Justice like rivers, Righteousness like an ever flowing stream
Readings: Amos 5. 19-24 & Matthew 25. 1-13
There’s a well known saying that ‘evil triumphs when good men do nothing’. That wrongdoing prospers when those who know better fail to intervene or act.
Our reading this morning from Amos is a picture of this. God’s people look from the outside very pious, very religious, very righteous. They make their sacrifices, they make their offerings. Fire and incense rise from the Temple day and night. They celebrate the festivals with gusto and worship loudly and enthusiastically. Looking on all looks well.
All looks well to them too, they’re waiting expectantly for the day of the Lord, that is the day when the Messiah, the Saviour, will come and put everything right. And they’re excited about it because then the world will be judged, everyone else will have to pay for what they’ve done, and they will receive honour and glory.
And Amos, in a stunning display of rhetoric, begins his prophecy to this people by denouncing the surrounding nations, their sins and evil, how God will repay them for what they have done. And you can almost sense the crowds cheering, egging him on. Yes, let God punish them for their evil, yes, let them get what they deserve. And then, once Amos has worked his way through those who surround them his attention turns to God’s people, and his condemnation of them is far greater, far longer.
All is not well, evil is flourishing and no-one is doing anything about it. As we hear in the portion today, they may be diligent in their religious practices but their ethics are entirely disconnected. The wealthy don’t care for the poor, they sell them into slavery, they deny those they deem less than them their rights. Those who could intervene don’t. And so God declares that he will not stand by, he will not look the other way, that instead because of this he will not accept their offerings, he will not listen to their songs or instruments. Because of this he despises their religious gatherings.
The words of Amos are meant to be a wake up call, the judgement they’re excited to see everyone else face? The same is coming for them too. Why do they long for the day of the Lord? It will not go well for them as things stand, for they are far from innocent and God will not ignore their sins simply because they claim his name. In the words of Jesus, when God comes to judge he will say to them ‘I do not know you’. They may claim his name, appear to blend in, but they know nothing of him, nothing of his ways.
We live in a world where evil seems to flourish. I’ve preached Remembrance Sunday for 3 years now, and each year the picture seems darker. First war in Ukraine and the atrocities happening there, now war in Israel and Gaza and the atrocities happening there.
And whilst we feel their pain, we feel their suffering, I all too often hear people point over there and say ‘it’s their fault, or their fault’. We look at the sins of the nations around us and we may find ourselves all too easily condemning one people or another other as evil, and then assuming all is well here. All is well in the UK, nothing to see here, we are on the side of good, we do everything right.
Are we living as God calls us to? Or is our worship ringing hollow too?
God says that the worship of his people in Amos’ time has become repugnant to him, why? Because the same lips they use to worship him they slander others with. Because the same hands raised in prayer are then used in violence and bribery. Because whilst they claim their hearts are turned towards God they are hardened against their neighbour.
Is that true of us? Are we just as hypocritical? Do we come today to commit to peace whilst harbouring grudges? Whilst holding onto resentment and anger? Do we come to commit to the peace of the world whilst feeling that actually some people don’t deserve peace, some should get what we feel should be coming to them?
True knowledge of God, true worship of God, true love of God will change us. That’s what it should do. As we come to praise the one who is righteous and perfect, who is merciful and just, who is loving and compassionate. As we come to praise him for these things we acknowledge that these are wonderful things, lovely things. And in doing so we hold them up and aspire to them ourselves. We praise God that he is like this and in our praise pray that we would be like him.
May our love for God not become disconnected from our love for people. Our worship of God should be directly connected to how we treat our neighbour.
God tells his people to be away with their songs and festivals and sacrifices. Instead he longs that justice would roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. God longs that this should be the case, he will not stand by whilst it is not.
He won’t stand by to the point that he won’t even stay in heaven. Instead he comes to bring heaven to earth. As the one who is perfectly good, God will not stand by whilst evil flourishes. So he steps off his throne and into the darkness of our world. In Jesus God steps from the glory of heaven into the dust of our world. And he does so, so that justice will roll down like rivers. So that righteousness will flow like an ever flowing stream.
In coming to earth, as we will celebrate in a few short weeks, God the Son, Jesus Christ takes hold of the steering wheel of the universe and throws us into a u-turn. He comes to set us back on course away from death and destruction and evil, and back towards life, hope and righteousness.
He comes not just to teach us what it is to love God and love neighbour, comes not just to show us, but to empower us by his Spirit to live as he calls us to. He comes, not to condemn us for the evil we have done, for our hypocrisy, for our failure to intervene. Instead he comes to take all that upon himself, plunge it down into death, into the hell it deserves, and to reach out to us offering us a new start, a new beginning, a clean slate, one which no sin or evil or wrongdoing will stick to, for he has washed us clean forever.
In Jesus a new world is coming. One where war and violence will cease, where spears and guns and bombs and all the weapons of war, are forever reforged into the tools of peace, of building and farming. In Jesus a day is coming when justice will roll down like waters. Where goodness and righteousness will go on forever, unbroken by sin and evil.
If we have put our faith and hope in him, if we know and love Jesus we are part of that coming world. We are part of that coming future. And so as a people who are part of that coming world let us live as citizens of it.
Let us care for the poor, the needy, the widow and orphan. Let us love the refugee and migrant. Let our hearts go out to those on both sides of conflict, longing for peace and safety to resume once more. Let us pray that the hearts of tyrants and all who commit atrocious acts would be turned towards God that they might start anew, leaving their old ways behind. Let us live and act as a living and acting picture of the world to come, revealing in our lives the God whom we worship.
It is said that ‘evil triumphs when good men do nothing’. In Jesus God has become man, the perfectly good man, and he has acted decisively and victoriously against evil, as those who love him, who seek to follow and obey him, let us not allow our hands to be idle either.
Let us not merely claim the name of Jesus with our words, let us love him and know him, let us not allow the fire of our faith, that burning torch to go out, but instead make ourselves busy with the things of God’s coming Kingdom, ready and expectant for that day when he brings it to its fulfilment.
Let us worship, not just in words, but in spirit and in truth. For true worship leads to justice, righteousness and love for our neighbours.
Amen