seek justice,

encourage the oppressed.

Defend the cause of the fatherless,

plead the case of the widow.

^1:18 “Come now, let us reason together,”

says the LORD.

“Though your sins are like scarlet,

they shall be as white as snow;

though they are red as crimson,

they shall be like wool.

The rich man and Lazarus is a story about a man who neglects the poor and reaps the rewards. Jesus does not have to teach repeatedly about justice, because the Jews of his day had heard the prophets, and they knew what they said. But he did teach them that judgment would come on those who had the Moses and the prophets, but didn’t hear them!

The message of Jesus is also the message of Amos:

AM 5:11 You trample on the poor

and force him to give you grain.

Therefore, though you have built stone mansions,

you will not live in them;

though you have planted lush vineyards,

you will not drink their wine.

^{AM 5:12} For I know how many are your offences

and how great your sins.

You oppress the righteous and take bribes

and you deprive the poor of justice in the court.

Again, when Jesus taught the parable of the sheep and the goats, it is justice and righteousness that are in the forefront of his thinking.

Those who haven’t cared for the sick and the imprisoned, who haven’t provided for the impoverished and the homeless, are bound for hell, and no miracle they have worked no good sermon they have preached, no heart–warming service they have attended changes that.

God sees care for the needy as a vital demonstration of justice in action.

What does that mean?

We often see such deeds as works of mercy. We act as though we are giving people in these situations something extra out of our greater resources. We are on top.

That is not how God sees it. That is not how Jesus acts. If doing good is merciful, then we will believe we can choose whether or not to extend mercy. The power is in our hands.

But when these are deeds of justice, then the power is in the hands of the poor and the oppressed, of the needy and the outcast. They have a right to justice! They don’t deserve our care: we are responsible to make sure they get the care they have a right to.

If we don’t seek justice and righteousness, we are not acting as people of God’s Kingdom; and if we don’t act as Kingdom people, we don’t serve the Lord who bought us with his blood. It’s that simple!

That means that we not only have to provide for those who can’t provide for themselves, but we have to ensure that our world becomes a more just, more caring place.

Our task is not just to build a community that models love, but to build a community that pursues justice. Anything less is a betrayal of our primary objective as people of God’s Kingdom.

Of course there are people who object that we will sin if we take an active role in worldly affairs. Sadly, they have erred from the truth.

James declares that if we see a person in need and fail to act to change that situation, we are worse than unbelievers.

He says,

JAS 2:14 What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? ¹⁵ Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

We never bring discredit on our Lord by doing good; and, if doing good means acting so that our society does good to someone it otherwise would not do good to, then that is very much our duty.

Others argue that our real duty is to preach the gospel and let society see to itself. They say that, if enough people are converted, that will improve society by itself.

We certainly have a duty to proclaim Christ and salvation through faith in him. I would never deny that! Nor will I deny that people who take the gospel seriously generally find that this improves their economic and social situation. But that is not a foregone conclusion. People need to be taught — we are commanded not just to make believers, but to make disciples. And people need to learn who they are in Christ and what rights and duties they have.

Too many people are believers but not disciples. The high abortion rate, the high rates of violent crime and theft, the high rates of teenaged pregnancies in the US all imply that the high proportion of the population who attend church and call themselves “Born again” are not what they claim to be.

Our calling is to do good to all men, as Paul tells us; our responsibility is to act for justice and for righteousness, so that we can catch glimpses from time to time of the reality of God’s Kingdom on earth.

If the prophet said,

AM 5:24 But let justice roll on like a river,

righteousness like a never-failing stream!

...then it is our duty to do what we can to make it happen.

If we don’t, then his words from earlier in the chapter will apply to us:

AM 5:18 Woe to you who long

for the day of the LORD!

Why do you long for the day of the LORD?

That day will be darkness, not light.

AM 5:19 It will be as though a man fled from a lion

only to meet a bear,

as though he entered his house

and rested his hand on the wall

only to have a snake bite him.

Last week, we acted for good to some of our brothers and sisters who had suffered loss. They might have lost thousands of dollars worth, and our $90 will not go too far, but we wanted to let them know that we care.

We must keep on doing what we can to show we care. Is someone sick? Let’s stop our prayer time and write the person a card. Is someone sad? Let’s phone them and say, “Join with us while we sing a song of joy!” And, if we hear of people who are oppressed, equally, we must act to end that oppression, and if we hear of prisoners, we must work for their release from bondage and, where appropriate, from detention.

To spread love is to spread justice; to spread justice in a spirit of love is to spread the knowledge of Jesus.

When God’s people do good, then the world’s people will want to hear why; and when they want to hear why, we will tell them about Jesus — won’t we?

Our world, our nation, is filled with injustices and cries for satisfaction.

The Government is pressing to change workplace laws. They will revert to something like they were before the real reforms of the 1830s and 1840s. The Anglican and Catholic Archbishops and the Uniting Church Moderator have all spoken against the proposals. Where are we in this situation?

If we support the end of unfair dismissal laws, do we agree that people should be unfairly dismissed?

The heat is off detention centres, but they still exist; people are still held in them. Do we show we care? What can we do about these things? One Cornelia Rau, one Vivian Alvarez, is too many. There were about 60 of them.

We should never have gone into Iraq: now we may never get out of the place. Can we do anything? Even telling people in authority how we feel can be a start to achieving change.

Big firms are engaging in questionable practices, and taking anyone to court who objects. Do we accept such misuse of defamation laws?

The so–called anti-terrorism laws are stripping back rights we have had for centuries, rights that have stood through wars, through terrorism, through all kinds of woes. One day, these laws will be used against us, if we don’t raise our voices.

AM 5:24 But let justice roll on like a river,

righteousness like a never-failing stream!

This word from God is still our charter — let’s do it!

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2005. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)