Justice, Mercy and Non-Violence

Justice, Mercy and Non-Violence 

In the eighth century BCE, the Judean Prophet, Amos, inspired by God, did his best to communicate the importance of justice and mercy to the leaders of the nation of Israel.  Amos described people who cheat their customers and overcharge the poor, in order to enhance their own wealth.  And he describes how God feels about this and what God plans to do. 

Amos 8:1-12: . . . . The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day," says the Lord GOD; the dead bodies shall be many, cast out in every place. Be silent!  Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, "When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the Sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat. . . . .On that day, says the Lord GOD, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight.

I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day. The time is surely coming, says the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD.  

Amos condemns the wealthy for taking advantage of the poor and for breaking the customs of the land.  The rich, it seems, even plan to sweep the scattered wheat off the floor and sell it rather than leaving it for the poor to gather.  To put this in perspective, this is not unlike congress passing the huge farm bill and gutting it of the food stamp provision which would help feed those who lost their jobs in the recession of 2008, among others.  The farm bill has not gone to conference yet, nor has it been signed by the president but it does give us some idea of how the poor in Israel in Amos’ day and the poor in our day are often treated in similar ways. 

Around 1500, Martin Luther continues Amos’ concern for the poor when he proclaims that “those who can steal and rob openly are safe and free, unpunished by anyone while the petty sneak thieves who have committed one offense must bear disgrace and punishment to make the others look respectable and honorable.” Luther just might be referring to public officials and religious leaders of his time. 

Yes, our world is different from the Eighth Century BCE world of Amos, and even from the 16^th century world of Martin Luther, but if we listen closely we can hear echoes of theirs in our own.  In Amos’ day we saw dishonest balances as well as the discontinuation of customs which made food available for the poor.  In our day we see money lent to people who the lenders know cannot pay it back, we see “pay day loans” that can put people in permanent debt, and we see bundled mortgages which make it impossible to extract one’s own mortgage from its entanglement with many others and almost brought down the world economy. 

We as Christians are called to an activism that encourages healthy business practices and discourages dishonesty, builds community and affirms individual strengths and talents and their use for the building up of the community, the nation and the world.   

As we use our talents in community, Christian Activism calls some to contemplation and learning and others to action.  Some of us are called to teach and listen, others to protest the actions of the church or state, some are called to follow the rules, others, like those who worked for civil rights or for the ordination of women in the Episcopal Church, or for rights for homosexual people are called to break them.  Some are called to support the Status Quo and others are called to question it with all our might. 

 I believe Amos is calling for a divine sense of fairness and kindness that perseveres even when the historical moment is one that’s poor in mercy because we who minister in the name of Jesus cease to hear the prophetic call.   

Everyone belongs and no one needs to be scapegoated or excluded.  Evil and Illusion need only to be named and exposed truthfully, and they die in exposure to the light (Richard Rohr). 

Being God’s Person, being part of the kingdom of God is not easy. It requires us to look not only at our own good, but at the good of others, to look not only at the actions of others but at our own actions.  We must stay in relationship with one another and with God in order to make the right decisions, in order to know what is required of us and to have the supportive community in order to carry out what God asks of us. 

By re-reading the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount we will see again the importance of non-violence and simplicity in life taught and lived by Jesus.  And to remember that God reminds us through the Prophet, Micah, that “what is required of us is to do justice, to love Mercy and to walk humbly with our God. (Micah 6:8)