Seek Justice
If you’ve listened to me preach for any length of time you know that I stress the love, grace, mercy, and goodness of God. Without those, we are all lost. While we’re thankful for those aspects of God’s character, there are also times when God gets angry at people. One of those times is in the first chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah was from Jerusalem and was married to a woman he called the prophetess (Isaiah 8:3). They had at least two sons. Isaiah means “salvation of God” or “God is salvation.” That’s a good thing to remember since most of the first 33 chapters of Isaiah are filled with words of judgment and condemnation against the people of Jerusalem, Judah, and other nations because of their lack of justice. The book begins with God speaking about the shallowness of the faith of so many people and the unethical, violent behavior that is ruining so many lives and devastating the nation. God is fed up with religious services and sacrifices that are done without any change in the ethical behavior of the people. Listen to Isaiah 1:11-20,
“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation— I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.
March 2, 2014
Isaiah 1:11-20, Seek Justice
Doug Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
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When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Last week our theme was Do Good and Forget It. Today’s scripture from the prophet Isaiah talks about some specific ways God’s people can do that. In verse 17, God says through the prophet, “learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” It’s as important for us to engage in all of those actions as it was in Isaiah’s time; to come alongside those who are suffering injustice or oppression, to defend the orphan, and comfort and aid the grief stricken. Kevin Saxton shared an article with me called, My Problem with the Bible by Brian Zahnd in which the author notes, “One of the most remarkable things about the Bible is that in it we find the narrative told from the perspective of the poor, the oppressed, the enslaved, the conquered, the occupied, the defeated. This is what makes it prophetic. We know that history is written by the winners. This is true — except in the case of the Bible it’s the opposite! This is the subversive genius of the Hebrew prophets. They wrote from a bottom-up perspective.
Imagine a history of colonial America written by Cherokee Indians and African slaves. That would be a different way of telling the story! And that’s what the Bible does. It’s the story of Egypt told by the slaves. The story of Babylon told by the exiles. The story of Rome told by the occupied. What about those brief moments when Israel appeared to be on top? In those cases the prophets told Israel’s story from the perspective of the peasant poor as a critique of the royal elite. Like when Amos (4:1) denounced the wives of the Israelite aristocracy saying, “Hear this word, you cows of Bashan who are on Mount Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their husbands, “Bring something to drink!”
The Book of Psalms is filled with descriptions of the Lord’s concern for justice. Psalm 103:6, “The Lord works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed.” Psalm 10:17-18, “O Lord, you will hear the desire of the meek; you will strengthen their heart, you will incline your ear to do justice for the orphan and the oppressed, so that those from earth may strike terror no more.”
Throughout history, the church has done a better job with charity than it has with justice. Yet justice is spoken of in more than 165 verses in the Bible especially in the Psalms, Proverbs, and the Prophets. No one speaks more about justice in the Bible than the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah 30:18, “Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.”
The Bible teaches that justice is a chief attribute of the nature of God. God is the defender of the poor and the oppressed (Jeremiah 9:23-24; Psalm 10:17-18) and the demands of God’s justice extend beyond the nation of Israel (Psalm 9:7-9; Daniel 4:27). Since the justice of God is characterized by special regard for the poor and the weak, the same is demanded of God’s people (Deut. 10:18-19). When we carry out justice, we’re agents of God’s will (Isaiah 59:15-16). Paul presents God’s justice as a grace flowing into and through believers to the needy (2 Cor. 9:8-10). The demand of God for justice is so central that other responses to God are empty or diminished if they exist without it (Amos 5:21-24; Micah 6:6-8; Matthew 23:23). Justice is demanded of all the people, but particularly of the political authorities (Jeremiah 21:11-12; Isaiah 1:10, 17).[1]
If we’re not careful, it’s easy to become accepting of wrongs in our world rather than working to right them, especially, if we benefit. Proverbs 28:5-6 says, “The evil do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it completely. Better to be poor and walk in integrity than to be crooked in one’s ways even though rich.” In Isaiah 1, after the Lord accuses the people of being guilty of so much injustice, then God extends a plea bargain. If the people will make themselves clean and cease to do evil; if they’ll learn to do good and seek justice; if they’ll rescue the oppressed and become again willing and obedient to the call of God, their sins will be forgiven and they shall again “eat of the good of the land” (verse 19). If they reject the plea and continue instead to rebel, they will face destruction and desolation. Justice is not something we measure and define. Rather, it is that by which we are measured and defined. In Isaiah’s day, the fundamental economic and social unit was the extended family group. Widows and orphans, who didn’t have an extended family, enjoyed neither economic support nor someone to speak on their behalf in court. As a result, they were among the most vulnerable members of society and always at risk of being exploited. Like the people of Isaiah’s time, we’re called to correct oppression and to seek justice for those on the margins of our society who have neither access to nor influence with those in power.
One movie that will likely win an Academy Award or two this evening including Best Picture is Twelve Years a Slave. The film is set in the pre-Civil War United States, where Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty at the hands of a slave owner, as well as unexpected kindnesses, Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. We may think of slavery as a nineteenth century phenomenon, but according to International Justice Mission, “Today, millions of lives around the world are in the grip of injustice. More children, women and men are held in slavery right now than over the course of the entire trans-Atlantic slave trade: Millions toil in bondage, their work and even their bodies the property of an owner.
Trafficking in humans generates profits in excess of 32 billion dollars a year for those who, by force and deception, sell human lives into slavery and sexual bondage. Nearly 2 million children are exploited in the commercial sex industry. The AIDS pandemic continues to rage, and the oppression of trafficking victims in the global sex trade contributes to the disease’s spread. In many countries around the world, pedophiles find that they can abuse children with impunity. And though police should be protectors, in many nations, their presence is a source of insecurity for the poor. Suspects can be held interminably before trials, imprisoned for crimes they did not commit.
The land rights of women are violated on a massive scale worldwide, but with particular ferocity in Africa, leaving widows and other women in vulnerable positions unable to care for themselves or their children. Around the world, women suffer the double trauma of rape – and seeing their perpetrators face no consequences. Often lacking access to their own justice systems and unable to protect themselves or their families from those more powerful, it is overwhelmingly the poor who are the victims of these brutal forms of abuse.” In the first three years of International Justice Mission existence there were 4 rescues. In 2013, there were over 3000 individuals rescued from slavery and oppression. As Gary Haugen states, “Justice requires tenacious hope” (From International Justice Mission, http://www.ijm.org/. See the book, The Just Church by Jim Martin.)
It’s sickening that there are stories in the news every week about young girls and boys right here in Massachusetts and New England being taken and forced into exploitation. Fred Rogers, who died eleven years ago this past week (February 27, 2003) reminded us all, “We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say, ‘It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.’ Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.” —Spoken in 1994, quoted in his obituary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Benjamin Disraeli said, “Justice is truth in action.” The prophet Amos proclaimed, (Amos 5:24), “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” We can either be a rock or a dam that prevents justice from flowing, or we can be an instrument in the Lord’s hand to clear the way for justice to roll like a river and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. Imagine what would happen in our community and beyond if all of us began to be as concerned for justice as the Lord God, the prophets Isaiah and Amos, and Jesus? Jesus came to proclaim and bring justice. In Matthew 12:17-20 we hear these words from the prophet Isaiah fulfilled in Jesus, “Here is my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not wrangle or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick until he brings justice to victory. And in his name the Gentiles will hope.” Jesus tells us in Matthew 23:23 to be concerned about “the weightier matters of the law – justice, mercy, and faith.” These are the things Jesus wants to see in our lives: justice, mercy, and faith.
Paul Scherer wrote, “It has always seemed to me a sad incongruity the way we represent the figure of Justice. We put a sword in one hand, a pair of scales in the other; then we tie a bandage tightly over her eyes. Blindfolded, she cannot see where to strike; cannot read her own scales, and never knows when they balance. That, ironically enough, is the trouble, with our kind of justice. Neither the love nor the justice of God is blindfolded.”
That is why the Lord exhorts us in Isaiah to “Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” We can either be a rock or a dam that prevents justice from flowing, or we can be an instrument in the Lord’s hand to clear the way for justice to roll like a river and righteousness like an ever rolling stream. Whatever we do, God’s love and justice are not blindfolded; God sees us and all we do. Let’s be people of justice, mercy, and faith.
Blessing
“To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.”
“Happy are those who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times.”
Proverbs 21:3, Psalm 106:3
A Few More:
“Mighty King, lover of justice, you have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.” Psalm 99:4
“The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Martin Luther King Jr.
Psalm 33:5, God “loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.”
Questions for Reflection or Discussion
When you hear the word “justice” what images come to mind?
For years, television programs that centered on courtrooms (Perry Mason, LA Law, Boston Legal, a host of other current programs) have been extremely popular. Why do you think that is the case?
Have you observed differences in how the justice system treats the rich, famous, and powerful compared to the poor, obscure, and vulnerable?
Isaiah chapter one is like a cosmic courtroom drama in which the Lord both accuses the people and offers them a plea bargain. What are the people guilty of in the Lord’s eyes?
What does the plea bargain require of them and us?
How can we as a church and as individuals fulfill the Lord’s command to “learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”