Dangerous Waters of Justice and Righteousness
By Ruth Ann Foster
[Dr. Ruth Ann Foster is Assistant Professor of Christian Scriptures at Truett Seminary at Baylor University. She prepared this address for the 1999 annual conference of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission. It was subsequently printed in Therefore edited by Dr. Joe Haag. I am indebted both to him and to Dr. Foster for permission to share it here with readers of Christian Ethics Today.]
The classic Old Testament text quoted on the subject of justice is Amos 5:24:
But let justice roll down like waters
And righteousness like an ever flowing stream. (NASB)
Spoken by the prophet to a people who perceived themselves as religious and godly, this call to overflowing justice reveals the lie of their existence. The people (then and now) who claim to be within a covenant relationship with God must respond to his requirement "to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with … God" (Micah 6:8; cf. James 1:27).
The only hope for the individual Christian, the church, and society lies in the overflowing "dangerous waters of justice and righetousness [1] Berquist calls them,-waters dangerous "for mind and spirit." [2] For the mind the danger comes in our finitude, our inability to think beyond our general sphere of reference; for the spirit, the danger is in the temptation to build our own theoretical "Babel,"[3] rationalizing a comfortable way to deal with the uncomfortable.
What is "Biblical Justice"?
Defining the term `justice` in the Old Testament is difficult given its complexity and varied usage. In the legal codes the term describes "ordinances which regulate communal life (e.g., Ex. 21:1-23:10) and which prescribe restitution for injury done to person or property, as well as for cultic regulations."[4] Throughout the Old Testament justice is overwhelmingly related to the idea of relationship and the life of the community; thus, justice in biblical thought concerns "fidelity to the demands of relationship"[5]-to God and neighbor.
The Justice of God in the Old Testament
The nature and content of the justice of God informs the practice of Christian justice. The Hebrew terms sedaqa (righteousness) and mispat (justice) are consistently tied together in
relationship to God`s role as judge; their meanings at times are practically synonymous. According to Abraham Heschel, "There are few thoughts as deeply ingrained in the mind of biblical man as the thought of God`s justice and righteousness. Itis not an inference, but [is] self-evident; not an added attribute to His essence, . . . and identified with his ways. "[6]
To distinguish between the two terms, `justice` usually relates to legal issues, while `righteousness` denotes "conformity to a norm. Often the norm is the covenant."[7] Both terms as employed in the Old Testament are ultimately relational terms, interpreted in the light of the covenant`s purpose in maintaining relationship between God and the people and the people with their neighbors. Heschel understands righteousness to be what might almost be called "the underlying soul of justice." Although justice involves legal issues, it does not compare to righteousness`s "burning compassion for the oppressed."[8] In reality, God`s justice cannot be separated from God`s love. While it is arguable that justice is central to the Old Testament,[9] other intertwining concepts, such as God`s love, mercy, compassion, grace, and truth, must interpret the Old Testament view of justice.
Old Testament ideas of justice and righteousness include God`s wrath, judgment, and punishment (Isa. 10:18, 28:17-18). God`s punishment is just in that it provides salvation and restoration and "`can overcome even the power of death".[10]
God`s deliverance of Israel from Egypt in the Exodus served as the foundation of Israel`s understanding of Yahweh`s concern and purpose to deliver the suffering. The Scriptures reveal God to be the champion of the outsider, the sojourner, the orphan and the widow. Defending the poor and the marginalized was the focus of Israel`s social justice (Jer. 22:15-16).
The Partiality of Biblical justice
Is God`s justice partial or impartial? The popular Western concept of impartial justice derives from the memorable statue of the blindfolded goddess of justice who reminds all that justice plays no favorites. Biblical justice alternatively is not impartial, since it consistently shows preference to the marginalized and oppressed. This partiality is grounded in the concept of covenant community, that finds persons to be part of one another as members of the community.[11]
Western society`s view of justice, based on the assumption that "individuals naturally live in separation from one another,"[12] results in the need for a justice that protects people from harming each other. The biblical model conversely upholds the idea of mutual and active care for community members (and strangers) in a context in which social, family and covenant relations are the focus of life – affirming justice as "that which is regarded as of basic importance in social relationships."[13]
Who Deserves Justice?
The tendency to question whether or not someone "deserves" to receive justice or even mercy (an attitude pervading much of our modern life inside and outside of church) cannot be defended from Scripture. Jesus nor the disciples asked potential recipients of attention about their work history, their dependence on addictive substances, their mental state or any other discriminating type of question. Jesus simply felt compassion for people`s needs.
We on the other hand seem to forget that our blessings and salvation and wholeness are the result of God`s grace and not our inherent goodness. Therefore, we are able to justify the small line item for benevolences in our church budgets because "so many of those people" do not deserve any of our bounty. I heard a story a couple of years ago at The Christianity Today Institute on Global Consumerism and Stewardship about a situation in a town in Oklahoma during the depression. The city leadership passed a resolution requiring that restaurants should empty the left-overs (including those from used dinner plates) into gallon "slop" buckets to be given to the needy or rather, to the worthy needy. To prove their worthiness to receive these slops, the recipients were required to chop wood for a given period of time. We find this bizarre requirement disgusting, but often sneer at the homeless woman holding a sign offering to work for food."[14] So then, what is the underlying motivation or purpose in showing justice? The idea of jubilean justice provides a clue.
Jubilean Justice
Jubilean justice, for example, as set forth in Deut. 15:1-11, purposed to maintain the distressed within the confines of community (cf. Lev. 25:35; Ps. 107:36). The jubilean code envisioned a radical change in social practice with the "`scheduled cancellation of the debts of the poor."[15] In antiquity when the poor, as their only recourse, sold themselves into slavery, they became entangled in a trap from which there was no escape. The remission of debts provided by this legislation revealed the purpose of God as compassionate and just protector of the helpless.
Walter Brueggemann points out that the unusual inclusion of five absolute infinitives in the text highlights the "enormous intensity of Moses and the urgency Israel felt" about God`s jubilean command in Deuteronomy 15.[16] He translates these verbs thusly:
if you really obey ("if only," v. 5),
if you really open your hand ("rather open," v. 8),
really lend ("willingly lend," v. 9),
really give ("give liberally", v. 10), and
really open your hand ("open," v. 1 1).[17]
The urgency and intensity are "rooted in an exodus vision of social reality.[18]
Enabling people to retain community participation is at the center of Old and New Testament justice; and, as Mott asserts,
[Participation] has multiple dimensions … including physical life itself, political protection and decision making, social interchange and standing, economic production,, education, culture, and religion. Community membership means the ability to share fully within one`s capacity and potential in each essential aspect of community.[19]
The Old Testament prophets drew attention to the concept of corporate sin and corporate responsibility. Isaiah declared that individuals are responsible for the sins of society, while Amos pointed out "`the reality of corporate sin (abusive religious and political practices among the nations) … [that] had created a state of hopelessness for the socially marginalized;…"[20] The unjust attitudes of Israel and Judah, according to Amos, emerged from a corrupt religious system, irreligious political system, and a prosperous aristocracy who had no concern for the outsiders.
The Prophetic Call to Justice
Amos preaching against the excesses of injustice to the foreign nations revealed God`s abhorrence of injustice and demanded an end to "disparaging socio-religio-political practices" that employed their power to oppress the helpless.[21] Even more disgusting was the behavior of Israel and Judah whose very existence was founded on God`s justice shown to them and whose covenant with God precluded such reprehensible inhumanity. God had brought them out of bondage and made them a holy nation to witness to his mercy and righteousness. Their righteousness resulted from their status as God`s people rather than vice-versa. Over the centuries however they began "to exercise righteousness of their own in order to fulfill the covenant … [straying from] the original goals set forth by God."[22]
Amos called the people to remember their identity, reminding them that God`s "demands extend to all areas of life, not just to religious activities.23 Isaiah and Amos exhorted the people of God to abandon their faulty perception of justice that had resulted in self-seeking security, blinding them to the injustice they perpetuated (Amos 2:6-7. 3:15-4:1; Isa. 1:10-17, 58:5-7). Jeremiah declared that the people "refuse to do justice" (Jet. 5:26-28). Avoiding God`s values and implementing their own incited God`s wrath and incurred judgment.
Amos argued that:
…evil perseveres as long as the poor are trampled upon (5:11); evil lingers as long as human justice conforms to the dictates of created interests (5:12); evil dominates as long as dissidents are forced to silence and the powerless are denied due process (5:12). In summary, evil shall continue unabated among God`s people as long as their established order continues its policies of exclusivism, harassment, intimidation, and violation of the rights of people.[24]
God`s righteousness pouring out from heaven brings salvation upon the earth and "provok[es] righteousness to spring up as [God`s] creative act,"[25] giving birth to human justice. God`s justice is the model for one`s relationship to God[26] and to others, even to that of the entire created order.
The Just Individual
Psalms, Proverbs, and Job describe the just individual as one who preserves the wholeness of the community (job 4:3-4) and who helps the weak, the orphan, the widow (Prov. 29:7; Job 31:16-19). This just one defends the helpless and exercises appropriate care over his land and employees (Job 31:13). The wisdom literature reveals that "`justice is a harmony which comes from a right relationship to the covenant Lord and to the neighbor to whom a person is related by covenant bond."[27]
Justice in Jesus` "Upside-Down Kingdom"
To ignore issues of justice and integrity exposes the church to accusations of aiding injustice. Genesis 2 clearly reveals that God created humankind to live together in community; being called the people of God requires even greater attention to injustice, especially that perpetuated by God`s people. Modern American culture particularly is at odds with Christ`s "upside-down" kingdom and often is outright anti-God in its enamoration of materialism, hierarchical structures, acceptance of violence, misuse of the environment, and blind disregard for those who do not possess the American dream.
Historically, when interpreting Jesus` teachings and work, Baptists have emphasized the spiritual over the social/physical needs of persons. The numbers of converts that we proudly proclaim (but cannot always locate) reveal a proclivity for addressing spiritual needs to the neglect of the social. Jesus` ministry focused on the spiritual needs of people, but, as a close inspection of the New Testament reveals, He also dealt clearly with the needs of the whole person.
Jesus` self-proclaimed mission in Luke 4:18-21, where he quotes Isa. 61:1, indicates attention to the whole person. Unfortunately, Protestants particularly have interpreted the passage as relating only to the spiritual. The jubilean nature of the Isaiah passage must have been recognized by Jesus as having to do with justice-in every realm of life.
Recalling the themes of Mary`s song in Luke 1:46-55, Jesus revealed His upside-down kingdom as a radical reversal of normal human values. The focus then of His coming was on the poor, the enslaved, the blind, and the downtrodden, a focus that embodied God`s nature as defender of the weak. Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament teaching concerning justice for the
needy and helpless in his teaching (Luke 4:l6ff) and in his attention to the physical as well as the spiritual needs of people.
If any doubt exists about how Jesus understood his mission, his reply to John the Baptist`s poignant question from prison, "Are You the Coming One, or shall we look for someone else?", clarifies for us his thinking. Jesus sent John the answer that "the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them" (Matt. 11:5).
The church then becomes the stage on which Jesus` radical way of living is acted out. Brueggemann argues that the church "as a wedge of newness, as a foretaste of what is coming, as home for the odd ones, is the work of God`s originary mercy."[28] These peculiar people that Brueggemann calls "that odd community" are those who question what the content of "neighbor justice“ is and who consistently seek to act out the answers.[29]
The justice evidenced in the ministry of Jesus Christ exemplifies "a victory over evil powers…. It is manifest both in the historical lives of the people and as an object of their eschatological hope."[30] The attainment of perfect justice in the fully consummated messianic kingdom "does not free human beings from establishing justice now, to the extent possible."[31]` Indeed, the New Testament decisively teaches that Christians must establish justice in the present (1 John 3:17-18; James 2:14-17). The "waters of righteousness and justice"[32] are dangerous, but "the church in its dangerous obedience [to Christ] is endlessly at risk. It is, however, not alone, not bereft, not abandoned."[33]
The Church has been given the Scriptures and the empowering of Spirit who bestows gifts upon the Church "to renovate and restore us to the image of Christ so we will, through knowing him, become like Him in character and conduct (see Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:l0)."[34]
"God has revealed His universal demand for righteousness [and justice and] did not give the Church an imbalanced and limited gospel, neither a Social Gospel nor a gospel solely interested in evangelism. God gave the Church a gospel that is to leaven every aspect of life-private and public, individual and community."[35] Therefore Christ`s followers must vigorously pursue social justice as a universal due that transcends any partisan or self-serving agendas. Until the world knows we are willing "to have our own economic ox gored for the sake of justice, the world will continue to think ill of any pronouncements that seem to serve the status quo or personal interests."[36]
Jesus: Model of Divine Justice
"Where God has shown himself generous to the point of the cross, man is called upon to imitate him and to adopt a new scale of values."[37] Jesus` example concerning justice must undergird our contemporary struggle with how to be a just people today. Surely, Old Testament texts such as jubilean/sabbath year passages and prophetic calls to justice, read in light of Jesus` mission as proclaimed in Luke 4 require reflection
…upon the exercise of social power and social lever-age that makes some strong and some weak, some worthy and some undeserving. We do indeed hold each other in hock by money and influence, by attitude and action, by property and by speech…. We practice such destructive leverage between suburb and inner-city, between capital long held and labor so precarious, between developed economies and the Third World. The cycles of poverty, not only economic but also psychological, hold folk in thrall and generate massive despair. The despair lasts until the vicious cycles are broken. Moses [and Amos and Isaiah and Jesus] propose that the breaking can happen by generous, intentional acts that forgo advantage for the sake of communal equity…. This is the [odd] community that, before the hour of worship is out, will pray for forgiveness, `as we forgive our debtors`.[38]
In both testaments, being in relationship with God means taking up the cause of the lowly and poor. With Jesus as our example we cannot separate faith from doing justice. "Justice is concrete. It combines non-exploitation of the poor and taking their cause. The doing of justice is not the application of religious faith, but its substance: without it God remains unknown."[39]
Biblical Perspectives on Justice: A Summary
Biblical justice can be characterized as being:
based on the theology of God`s justice
related to relational, covenant community issues
partial to the marginalized and lowly
based on Old Testament covenant responsibilities
based on Jesus` proclamation and mission in the New Testament, which is worked out in the ethical teachings of Acts and the Epistles
based on Jesus` "upside-down kingdom" values
drawn from biblical teachings rather than based on perceived cultural needs or natural law/philosophy
never self-serving, condescending, patronizing, or manipulative
most concerned with the value of persons and their place in the community
an aspect of humankind`s role as stewards of God`s creation
a safeguard against the danger of reducing the Bible to a manual of personal piety."[40]
the heart of true religion, found in active attention to the poor, the oppressed, the widow and orphan, the helpless, the weak, the outsider, the marginalized of society.
Conclusion/Challenge
Although most Christians acknowledge the New Testament to be their authority for faith and practice, a great diversity exists in the understanding of Christians about how the New Testament should inform ethics and morality. "Most Christians, in fact, come up short at the very beginning of their attempt to think and act `Christianly` in areas of social morality, unable to decide how the New Testament should guide them in doing so. And being thwarted here, they become catatonic ethically.[41]
We as Southern Baptists have tended to focus on loving people -through evangelism almost to the exclusion of justice issues (except on a institutional level), assuming the convention level to be sufficient. [On the convention level we have given attention to social issues, which is good; although that attention needs broadening.] However, we as individuals and as local churches have often ignored the "shadow people"[42] outside our walls. They are the people we see right through, the ones whom we discount as unworthy of our focus. We pass them throughout our busy days-noticing only a blurry shadow in our peripheral vision-not worthy of a concerned glance let alone an inspection. If however we are to embody Christ`s actions and teachings as they reveal God to the world, then we must be more holistic in our approach to persons.
The waters of justice and righteousness are dangerous to those of us who have promised to follow Christ and to live in covenant with His people. God`s justice is dangerous because:
to ignore it reveals we are not truly his;
to misunderstand it can lead to depersonalizing and compartmentalizing those made in God`s image;
to rationalize away its demands hardens our hearts to God;
to seek to live out the demands of God`s justice is risky and goes against the grain of normal behavior and cultural norms;
to pray for God`s justice calls us into involvement with those who need justice.
Are we courageous disciples? Are we brave enough to be God`s light and justice to those in the shadows? If we are to know God fully through his Son Jesus Christ, we must live justly. If the world is to know Jesus Christ through us, we must risk entering into the dangerous waters of God`s justice and righteousness.
Endnotes
[1] Jon L. Berquist, "Dangerous Waters of Justice and Righteousness: Amos 5:18-27," in Biblical Theology Bulletin 23:54.
[2] lbid.
[3] Ibid., 55.
[4] John R. Donahue, "Biblical Perspectives on justice," in The Faith that Does justice: Examining the Christian Sources for Social Change ed. John C. Haughey (New York: Paulist Press, 1977), 68.
[5] lbid.,69.
[6] Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 199-200.
[7]Ralph L. Smith, Old Testament Theology: Its History. Method, and Message (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1993), 218.
[8] Heschel, 201.
[9] Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament trans. D.M.G. Stalker (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1962), 1:370.
[10] Donahue, 72.
[11] Stephen Charles Mott, "The Partiality of Biblical Justice," in Transformation 10 (Jan.-April 1993): 23.
[12] Ibid., 25.
[13] Ibid., 23.
[14] Caring for the homeless and helpless is a complex issue in itself. Christians are tom between compassion and fear of being duped, as well as the appropriate concern about the potential damaging use of one`s monetary gift used to feed an addiction. On the other hand, many comfortable people believe those who are "down-and-out" have reaped their just rewards. We must always ask ourselves: "Is it ever as simple as that?" Jesus dealt with people as persons, not as categories. Can we do less?
[15] Walter Brueggemann, Texts Under Negotiation: The Bible and Postrnodern Imagination (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993),76.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid., 77.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Mott, "The Partiality of Biblical justice, 25.
[20]Donoso S. Escobar, "Social justice in the Book of Amos," in Review and Expositor 92 (1995):169.
[21] Ibid., 170.
[22] Ibid.
[23]James D. Nogalski, "A Teaching Outline for Amos," in Review and Expositor 92 (1995): 148.
[24] Escobar, 172.
[25] Ibid., 171.
[26] Ralph Smith, 218.
[27] Donahue, 71.
[28] Brueggemann, 36.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Donahue, 73.
[31] Gennadios Limouris, "Peace and justice: Eternal Struggles for Life Today," in Asia Journal of Theology 5 (April 1991): 81.
[32]Berquist
[33] Brueggemann, 53.
[34] Richard C. Chewning, ed., Biblical Principles and Public Policy: The Practice (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Navpress, 1991), 7.
[35] Ibid., 29.
[36]Ibid.
[37]J. L. Houlden, Ethics and the New Testament (New York: Oxford Press, 1977),18.
[38] Brueggemann, 78.
[39]Donahue, 76.
[40] Ibid., 69-70.
[41] Richard N. Longenecker, "New Testament Social Ethics for Today," in Understanding Paul`s Ethics: Twentieth Century Approaches edited by Brian S. Rosner (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Win. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995), 337.
[42] This term comes from a chapel sermon at Truett Seminary preached by Karen Gilbert, Minister of Missions at Wilshire Church in Dallas.
