A sermon by Associate Minister, Elsa A. Peters, September 5, 2010
Amos 5:18-24
Let justice roll. That seems to be the call heard from the Lincoln Memorial last week as a group of Americans – a large group of Americans that exceeded the 300,000-person permit – gathered to restore honor.
Let justice roll. We hear it in this sacred text from an unknown source. Let justice roll. Unlike the famous organizer of the Restoring Honor rally, Amos pops out of nowhere. He hasn’t spent any energy building a movement. He doesn’t host a televised hour – or its equivalent in the marketplace in the cultic center of Bethel in Samaria. He doesn’t want to be in the spotlight. Amos doesn’t want this message to be focused upon him. Instead, he resents the very idea.
He doesn’t want the prestige or the honor. It’s not about him – but then – there’s ample evidence that Amos isn’t poor. He lets that slip when he allows that he’s a herdsman. A herdsman is more powerful than a shepherd but that doesn’t exactly explain how or why this herdsman begins to loudly articulate his woes about the Day of Yahweh. It’s not Amos’ term. The Day of Yahweh existed long before Amos. He just twisted it around. This day of battle that they thought would be. Amos didn’t disagree. It would be a day of battle – but the outcome wouldn’t be what the people of Israel had always assumed. As the people hoped, God would indeed “vanquish those who oppose the divine will in the world” – but the vanquished wouldn’t be the enemies of Israel. Instead, Amos insisted that it would be Israel itself.
It’s in this faith that Amos gets on his soapbox. He interrogates. He exposes. Why do you want this? He asks. Why does this seem like such a bright shiny option for you? He demands. Because it won’t work out. This is what he wants them to understand. It won’t be what they expect. Israel will not be in the light. They will be in the dark. They will lose for it is the people of Israel that “oppose the divine will in the world.”
Why? What went wrong? Where have these people failed? What could be so horrible that the chosen people of Israel would be cast into darkness? Why are Amos’ words so harsh?
Preachers of all kinds have claimed his words. Let justice roll.
Let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an everflowing stream.
When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. recalled these words, he encouraged preachers to embody them. “Somehow the preacher must be an Amos,” he told the crowd in support of the Memphis sanitation workers. Somehow we must use these words. But, we must do more than speak them. We must do even more than believe them. They must be so true that justice rolls out of us. It flows like a stream in all that we do.
After all, this isn’t really a critique of worship. Amos claims that God despises our festivals. He says God won’t even accept our gifts. But, it’s not these ritual actions that matter. It’s not what we do – the lighting the candles, the singing of hymns or giving offering. It’s how we do it. That’s what upsets Amos. That’s what has him on his soapbox. The ritual actions in the festivals and solemn assemblies are completely disconnected from the ways the people of Israel are living out their faith. They have not looked within themselves. They have not asked why they do the things they do.
Amos pushes right where it hurts. People of Israel, if you refuse to let justice roll from you, then fine. God will check out. God is not listening to the noise of your songs. God doesn’t like your melodies. God wants more. Somehow. God wants justice. Somehow, God wants justice to roll.
Somehow we must be Amos. Dr. King said it was the preachers that must be Amos, but it seems that they’re the worst. In the hot summer of 2005, I organized religious leaders with Local 100, the restaurant workers of Lower Manhattan. I attended their meetings. I listened to the stories of these workers. I whispered prayers and brushed away tears. And then, after meetings filled with stories and tears, I spoke with preachers of every faith. Let justice roll for these workers, I said.
Most of them told me it didn’t matter. Those workers were not members of their congregation. They didn’t even live in the neighborhood. The preachers couldn’t sign their support. Their congregation wouldn’t approve.
Somehow. Those preachers failed to be Amos. They led their services. They offered God their praise – but they ignored this plea from the restaurant workers. They failed to be in relationship with these people of God. So, like the people of Israel, their worship was noisy and broken for they failed to let justice roll.
After all, the kind of justice that Amos imagines is everflowing. It’s constant. It gushes forth. It bubbles up. It keeps on giving. It does not stop simply because those workers aren’t members of our congregation or don’t live in our neighborhood. The justice that Amos calls us toward looks outward to see those things that we’d really rather not see. Somehow. Somehow we must be Amos.
Jesus had a bit of Amos in him. He didn’t talk about rolling water or everflowing streams. He cut through that metaphor and spoke frankly. This is about people. It’s not about fairness or even doing the right thing. It’s simply about loving people. Now, I know. That’s not easy. Sometimes, it feels absolutely impossible.
When the writer Anne Lamott was having trouble loving a particular person, a particular person with a lot of power, it was the preacher that focused her on Jesus. It was the preacher that had a bit of Amos in her, when she spoke to Anne that Sunday morning: “You don’t have to love people’s political agenda,” the preacher said. “But you do have to love them, if you want to follow Jesus. [The preacher] said you could tell if people were following Jesus, instead of following people who follow Jesus, because they were feeding the poor, sharing their wealth, and trying to help everyone get medical insurance.”
Somehow. Justice must roll through each of us. It must be in our hands and in our hearts. It must be in the ways that we reveal our faith every day. It’s not just the preachers. It must not be just the preachers. We all must be Amos in every thing we do. Not just in our worship. Not just in our praise. But, also in how we look at our neighbor – the worker, the immigrant, the refugee, the elected official and even the television host – and love them.
The same questions that Amos asks the people of Israel must interrogate and exposes us. Why do you want this? We must wonder. Why does this seem like such a bright shiny option for you? We must ask. These shouldn’t be easy answers. They shouldn’t be what we expect. They should reveal our darkness, but we must persist. We will persist with these questions because the Day of Yahweh has not come – and the only way that justice might roll is in your loving hands. Justice will roll in you.