“Let Justice roll down like water, and Righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Before the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. used that verse in his iconic sermon the night before he died (Here is the speech Martin Luther King Jr. gave the night before he died | CNN) – it is a truly remarkable sermon – it was written in the book of the prophet Amos. I am one of a number of UCC clergy and laypeople participating in a six-week study of the book “Faithful Anti-Racism”, which considers the question of addressing injustice, especially in the form of racism, from a biblical perspective. This book, written by two evangelicals, looks at injustice and how people of faith respond, and every time I read a chapter, I wonder: Why are so many Christians afraid of Justice?
I have studied justice a lot, and my congregation has become one of a handful of faith communities in our area that focuses on God’s justice and how we can address the core structures that create injustice in so many ways. A couple of years ago I presented a paper at a regional meeting titled “Jesus Justice”; I found that the word “social” was considered by many Christians to be too political. I still don’t completely understand this, but I decided to reframe the term in a way that would consider the justice issues that Jesus felt were important in His day. Not among them, by the way, are abortion and LGTBQ people, the two areas that most very conservative people of faith seem to believe are the only important concerns for the church. Curious, isn’t it?
In fact, justice permeates both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. Justice is why Judaism has rules about how the poor and the alien resident should be treated. Justice is why every 49th year there needs to be a year of Jubilee when all debts are forgiven, and property is returned to its rightful owner. I think that God led God’s people to write these laws because, good as we are, God knows that human beings are flawed and selfish. God can see how we mistreat each other; how the powerful abuse those who can’t fight back – how the strong take advantage of the weak – how the rich steal from the poor. Another King quote: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” That’s from his “Letter from the Birmingham Jail”, another must-read.
This is one of the truest things I can ever write – God cares about injustice, and if people of faith refuse to address it, they are going against God’s desires. We cannot believe in God and not work for justice. We cannot vote for unjust people and claim to believe in God. Inequality goes against everything that God wants from us. We either work towards creating a more just world, or we are part of the unjust systems that destroy everything. It is, very simply, a matter of good and evil. Which side are you on?
Prayer – Help us, God, to rise above our self-centeredness and put You and our neighbors needs before our own wants. Amen.
Today’s art is a 2019 mural depicting Harriet Tubman reaching out from a wall of the Harriet Tubman Museum & Educational Center in Cambridge, Maryland.