Ruth Harvey explains why justice is not an option but a matter of extreme urgency.

THE prophet Amos says this: I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burntofferings and grain-offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon.

Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps.

But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Amos 5: 21 - 24 In the nine short chapters of the book of the prophet Amos we repeatedly hear the unequivocal call to justice, so familiar in the prophetic writings. Amos’s rhetorical strategy repeats the indictment: ‘Thus says the Lord: for three transgressions, for four, I will not revoke the punishment.’ (Amos 1 and 2). The people who have used barbaric weapons of war – exiled whole communities; tortured and killed pregnant women; killed for no reason – these people have turned from God. They have sinned. Their greed and violence will lead to their own annihilation. What about those who worship false gods, who spout empty rituals? They will face exile and rejection (5: 21 – 24). The vainglorious and powerful (2:12)? “You will be pressed down in your place”.

Amos offers no mealy-mouthed, handwringing attempt to convince a fawning crowd. Instead, he boldly, incisively and repeatedly, with vivid, visceral examples, clearly lays out the consequences of unjust actions.

And the core message of his teachings?

“ We may be afraid to make our voices heard, to speak up and to speak out against oppression. Let us together take heart and courage from the boldness of Amos.

‘Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.’ (Amos 5:24)

Appearing almost exactly mid-way through his prophecies, the fulcrum of these fulminations is that justice is a matter of extreme urgency.

And so, as Christians today we lean on this power. We capture this urgency and channel it towards the injustices in our world today. Of which there are many.

American theologian Marcus Borg sums this up succinctly: “Amos… speaks about the judgment of God. But it is not the final judgment, or the last judgment at which individuals will face heaven or hell. Rather, it is God’s judgment within history: societies filled with rampant injustice face destruction.’ (Borg, 2001, page 119/120).

The second clause in the Iona Community’s Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation commitment, affirms the belief “that work for justice, peace and an equitable society is a matter of extreme urgency.” This is perhaps a polite and a constrained version of the words of Amos.

Perhaps too polite, too constrained in the face of the economic, climate, social, sexual and political injustices facing all creation not only in all parts of our United Kingdom, but across the globe. And in the face of encroaching enemy missiles dissolving national borders in central Europe, what language, what tone would Amos entreat us to use?

We may be afraid to make our voices heard, to speak up and to speak out against oppression. Let us together take heart and courage from the boldness of Amos. Let’s borrow that same boldness and courage when we join our voices with those of thousands of others on the streets of London in April, or as we campaign in our local towns, for justice for all refugees. Justice is not an option. It is, rather, a matter of extreme urgency. ¤

See Reading the Bible Again for the First Time by Marcus Borg, HarperCollins, 2001. Ruth Harvey is Leader of the Iona Community. Find out more about, and join the Iona Community at www.iona.org.uk