Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Amos 5:18-24
Anybody who has ever had two or more children consuming food at one and the same time, knows that such moments constitute a recipe for family disaster. Picture a pie….banana cream….blueberry….pecan….even pizza. Picture two kids. Picture one knife. Who will cut….that is the question. Let us assume that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is busy elsewhere. Ditto for the head of the National Bureau of Measures and Standards. And your phone call to the nearest bishop yields nothing but a busy signal.
So with all the parental objectivity you can muster, you take the knife. You make the cuts. You serve the pieces. And then you wait for the wails you know will follow. They are wails about “the bigger piece”….who got it….who didn’t get it. Even though a mathematician with a micrometer can’t discern the difference, your kids can. Or think they can.
So you learn a little technique, the better to avoid such confrontations in the future. You refuse to make the cut. Assuming two kids at the table, you assign one to be the slicer. But before they fight for control of the knife, you say: “Yes, one of you gets to cut the pie. But, once cut, the other of you gets to choose the first piece.”
Children are big on fairness. We’ve talked of this before. Not only can they spot unfairness a mile away, but they can smell it even when their noses are stuffed. “No fair….no fair,” they cry. And they expect the adults in their lives to rush in and rectify the inequity. The fact that those same adults will, one day, have to teach them that life isn’t fair is lost at that moment. Because, to whatever degree fairness can be ordained and orchestrated, it is the adults who are charged with making it so.
Which is an easy trap to get sucked into. I remember when our kids were young, and Kris and I were young. Christmas would come and we would try to make sure each kid got the same. Not the same stuff, mind you. But the same dollar-value worth of stuff. I even remember going out at the last minute to buy something extra for one or the other of the kids. My goal was to make the total balance out. And then there were those years when one kid’s major present was abnormally expensive, meaning that the kid who got that big present got fewer presents in total than did the kid whose presents were cheaper, albeit more numerous. As a parent, I’d sit there trying to figure out whether they had figured it out….and whether I needed to find some subtle way to explain the inequity that they may or may not be perceiving.
If that sounds stupid (and I know it does), we’ve all been there. And our motives as parents were, and perhaps still are, no different from God’s parental motives in desiring to give good and equitable gifts to all God’s children.
Today’s sermon title contains the word “justice.” Which is a biblical word, every bit as much as a contemporary word. But in researching its biblical origins, I was surprised to find how many times (in its usage) it has to do with the needs of those who have less, measured against the obligations of those who have more. Time and again, biblical justice is mentioned in conjunction with God’s concern for the poor, the weak, the widows, the orphans, the enslaved, the resident aliens within one’s gates, and the physically infirm. I didn’t make this up. I am only telling you how it reads. In the main, justice is more concerned with distribution than with retribution….at least in the Bible.
I’ll come back to that in a minute, after we stretch our legs at this little rest stop called “Amos.” I am not talking about “Famous Amos”….he who makes cookies in California. I am talking about anonymous Amos….he who preached to the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th century BC.
As seminarians in the ‘60s, we loved this little speech that rolled off my tongue mere moments ago….the speech about God’s non-delight in the religious feasts, sacred offerings and solemn assemblies of Israel’s worship. Instead, cried Amos: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”
There we sat in our dorm rooms and study carrels at Yale Divinity School, salivating at the thought of laying a little Amos on our first church, the first time the congregation got itself lathered up about whether communion should be taken in the pews or at the rail, or whether the Gloria Patri should be sung to the new tune, the old tune, or dropped from the service altogether. Then we would rise up in prophetic indignation and, in the deepest voices we could muster (being mostly men, then), we would lay a little Amos on them. Well, as I recall (some 38 years later), some did and soon left….some did and soon learned….and some chickened out and crucified their internal Amos, allowing no possibility of resurrection.
Truth be told, Amos never said: “Don’t worship.” What Amos said was: “If what you do is pure and lovely in here, yet stinks to high heaven out there, it ain’t worship….it ain’t right….and it ain’t of God. So get with the program, which is about charity and community every bit as much as it is about liturgy.” Ah, it feels good to say that even now, 2800 long years after Amos. And 38 relatively short years (where did they go, good Lord?) after Yale.
But while it is true that justice, in the Bible, is very much about distribution, there are texts which speak of justice as retribution….making things right as well as making things available. The Bible seems to say: “If there are any principles….any laws….any truths….any behaviors that matter to God (and the Bible is clear that there are), then God ought to do something to ensure that they prevail, and God’s people ought to do something to ensure that they prevail.”
When the psalmist cries, “Show forth thy righteousness, O God,” he is saying: “Do something, O God, to ensure that the right things don’t get trampled, and that people who do the right things don’t lose.” For in those passages (wherever they occur), justice and righteousness are parallel notions, almost to the point of interchangeability.
The Bible assumes God cares how things come out. The Bible also assumes God’s people should, too. So when Christians say, “All I want is justice,” one hopes that what they are asking is that God’s will be done in this situation. Hopefully, they are saying: “All I want is that God’s truth be revealed….God’s values be affirmed….God’s laws be obeyed….and God’s Kingdom (to whatever degree it is realizable here) be established.” For the Christian, justice is not just about getting the laws of the land to work, but getting the laws of the Lord to work. Which is why we ought to be careful what we pray for, lest we get it.
But I am not sure we understand that. Too often, when we cry out for justice, our concern is not that we will obtain it, but that somebody else will be brought to it. Which is okay, as far as it goes. Wrong should not go unpunished. Evil should not go unchecked. Falsehoods should not go unchallenged. Criminals should not go uncaught. And those who are predatory and injurious should not go unrestrained. Otherwise, God is mocked. Even us do-gooder, bleeding-heart preachers can see that. We’re not naïve. Justice means that some things must be opposed….and some people must be opposed. It would be nice if it didn’t have to be that way. But there are times when it does. Realism suggests it. But it is the power of sin (known better by preachers than anybody else) which requires it.
But it is precisely at this point that we Christians need to be careful, lest we forget who we are in the process of opposing what we feel called to oppose. God sent Jonah to preach doom and destruction to Ninevah for her sin. But, as concerned her sin, Ninevah repented of it. So, as concerned Ninevah’s destruction, God backed off from it. And Jonah was ticked. Why? I’ll tell you why. Because Jonah had gotten his chips and salsa and climbed the nearest hill with his binoculars to watch those people fry. What he forgot is that while the penultimate goal of divine justice is to bring evil down, the ultimate goal of divine justice is to turn evil-doers around. Which implies a certain restraint in everything we Christians do….and an even greater restraint in everything we Christians pray for.
As I told you last week, I have spent a fair amount of time this past year reading what my brother and sister preachers have said about September 11. I have read sermons preached one week after and one year after. There are now five such collections. What interests me is how good they are. Give us something significant to grind our teeth on and we boring blokes can be quite eloquent.
Tony Campolo was one whose words I read. Many of you remember the night Tony was here. What an energetic preacher. And while God’s impassioned Italian has never been boring, he outdid himself in a sermon entitled: “The Best of Times, The Worst of Times.” Let me serve you a slice:
I worry about vengeance, given that vengeance can be a very destructive mindset. And may I point out that I differ with Senator McCain when he says: “God may give them mercy, but they’ll get none from us.” Of all the senators I’ve heard speak, I thought Senator Mikulski from Maryland said the best thing. In that great prayer meeting they held under the Capital dome, she said: “I pray, dear God, that you will bring those who perpetrated this evil”….and there I sat, waiting for her to say “to justice.” But instead, she said “to repentance.” For that’s our hope, that the repetitive cycle of violence will be grounded and that, with repentance, lives will be changed and a new day will dawn.
Responding to those lines when he first spoke them, someone asked Campolo where in the world he got such a radical idea. To which Tony said: “From Jesus.” Leading his critic to fire back: “Well, this is no time to be going around quoting Jesus.”
* * * * *
On September 11 of this year, Mitch Albom did not write on the Sports Page, but on the front page. And he did not write about an athlete, but about a terrorist. He wrote about Osama Bin Laden, who he called a loser (quite correctly, I thought).
It was a powerful piece….a passionate piece….a patriotic piece. In my old age, having finally given myself permission to let my patriotism show, I enjoyed Mitch’s piece, especially when we portray patriotism as pride in the values that have made this country great, rather than waving our fingers like stupid football players in the faces of the world, screaming: “We’re number one, we’re number one.”
Mitch’s piece was patriotic in the best sense, when to Bin Laden he said:
If you sought to destroy our spirit, you failed.
If you sought to destroy our will, you failed.
If you planned on demoralizing us, you failed.
If you planned on dividing us, you failed.
If you planned on destabilizing us, we’re still here. Our streets….our schools…. our government….our freedom….still here. You, on the other hand, lost your sandlot….your real estate….your roof and your umbrella….your shelter from the storm….(in short) your home.
If you dreamed of victory, you failed….domination, you failed….Muslims on one side, Westerners on the other, you failed.
But then Mitch crossed a line (moving onto my turf) when, in speaking to Bin Laden, he segued from “No God condones you” to “No God loves you.” Which harkened back to the lines with which Mitch’s piece began:
If you are dead, you failed….because you are not in some blessed place, sitting under a yum yum tree. You are in a corner of hell reserved for murderers.
Now I will confess to you that when I read that line eleven days ago….and in reading it just now….there is a part of me that is quite comfortable transforming my fist and my forearm into a giant exclamation mark and saying: “Yes.” That’s the part of me sitting with my chips, my salsa and my binoculars, waiting to watch my enemies fry.
But I do not like that part of me….in part, because Jesus tells me I should not like that part of me (even though some of you will momentarily tell me that “this is no time to be going around quoting Jesus”).
So Mitch….I love you, buddy….keep on writing. But I hope that Senator Mikulski is closer to the truth than Senator McCain. And when we get those sons of _______ who perpetrated this evil, I pray that God will grab ‘em by whatever still moves ‘em, and bring ‘em….to repentance.
And me, too, while He’s at it.
Note: I spent a fair amount of time researching the word “justice” in biblical dictionaries and commentaries. Surprisingly, there is little clarity or singularity about its meaning. Often linked with “righteousness,” it is slanted toward a concept of distribution, bringing the resources of those who have much to bear upon the needs of those who have little. But there is a minority report, as it were, that links “justice” with words like “vindication” and “retribution”….suggesting that when true justice exists, God’s concept of “right” will be established and other concepts of “wrong” will be dethroned. Hopefully, the sermon reflects both of those concepts.
The distinction Tony Campolo makes between justice and repentance can be found in the collection of sermons referenced last week, entitled The Sunday After Tuesday: College Pulpits Respond to 9/11 (Willimon and Hauerwas).
Mitch Albom’s essay appeared on the front page of the Detroit Free Press, Wednesday, September 11, 2002. Those who live in other parts of the country will know Mitch as the author of the acclaimed bestseller, Tuesdays With Morrie.
