So, you think you want justice to roll down like waters?

Scripture: Amos 1:1-2; 5:14-15, 21-24

            Justice is one of those tricky ideas that sounds really nice in principle—like, who could possibly be against justice? It’s like being against hope or brownies—but when justice actually comes somebody always has to pay. We default to a victim’s mindset, assuming that the comeuppance will be for somebody else when the reality is that it may just as well be you or me. I read an interview with Lance Armstrong this past week that just stuck with me: here’s a guy who was on the receiving end of justice—who did terrible things and is now getting what he almost certainly deserved—and, yet, he rails over and over against the unjustness of the witch hunt that brought him down. His hollow apologies betray a person who cannot see himself as anything but the victim, never as the perpetrator, in a world where justice always means getting his way. When asked if he thought justice was served, Armstrong said plainly, “No.”

            If justice is going to roll down like waters, as Amos famously says, perhaps that should make us uneasy. Perhaps we really don’t understand what justice is.

Injustice we get. When somebody hurts somebody else we can see the injustice, but fixing that injustice is, in fact, very difficult. As much as we may want to go back and wipe the slate clean, fix the problem, and hit the restart button, the real world doesn’t work that way. We are always moving forward, incapable of changing a thing that has gone by. Since all justice is a reaction to injustice it remains imperfect justice. We adhere to a system of regulations or laws that inform—and sometimes require—justice to take a certain form, but it is a necessarily imperfect system.

            I think we like our human idea of justice because it feeds a lot of our emotional needs, but God’s justice makes us incredibly uneasy. Our real-world model for justice is very practical in its desire to keep the innocent as safe as possible, but God’s justice poses two very distinct dilemmas for that real-world model. Firstly, God’s justice says nobody is innocent, and secondly, the abiding principle of the divine justice system is not fairness but grace. So, God tends to do justice like the land owner in that famous parable where some workers work all day, some work half the day, and some work hardly at all, but they are all paid a day’s wages. God’s justice does not treat the good work as the abiding principle, nor the fairness of equal wages pro rated relative to the moment the first spade hit the dirt; rather, God’s justice is governed by abundant grace: all receive the same, regardless of the work that is put into it.

            So, do we want that justice?

            I ask this in all honesty because the question changes based on where you are sitting. Those who see themselves as the victim want justice, but those who see themselves as the perpetrator fear it. Where you see yourself makes all the difference. So, when we excitedly talk about justice rolling down like water we see ourselves exclusively as the victims upon whom injustice rains. But the truth is something different. We are—all of us—both victims and perpetrators. None of us have gotten past the first commandment—let alone numbers 2-10. When you realize you stand on both sides of the courtroom, as both victim and perpetrator, justice is a whole other thing to behold.

            But, frankly, our justice system has this element in it as well. When you are tried for a crime you did not commit a judge or jury may find you “not guilty” but they will not find you “innocent.” You cannot be proclaimed “innocent” under the law. But God’s justice actually removes the trial altogether, pushing us to ask the question that the temple leaders asked Jesus over and over again, “What then must we do?” “How then should we live?” “How much is enough?” The Gospels are full of these questions, asked by those in power to Jesus, and they are fundamentally questions of justice and righteousness.

            I was reading an atheist’s take on Jesus earlier this week, and he said that Jesus is the cruelest cult leader imaginable because he demanded the fullest extent of the Mosaic Law. He went on to point out that Christians ignore this, and he’s right that some do. Those who want to say that Jesus was lax on the law have either never opened their Bibles or speed-read through most of the Gospels, because whenever the Pharisees or Sadducees or various individuals, including the rich man and Nicodemus, come to Jesus and ask him a question about the extent to which the law is applicable, without exception, Jesus answers that it is applicable above and beyond what they can imagine.

You want an excuse for divorce? Jesus doesn’t give it to you. You want to feel good about how much faith you have? Jesus doesn’t give you the satisfaction. You want to point out how good you are? Jesus tells you to give away everything. You want to feel like a good disciple? Jesus tells you to pick up your cross and die for your faith.

If you ask the question, you get the answer: that’s justice.

So, either the atheist commentator is right and the Christian God is a cruel God who demands the fullest extent of the law and puts us to death, or the atheist commentator is right but, like the Pharisees and Sadducees, he is asking Jesus the wrong question and so missing the most important piece of the puzzle. Without the cross Jesus’ ministry would do nothing but condemn us, always showing us how terrible of sinners we are. That’s it. It would be the cruel side of the justice system without any hope for righteousness—the other half of the Amos equation. But the cross overshadows everything that we read in the Gospels. In fact, the cross overshadows everything in Amos and the entirety of the Old Testament, because God demands justice—a terrible kind of justice; a kind of justice that we can never make right on our own. God demands that you be “perfect like your father in heaven is perfect” according to the Gospel of Matthew (Mt. 5:48). If you think you can do that on your own, then great; you have no need for the cross or for Jesus. Justice rolling down like water will be welcome for you. Your self-righteousness will keep you from the storm.

But for those of us who are imperfect creatures—those of us who have occasionally wronged our neighbors or chosen the wrong path; those who understand that we may someday be on the receiving end of justice—we cling in hope to a promise that Amos can only hint at. Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. We can say that in faith because of Jesus, because otherwise, frankly, that would be terrible news. We think we like justice, but the truth is that we like justice coming to the one we dislike the most. We don’t want indiscriminate justice; we want justice that serves us; and that, as much as anything, is proof of our need for the cross, without which the rolling waters of justice would drown us.

Thankfully, we’ve been drowned already, baptized into a promise of death and resurrection so that the waters of justice may roll and the ever-flowing stream of righteousness may carry us toward salvation—in spite of ourselves. Always in spite of ourselves. That’s the gift of the cross. It’s justice we don’t deserve; grace beyond reckoning. It isn’t fair, but Jesus isn’t about fairness.

Thanks be to God for that.